Barbarians at the Gates

One for all you fans of this particular dog of an army. A short account of

their doings at John Graham Leigh’s latest themed competition - Barbarians

at the Gates.

Having somewhat over achieved with the Syrians in the two Cross and Crescent

weekends I had to choose between Early Frankish, Alamannic, Later Visigothic

and Sub Human British for this outing (basically we got to pick in reverse

order of finishing). As the dates of armies allowed deprived the Franks and

Alamannic of any good choices they may have been able to take it came down

to a choice between the Visigoths and Sub Humans, so I spurned the delights

of Wb(O) and went for the Brits - partly because it could have 3 allied

generals again, just like the Syrians.

To John’s dismay I declined the romantic possibility of Arthur and went with

a date where I could have a Patrician Roman ally - I wanted _some_ good

troops. After a bit of playing around I came up with the following list:

C-in-C: 7 Irr Cv(O) inc. general, 3 Irr LH(O), 10 Reg Ax(I), 1 Irr Hd(I), 8

Irr Bg(I);

British Ally 1: 3 Irr Cv(O) inc. general, 18 Irr Sp(I), 8 Irr Ps(O)

supporting Sp;

British Ally 2: 4 Irr Cv(O) inc. general, 1 Irr LH(O), 7 Irr Sp(I), 10 Irr

Ax(O), 1 Irr Hd(I);

Roman Ally: 1 Reg LH(S) general, 4 Reg Kn(F), 7 Reg Ax(S), 7 Reg Ps(O)

supporting Ax.

To some degree this army was designed around what reasonably suitable

figures I had - for example the 10 Reg Ax(I) were used because I had

suitable figures rather than any thought about their likely effectiveness

(which would be minimal).

The first game is known in advance based on likely historical matchups, and

mine was to be against Richard Lockwood’s Pictish. Richard had based his

army on the “Barbarian Conspiracy” and so had 2 allies, Saxons and Irish. I

thought this was a tough matchup - mind you, aren’t they all for the Sub

Humans? I inevitably defended and threw down lots of terrain including Wd

and BUA on a hill, and sent the Romans off on a flank march to try and get

some troops behind the Picts as I wasn’t confident about fighting them

frontally. The game was slowish as neither Richard or I had used our armies

before and we were trying to manoeuvre to get troops where we wanted them

(and I was waiting for the flank march, of course and my British Ally 1 was

unrelaible at the start). The Romans arrived fairly quickly but Richard

could get lots of LH to slow them down so they were contained. Richard was

pouring massed Ax of avrious types into terrain on my left and was

pressurising my C-in-C heavily whilst I was throwing LH into the flank of

his slightly isolated Saxon Wb. Despite a couple of attempts at killing 6 Wb

in one go including the general both sides troops in combat proved quite

ineffectual and we timed out with a 5-5.

The second game saw the Brits defending against the invading Saxon hordes

run by Richard Jeffrey Cook. As he had Bts he invaded down a Rv but this

proved paultry. I placed relatively little terrain for an open field on

which my more manoeuvrable army could operate. Richard’s army was about 100

Wb in 3 large blocks plus a few bits and pieces. I massed the C-in-C and

Romans against his left where the table was open. The battle was fairly

straight forward with my supported Ax holding off vast numbers of Wb whilst

my mounted tried to break his left and so roll up the army. The Romans

started unrelaible but came on side in the second bound so that wasn’t much

of a problem. The Roman Kn proved ineffective against Wb(O) losing 3 of the

4 but did manage to get Wb when the latter had an (S) front rank - game of

skill as they say :-) Quite early on I fluked the general on Richard’s left

but the command survived and it took ages to break it, but it went in the

end. Meanwhile the Roman Ax were slowly starting to wear down the next

command whilst the reat of both armies did very little constructive due to

lack of opportunity or PIPs. In the end I was 1 or 2 elements from the army

and the game ended 6-4 to me.

Saturday evening was the now traditional meal at the hotel a group of us

stayed in with suitable quantities of liquid refreshment as well.

Sunday morning saw britain invaded by the army of Attlia including the Wb,

Gepid and Ostrogoth allies run by Roger Gregory. This made it 3 out of 3 of

John’s competitions Roger and I have played. The table ended up mostly empty

apart from a large H(G) on my left, a BUA+hill on my right and a small patch

of Rgo just inside Roger’s half of the table in the centre. Roger had most

of his army over to my left with the Ostrogoth cavalry across the front and

their Bw(I) skulking near the back. As I had my C-in-C and Romans on my

right and the Sp command on the H(G) I was reasonably happy. Unfortunately

the Sp command was again unreliable and my intention to use this to push in

Roger’s right was foiled. The game started to revolve around my trying to

break up his Kn and get them into compromising positions whilst Roger tried

to get them into action as a coherant body whilst keeping them away from my

unrelaible command to keep it out of the game. Of course he got 1’s on both

command’s PIPs at a bad time and a certain amount of spontinaity ensued. I

had also sent my Cv(O) on the unusual task of hunting down the Ostrogothic

Bw(I) who were in the open. A few sneaky moves with Ax(S) pulling LH(S)

around gave me a few elements of those as a bonus. The sponno Kn brought my

unrelaible command back on line, but they proved to be still less than

effective and some died against the Kn even though they were uphill.

However, Ostrogoths charged into a well prepared “valley of death” and broke

when their general was surrounded by all 4 Roman Kn and the Cv rode down

some Bw(I). The Gepids hung on well for a 7 element command but broke in the

last bound and the 2 allies plus the few other elements I’d killed just

broke the army. 10-0.

The last game was also against somebody I’ve played at the other 2 of John’s

comps, Andy Claxton. Due to his successes in the last 2 comps he’d been

lumbered with Early Frankish - so massed Wb(S) with some Ps and a few Cv in

support (2 large and 1 small commands). Andy invaded down a Rd with steep

hill, all but one of which ended up on my side of the table. I placed a

large gentle hill + BUA in the centre connected to the Rd so the table was

quite bare, however, Andy did have a small H(S) to rest a flank on. Andy

deployed his army in a long, mostly 2 deep, Wb line with the Cv to cover the

open side and Ps(S) on the hill. I had the C-in-C and Romans opposite this

hill with the Sp command sitting on the big hill in the centre with Cv in

support. Despite a bit of mucking around beside the hills on my right the

battle came down to 2 big areas of combats. My Romans attacked and cleared

the hill thus exposing the end of Andy’s C-in-C’s Wb which forced him to

attack my Cv(O) and Kn(F) during which he had quite a bit of success quite

quickly. Meanwhile he’d also attacked the hill with the Wb. This resulted in

both our commands being reduced to 0.5 elements from breaking. However, the

Roman Kn had knocked a hole in the Wb on my left and Andy’s C-in-C was hit

in the front by my C-in-C and in the rear by a Kn and rolled a 1. With his

C-in-C gone the other losses just tipped the army into demoralisation and I

got another 10-0.

Thus I finished on 31 from 40 which was enough for second place. Or it would

have been if John hadn’t been using a bonus system for completed games. As I

had 2 timed out games I was overtaken and ended up equal 3rd with 2 others

and dropped to 5th on the countback method John used. (Definitely a

conspiracy here I reckon).

All in all another great weekend organised by John. The next one is likely

to be a very late medieval theme.