Another annual outing to the Burton DBM Doubles saw yet another good year of excellent gaming and verification that the beer in “The Bridge” pub is still excellent!Game 1 vs Keith Westwood and Phil Reeves.  Saba 490 BC.

We invaded Saba, and were met with a huge amount of terrain, including a vineyard and large area of rough going that separated our deployment area in two.  After a lot of discussion, we deployed with the Knights Command on the left, the Second command in the middle, and the CinC as our refused right flank.  Opposite us, the Saba deployed in 4 large commands of ordinary auxilia, fast blades and camels.

At the start of the Saba first turn one of their commands went unreliable.  However, the rest of the Saba pushed forwards with the three other commands, with the confidence you would expect of a pairing that had won the Burton tournament twice previously.  The active Saba command opposite the knights rushed forwards to get into the rough going, whilst the other two active commands advanced against our isolated CinC.  I almost got the Carthaginian knights into the Saba command opposite them before they got to the safety of the rough going, but some good defensive formations by the Saba made this difficult.  The unreliable command then went active, and my knights has a hard fight against some camels.

Over on the other flank our CinC’s own auxilia were fighting a one-sided struggle against fast blades.  After some fierce fighting, the CinC’s command went, and soon after, over half the army from the other two commands.

Result – 0-10 loss.

Over on the other tables:

Andy and Alan: 10-0 vs Later Carthage.  The Ptolemaic pike blocks and knights were too much for the Carthaginian spear and cavalry.

Graham and Steve: 5-5 vs Three Kingdoms Chinese.  Graham reported a very poor, boring static game against a father and son team, with wall-to-wall spear and bow.

Derek and Neil: 0-10 vs Later Carthaginian.  No details, but being heavily outnumbered in cavalry and light horse might have done it.

Game 2 vs Chris Tonge and John Hoyland.  Classical Indian 350 BC.

Gulp.  Pre-tournament testing had shown that superior blades killed a remarkably high number of spears, but Chris and John had used the exceptional bows option, which was better for us.  They obviously thought the same, because their bowmen were deployed far back, with all their knights and elephants to the fore.

Their CinC’s command deployed first, and I lined up our CinC’s command opposite it, with our spear against the knights and artillery against the elephants.  Our own knights deployed well to the rear, away from the elephants, whilst the spear from the second command and the knights command extended the CinC’s left flank.  Our warband, having met elephants before, deployed well back too.

I used the CinC’s command to aggressively attack the CinC opposite, but suffered two dice accidents.  On two occasions, I had enemy knights double-outflanked, with spear in their flank, and on both occasions my opponent rolled a 6 to my 1!  This opened some holes in my line, but the match-ups were still in my favour and after some hard fighting the enemy CinC’s command broke.

The other Indians had not been idle, and in an attempt to take the pressure off their CinC, the Indian elephants charged our spear line.  This was a hard fought push and shove, in which both sides lost elements but not enough to cause real damage.

Result 7-3 win.

Over on the other tables:

Andy 0-10 vs Seleucid.  Early in the game, Andy’s few knights were being heavily beaten by the opposing knights.  No other details.

Graham 2. 6-4 vs Later Carthaginian.  Graham reports a good game against opponents he and Steve had played three years in a row.  Graham and Steve won 6-4 on the 25% rule. Graham and Steve flank marched their cavalry, but it arrived too late to intervene, so they had to defeat the Chinese with their infantry and skirmish commands.  Good going!

Derek and Neil 10-0 vs Parthian.  I was sure Derek and Neil were going to loose this one – blades against massed light horse.  However, Derek and Neil’s double ranked blades made mincemeat of the Parthian cataphracts, and patient advances by the blades trapped sufficient light horse to break their commands.

Game 3 vs Paul Millward and Oliver Hutt.  Three Kingdoms Chinese.

We invaded China, and, worried about the amount of cavalry they had, we put down 4 steep hills.  They put down two gentle hills that landed on their base line, and they immediately set up a defensive formation of supported spearmen with artillery.  They then put down a small command of bowmen on the hill to guard their right flank, and they massed their cavalry on their left.

Our CinC set up a defensive line between two steep hills with the flanks well protected.  Our knights went on the left flank, and the second command in the middle.

When we saw the small command of inferior bow we knew the warband had a target, and so used a strange deployment with a large hole in the middle designed to move the warband from the centre to the left, and the knights to the middle.  This almost worked, and a thin line of knights faced a mass of cavalry.  I just stood their, hoping they would be intimidated by the knights – I didn’t want to attack as I had nothing to fill any holes in my lines, whilst they had swarms of reserves.  They then surprised us by moving off the hill!  A wall of spear swung ponderously around to attack our knights, who gave way gracefully.  However, our flank was being unpeeled, and then the cavalry attacked.  For a turn I managed to kill some cavalry, but then gaps started to appear in my line – in particular I rolled a succession of ‘1’s against any light horse.  At this point, the enemy spear were being held up by two of our spear elements.  Our opponents insisted we had to conform to them when their spear contacted out from at an angle.  We pointed out that the spear were neither skirmishers nor a single element.  The umpire was called by our opponents, who confirmed we were right.  It didn’t so much good – eventually the gaps told, and the Knights Command broke.

However, the warband and Sacred Band (Superior Spear) had by this time started up the hill to assault the bow.  The bowmen initially prevailed, but just as contact was made, it started to rain.  This proved just enough, and the bowmen started to die in droves.  Some good dice rolling by Rob finished off the bowmen command, which broke.

Desultory fighting continued until last bounds were called, but no other commands looked vulnerable.

Result – 5-5 Draw.

Over on the other tables:

Andy and Alan.  4-6 vs Marian Romans.

Graham and Steve.  5-5 vs Early Imperial Romans. Graham reports a brilliantly exciting game against very pretty early imperial Romans.  Very heavy fighting everywhere, despite this no commands were lost or 25%ed   It went to the wire and either team could have won right up to the end of the last turn.  Graham added that this was a full-of-fun game with much laughter on both sides against people they have played before (one of them was part of the team who wrote the BHGS clarifications).

Derek and Neil: 7-3 vs Seleucids.  Again, I have no details, but from casual observation it looked like the Seleucids tried to push their exceptional knights through double ranked blades again.

Game 4 vs Neil Duffel and Paul Carter.  Marian Roman.  42BC.

Neil and Paul had brought big blade commands with all six bolt shooters, plus a cavalry command and an allied command with Eastern Client light horse and bowmen.

They deployed the blades in a fairly thin single line, and after we had deployed the CinC on our left and the knights well back on our right we put the warband down facing their CinC’s command.  Our opponents were clearly demoralised by this, even though their army wasn’t.  We rushed the warband command up to the blades, which kinked their lines in a desperate attempt to stop us contacting them.  This meant they obscured the front of their artillery, and I pointed out that they could not shoot though a gap of less than an element wide.  This argument continued for a while, and eventually an umpire was called by our opponents.  He decided that they could shoot through the gap, and so we had to suffer some dodgy shooting on the way in.  This was starting to get a little bad tempered, so it is with great pleasure that I can report that the warband ‘6-1’ rolled all his blades and walked through the enemy CinC’s command.  I tried not to gloat too much.  The enemy CinC was eventually killed by one of our auxilia.

However, the warband were getting separated and started to fight (and survive) some very unfavourable combats.  However, the rest of the warband command were chewing up bowmen who had been marched across to confront the knights.  They did deadly damage, and killed lots of bowmen, but a continuous trickle of casualties eventually broke the warband command.

However, by this time our CinC’s command had been advancing on the light horse, driving them back, and eventually got one double outflanked with a spear on his flank.  At this point out opponent revealed that if we killed it we would take another command, and with it the whole army.  At odds of 5 to 1, the kill seemed a certainty, and visions of a glorious 9-1 final game danced before our eyes.  We might be the best SAD players with 21 points!  But as I rolled a 1 – and my opponent rolled a 5 – I was inferior – and that was it.  At that point last bounds were called, and we expected to fight another two rounds of combat.  But true to the spirit in which the game had been played, our opponents claimed that as they had not picked up the dice, we had just played the last two bounds, and so the game ended.

Result – 6-4 win.

Over on the other tables:

Andy and Alan: 2-8 vs Later Macedonians.  Andy put this one down to rolling no fewer than 12 – yes 12 – consecutive ‘1’s during the first 12 combats.  With holes growing in his pike block, there was no way back.

Graham and Steve: 0-10 vs Ancient British.  Graham reported another unusually interesting and exciting game against Ancient British.  Graham and Steve ferociously attacked with their entire army – and by the end of the game everything in their army except for the artillery, 2 elements of bow and their chariots ended the game within 3″ of the enemy table edge!!  The enemies army was huge, their central command was more than half the army total and Graham and Steve were 3.5 elements off breaking it, they had 10 elements of psiloi trapped between their spears, cavalry and the enemy table edge all within 200 paces of each other and no way the enemy could intervene.  A certain 10-0 win?  But the attrition on Graham and Steve’s cavalry was too much, and their opponents killed three more elements in one turn and broke the Cavalry command before Graham and Steve could finish their opponents psiloi and consequently his whole army.  The Ancient Brits launched a massive flank march, and with Graham and Steve’s army almost off the opposite side of the table, there was nothing between the enemy flank command and Graham and Steve’s baggage.  When the baggage went, Graham and Steve lost their entire army.  Graham adds that he had no regrets it, was a fantastic game, and if he and Steve had got into the Psiloi they would have defeated the Ancient British army 10-0 without killing a single element of warband.

Derek and Neil: 3-7 vs Galatians.  Ahh!  Massed superior warbands against blades.  Somehow, Derek and Neil managed to pull out 3 points.  Well done, lads.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 29 November 2006 )