Campaign 2003

By a simple process of elimination I ended up in the Franks in Greece period - the process being that I had an army from this period and I didn't want to do either of the other 2. The chosen army was Seljuq and the list was:

C-in-C
Cv(O) Reg G 1 General 28.0
Kn(F) Irr 3 Franks 27.0
Kn(F) Irr 2 Armenians 18.0
LH(S) Irr 5 Turkomans 35.0
Ax(O) Irr 7 Seljuq Foot 21.0
Ps(O) Irr 1 Seljuq Foot 2.0
Bg(I) Irr 8 Baggage 0.0
Cmd Elts: 27 EEs: 18.5 Dem.Lvl: 6.5 Subtotal: 131.0

Sub-General
Cv(S) Reg G 1 General 30.0
Cv(O) Reg 5 Askaris 40.0
LH(S) Irr 6 Turkomans 42.0
Bw(O) Reg 2 Crossbowmen 10.0
Ps(O) Irr 1 Seljuq Foot 2.0
Ax(O) Irr 1 Seljuq Foot 3.0
Cmd Elts: 16 EEs: 15.5 Dem.Lvl: 5.5 Subtotal: 127.0

Sub-General
Cv(O) Reg G 1 General 28.0
LH(S) Irr 6 Turkomans 42.0
Ax(O) Irr 6 Seljuq Foot 18.0
Cmd Elts: 13 EEs: 13.0 Dem.Lvl: 5.0 Subtotal: 88.0

Turkoman Ally-General
LH(S) Irr A 1 General 12.0
LH(S) Irr 6 Turkomans 42.0
Cmd Elts: 7 EEs: 7.0 Dem.Lvl: 3.0 Subtotal: 54.0

Total APs: 400.0
Generals: 4
Army Elts: 63 EEs: 54.0 Defeat Lvl: 27.0

With this, er, mighty army I ended up facing 2 Epirot and 1 Nikaian Byzantine, a Later Bulgar and a Romanian Frank in the attempt of the Khoregate Expeditionary Force to better it's 2nd place of 2002.

First up was Eric Doman with an Epirot Byzantine. Despite his attempt to close down the table we had 2/3 of the width mainly clear apart from a steep hill in my right hand deployment area (behind which I ambushed 6 Ax(O), the remaining 1/3 of the table wasn't fought over. There was strong wind which hampered Eric's archers. The game involved me pushing on my left with my 2larger commands, with the Cv(O) in a position to tempt Eric's Bw and Kn(O) forward, whilst I infiltrated some Ax into a large wood covering Eric's flank. On my right my LH gave way before the 4 Cv(O) and 4 Cv(I) in Eric's army falling back around the hill with Ax in ambush who were able to threatedn the flanks of the Cv and so taking them out of the game. After a couple of setbacks my left wing attack cleaned up his LH and Kn quite rapidly and my Kn(F) picked up some of his C-in-C's command infantry. At the end of the game I was 1 element off Eric's army and he declined to suicide a Sp element to break one of my commands settling for a 6-4 to me rather than a 9-1 to me :-)

Second was Chris Norwood with later Bulgar which was basically 3 commands of 5 expendable Kn(F) plus LH and infantry supports. Chris narrowed the table by successfully dicing for a WW but no other terrain was material. For a lot of the game Chris' PIPs were not kind and his army was soon a bit disjointed as commands lurched forwards at different rates and he was pretty much forced to keep the command furthest away from the WW stationary. I broke up the Kn of one command quickly but they refused to die with one Kn(F) moving about 18" pushing back and pursuing a LH over the next couple of hours. Despite this I got the command after much PIP expenditure and could start to have a bash at his central command with my Kn(F) and supporting Cv and LH. In the end it came down to a last bound throw everything in and hope the dice were with me, which they were, and I broke his army for pretty minimal losses. 10-0.

Last game Saturday was against Gareth Evans and he has already mentioned some highlights (at least highlights from my point of view). Basically initial poor PIPs put him on the defensive even though he was the invader fighting on pretty open terrain with, as Gareth mentioned, his army stretched too wide. My initial 6, 6, 6, 6 on the PIPs allowed a major redeployment to attack his left with my Cv, Kn and LH which eventually gave way - despite a scare when a Kn died to a Cv(I) in the middle of my line. The with last bound looming I tried the LH(S) into the Bw(I) which blew away an untouched command in 1 bound - rather harsh on Gareth but 10-0 to me.

First game on Sunday was against John Sampson's Nikaian Byzantines. A rather dull affair really with his army between 2 steep hills not risking coming out and mine not risking going in - as it was a team competition there was nothing much for either of us to gain by being risky and both teams were satisfied with the outcome even if John and I would have preferred a more interesting game. 5-5.

Last game saw us in 2nd place behind the Reigate team and with a reasonable margin over the 3rd place Terrapins team. A quick consideration of the various matchups suggetsed that if we were to overtake Reigate I would have to beat Simon Hall and his Romanian Franks as the other 2 games had big draw potential as Reigate didn't need to takle risks. So I had the death or glory game which we calculated we could survive a bad result in and still get 2nd place as long as Terrapins didn't get 2 big wins or better out of their games, and we felt that the matchups there made that a bit unlikely. I invaded and Simon put his 4 command army, with 15 expendable Kn(S) in, down between a BUA and a piece of RGo. I threw the Ax at these 2 terrain pieces hoping to get at Simon's weak infantry - Bw(I) and Ax(O) and very nearly managed it in the RGo where Simon was saved by a LH which wouldn't flee (or even recoil) from Ax in RGo and so prevented me getting onto the side of his Bw(I), the Ax attack on the BUA didn't really happen as Simon had planty of PIPs there to make a good defence. After this initial attack, which Simon admited had him worried (not something I do to Simon much <g>) I had a couple of bounds of poor PIPs which allowed some Kn(S) to get into my LH and the writing was on the wall. As is often the case with Kn(S) even where I had good odds my LH didn't kill a thing and Simon broke my 2 smaller commands fairly easily. With the path to my Bg open I tried the LH into the Bw(I) attack again but this time it didn't come off and Simon finished my army off well within time. 0-10.

Overall I got 31/50 and had 4 really good games, and the 5th was less interesting mainly due to the nature of the comp. As with the first 2 years the Campaign format worked well as did the venue - Milton Keynes shopping centre. And for the record we got 2nd place as Terrapins couldn't get the big results they needed despite Jer leading the way with another victory for his EIR.