Ghent 2007 - a Khmer's eye view
Rather surprisingly I was offered a place in the GB Ghent team despite
my
being ranked only 15th at the end of 2006 as Dave Handley had to drop
out -
less surprisingly I jumped at the opportunity :-) I replaced Dave
in the Book
3 pool.
Army choice took a bit more time. I wanted a competitive army
obviously,
however, given that I've not played much this year I didn't think
I was
up to using an overly subtle or technical army so that ruled out all
the
Bedouin/'Abbasid/Khurasanian types IMO. I've been using Hindu
Indian
quite successfully for the past year or so and gave consideration
to
that, but decided that as the Book 3 pool dates didn't allow the use
of
the cavalry wing from my usual list and that it may be a bit flaky in
a
team situation, so that was discarded as well. Still wanted to
use
elephants so I came round to the idea of Khmer (which I think Dave
had
considered as well) and after a bit of consultation with the team
and
Graham Briggs came up with the following
list:
C-in-C
El(O) Irr G 1
General 26.0
El(O) Irr 2
Elephants 32.0
Bd(F) Reg 4
Ph'kak-men 28.0
Ax(S) Reg 4 Jacketed
Long Shield Spearmen 20.0
Ps(O) Reg 4 Archers [support
Ax(S)] 8.0
Ax(O) Reg 2 Jacketed Small Shield
Spearmen 8.0
Ax(O) Irr 4 Unarmoured
Spearmen 12.0
Elts: 21 EEs: 19.0 DL: 6.5 25%: 5.0
Subtot: 134.0
Sub-General
El(O) Irr G 1
General 26.0
El(O) Irr 2
Elephants 32.0
Ax(S) Reg 10 Jacketed
Long Shield Spearmen 50.0
Ps(O) Reg 4 Archers [support
Ax(S)] 8.0
Ax(O) Irr 4 Unarmoured
Spearmen 12.0
Elts: 21 EEs: 19.0 DL: 6.5 25%: 5.0
Subtot: 128.0
Sub-General
El(O) Irr G 1
General 26.0
Bw(O) Reg 4
Archers 20.0
Ps(I) Reg 4
Javelinmen 4.0
Elts: 9 EEs: 7.0 DL: 2.5
25%: 2.0 Subtot: 50.0
Burmese Ally-General
El(S) Irr A 1
General 25.0
El(S) Irr 2 Elephants
and Escorts 40.0
Cv(I) Irr 1 Standing Army
Cavalry 5.0
Ax(O) Irr 2 Standing Army
Spearmen 6.0
Ax(I) Irr 3 Militia
Spearmen 6.0
Bw(I) Irr 2
Archers 6.0
Elts: 11 EEs: 9.5 DL: 3.5
25%: 2.5 Subtot: 88.0
Army Elts: 62 EEs: 54.5 Defeat Lvl:
27.5
All I had to do then was buy and paint the figures - the latter bit
in
just about 1 week due to other things going on :-0 The other team
armies
were Akkadian (Martin Wilkinson) in pool 1, LPIA (Don McHugh) in pool
2
and Welsh (Hammy) in pool 4. Overall, considering the team we felt
that
we would probably finish in the top half but not in the places
-
something around 6th perhaps. (I know people thought we were
just
playing mind games about this before the comp but I can assure you
it
was what we thought)
Don drove us via the tunnel and we arrived in
Ghent late afternoon,
checked into the hotel and then wandered off to find
somewhere that was
going to show the opening rugby match - oh, and have a
beer or two
perhaps. We succeeded in all these goals and a beer fuelled
evening
followed with us loadly supporting Argentina - once again thanks to
the
French players for being so sporting about this as they were with us
in
the pub ... Cracking game of rugby and we followed this by more beer
to
the early hours as has already been commented on.
Saturday morniing
and we were all a touch under the weather to say the
least, or to be more
accurate still drunk and/or terminally hung over -
prime condition I think
not! We drew Portugal which we had considered to
be one of the better match
ups for us in our pre-event analysis on the
drive over. My opponent was Paulo
Canoniga with Patricians which I
considered a sub-optimal choice for a Book 3
pool, especially as it was
going to be a Wb and Kn(F) version given the
option chosen. The rest of
the team faced Middle Assyrian, Middle Imperial
Roman and Early
Crusader.
I defended (I think we all did) and terrain
ended up with a Wd on my
right around the centre line a bit away from the
table edge, a large
piece of rough on the Roman base edge in the middle and a
couple of
small bits of rough that didn't really affect the game. I deployed
the
C-in-C on the right with the Ax mostly covered by the Wd, then
the
Burmese, then the large subbie and the small subbie on the left
hoping
to use the Bw to cover the flank. Paulo deployed a 15.5EE command with
3
Kn(F) opposite my C-in-C, a 24.5EE mostly Wb(S) command in his centre
in
the rough and finally a 19.5EE command with 5 Kn(F) and 6 LH on my
left.
I felt pretty happy with this although there was clearly a risk that
he
would ride around my left flank.
In the event the game was, IMO,
pretty much sealed when Paulo had awful
PIPs for his first two bounds (1,2,2
and 1,1,2 I think) and in the
second decided that he had no choice but to let
the Irr Kn(F) go sponno.
I'm not sure I agree with this, however, it was
Paulo's call and he
obviously felt that he would do better spending PIPs
elsewhere. In my
first move I had good PIPs and had more or less wheeled both
halves of
my army out to attack his wing commands and so I was pressuring
them
already. Inevitably the Kn mainly met El and Bw in situations that
were
to my advantage, although 2 did get into Bd(F) but were bounced off
and
attacked by El in my following bound. The result of this was that I
was
quickly most of the way to both his wing commands. Paulo brought the
Wb
out of the rough to attack me as my army was now presenting the ends
of
two wheeled lines to them, however, as they had quite a way to go
and
little support I was able to organise El and Bd as a
reception
committee. With my Bw shooting dead a Ps(O) and Ax(S) on my left I
broke
the larger wing command and with El frontally and Bd into the
flanks
that soon went as well and with it Paulo's army. I only lost a
single
Bd(F) all game. So a 3-0 to start my ITC career :-) In the other
games
Martin went down 0-3 to the Assyrians, Don got a 2-1 draw against
the
Romans and Hammy won 3-0 against the Crusaders to give us a 8-3 for
the
first round.
By the afternoon we had managed to bring the
hangovers under control,
more or less, and faced the tough challenge of
Belgium who have a good
ITC record. I was playing Carlo Denorme with
'Abbasids whilst Martin
faced a Libyan Egyptian, Don an Alexandrian Imperial
and Hammy a
Medieval Portuguese. I invaded against Carlo and he placed H(G)
of which
only one on his base line towards my right played a part. I threw
down 3
orchards which fell on the right provideing some protection
from
outflanking on that side. It looked like Carlo would deploy well back
in
a box with his left covered by the hill and so I deployed the
large
subbie on the right, then the Burmese, then the C-in-C with the
small
subbie covering the left with his Bw against raiding mounted.
As
expected Carlo deployed quite defensively (sensibly IMO) with the
hill
defended by dailami and his other commands going from there to my
left
with a mixture of supported Sp, Bw(X)/(O) and mounted troops - a
chunk
of the latter on my left. There were no mounted initially on my right
to
threaten a major outflanking move there as Carlo's army struture
meant
if he had done that he would have been badly outflanked on my
left,
clearly he aimed to use his 4 regular dice to allow a
redeployment.
As my two right hand commands both rolled 6 for PIPs in the
first bound
I decided that a direct Plan A attack along the line was in order
as
this would allow me to restrict Carlo's ability to redeploy. As
they
both rolled 6 again in bound 2 I completely closed off any chance of
the
'Abbasid mounted running along the front of their other troops
as
planned, unless they wanted to be trapped by El that is, and Carlo
was
forced to open a gap in his infantry line and pull the mounted
back
through and try and get out along his base line. All of this meant
that
his cavalry were not able to mount any sort of attack on my right
all
game. On my left the other 'Abbasid mounted looked cautiously at my
El
and Bw covering the line and decided to await development. Carlo
now
faced another problem. He had deployed a number of the Sp(O) in a
single
rank with Ps supporting but with El bearing down on them he was
forced
to get them into a more El resistant formation which left gaps in
the
lines - he chose to fill them with generals, however, I'm not sure
that
some of the Ps shouldn't have been tried first. The game then came
down
to a meat grind of my El, Bd and Ax battering his Sp, Bw(X)/(O)
and
generals. This was not quick, however, as one of the first
casulaties
was the 'Abbasid C-in-C followed fairly soon after by one of the
subbies
the ability of the 'Abbasids to react to the combat results was
severly
hampered and gaps started to appear. Carlo had a shot with Cv(S)
against
the Bw(O) but the latter beat them off with losses and elsewhere a
3rd
general went down this time to a Bd(F). After that it was pretty
much
mopping up and the army broke on total losses. A second 3-0 making
a
perfect day 1 for me. In the other games Martin got 3-0 and Don
and
Hammy 1-1 so the team finished on 16 and, much to our surprise,
leading!
Saturday evening was much more restrained than Friday. We
watched the
awful England Vs USA rugby and the much better England vs Israel
soccer
(that's how bad the rugby was, we preffered the silly game!) and
then
went for an excellent meal wshed down with a moderate number of
drinks.
Dave Madigan and I did the traditional whisky in the hotel to round
the
night off aided by Greg's rum.
Sunday morning and we faced NZ who
were 1 point behind us after a 10-1
against the Swiss and a 5-5 against
Italy. I faced Stephen Ladanyi in a
Khmer civil war whilst Martin faced a
NKE, Don a Kushan and Hammy a
Sinhalese. I defended which was a blow as I
always feel that in a civil
war invading gives a significant advantage. I
threw down the Wd and some
O which fell all on my right and pretty much cut
off the right hand
third of the board leaving us a billiard table to batter
each other on.
The only terrain to influence the game was one O that fell a
bit more in
table. I deployed large subbie, Burmese, C-in-C and finally small
subbie
- as I was having to place first I had to mix the El and other troops
up
so that I didn't have large blocks of mis-matches. Stephen opposed
me
with an army of 13 El to my 10 and included a small Cham ally
opposite
my Burmese - his deployment was mostly in large El blocks with
large
mixed Bd and Ax bloakc in support which, IMO, gave him the better of
the
match-ups. He had also deployed to send some Ax through the
above
mentioned O.
Stephen had good PIPs for his first few bounds and
advanced en masse
along the line to bring on the fight ASAP; as part of this
he pushed
some Ax into the O on my right. I had OK PIPs and was able to do a
bit
of re-arranging to sort out some matchups and wheeled the right hand
end
of the army a little to stop Stephen's Ax being able to get out of the
O
before fighting me so giving me the advantage with a 2nd rank, and
also
to use my ZoCs to try and force slightly better fights for me at
that
end of the battle line. As Stephen then threw 1,1 and 2 for the
command
at that end I was in luck. I initiated the mass fight in bound 4
to
maximise my chances of Ax and Ps getting lucky against Stephen's El
and
from then on in we had many many combats each bound. In the first
couple
of bounds we both lost a few Ax and Ps but there was no real
advantage
either way, although on my left Stephen had held back some of his
Ax as
my line extended past his thanks to my small subbie and so he had
to
watch for being flanked. Then, in about bound 6, Stephen's combat
dice
went west - to such a degree that over the whole game I would
be
surprised if he averaged over 2! This meant that basically I
knocked
great lumps out of his line including 3 of his generals (although
all
passed the die roll) and the writing was on the wall. With all the
gaps
I was able to flank elements and ahd double overlaps, etc, and a
bound
or two later Stephen's army collapsed to give me a third 3-0 in a row.
I
have to say that Stephen took his awful combat dice roll like a
true
gentleman - I know I wouldn't have managed to stay calm and polite as
he
did, much respect to him. The other 3 games ground out draws giving
a
6-3 overall which left us in 2nd place 2 points behind Italy.
So
into the final straight with a good number of teams in with a shout
at at
least a place - a good situation for any competition I think :-)
I'm facing
Peter Johnston's 'Abbasids, which is going to be very
dependant on the
terrain in our joint view, and Martin has the
Villanovan monster, Don has
Graeco-Indian and Hammy has Beja. I invade
and we end up with H(G) on my
right nicely placed for Peter and a couple
facing them well placed for me -
well placed for us both for dfence that
is - to which I add a couple of O
which end up in the centre blocking
off any route I have there. Ho hum. Well
as Martin has a 50:50 game and
we've convinced Hammy he can win his game we
have a shot at an 8-2 which
may just be enough (6-3 has an outside chance as
well) as long as nobody
below us gets a massive win and we reckon that we may
just be OK on that
score. So much to my disappointment I decide that my
contribution to the
team is to corner sit in my right hand corner and go for
a 1-1, but
that's what you have to do sometimes in a team comp. I go Burmese
on the
right, bearing in mind I may just be able to push these tanks to
work
something, then the C-in-C, then the large subbie with the small
subbie
on the left to cover the flank to my back table edge - the thinking
here
is that they can beat off the troops most able to get to them
quickly
(mounted) and hopefully lose slowly to those more likely to crush
them
but who will get there slower. Peter deploys lots of his army in
ambush
but basically has a Dailami amd mounted command on my left and a mass
of
infantry and cavalry on my right in the hills.
Not a vast amount of
action in this game as for the majority of the
troops on both sides it is a
very risky situation to go and get the
enemy and giving the opposing team 3
points is a very bad idea. I push
the Burmese jumbos forward a bit and make
sure my left is in a good
defensive position to meet the Dailami and
supporting mounted of Peter's
right that are making the long march to attack
me - takes until bound 8
to reach me in fact, although as we rattle through
the early moves this
isn't really an issue (we did 17 in the end IIRC -
Peter?). After an
initial success in shooting dead one of the Dailami my left
hand command
them explodes in 1 round of combat including the general going
down to a
Ps. Erk! Peter then pushes an Ax into the baggage which he cleans
up in
7 combats (he stuck once), however, even with the loss of the
small
command plus the baggage Peter still needs to break the large subbie
for
the army - so for Larry Essick my baggage did not matter :-)
However,
with the troops Peter needs for the win sitting on a hill and my
PIPs
stay fair I can mount an effective defense and despite
thrwoing
everything he can in Peter fails to get more than 3 of the command
and
we run out at the expected 1-1. Meanwhile Martin has won his game
3-0
with Don and Hammy getting 1-1s as well thus giving us a 6-3 which
while
a good result in our view will probably not be enough. This is
confirmed
when France 10-1 NZ and leap over us into first place with a final
scare
of 30.
So it was close but not quite to be.
Once again
many thanks to all involved - it was a fantastic weekend :-))