Bad Chuckie goes to Wales

Having been nagged by Richard to do Usk for the past couple of years -
failed last year due to friends wedding - I finally made it this year.
Despite being offered an AoW run out I decided to do DBM as I'm not been
part of the AoW beta so would have to get my head round the rules rather
quickly and I had a Slingshot to prepare. Inspired by Graham Briggs
sub-par performance with it last year in single I decided to field the
Navarrese of Charles the Bad. I took one of Graham's 400AP lists and
bulked it out to 500AP by the expedient of adding more of the same. I
was partnered in this enterprise by John Calvert.

The army was:

C-in-C
Kn(O) Irr G 1 General 20.0
Kn(O) Irr 7 Free Company Gason Men-at-Arms 70.0
Ax(S) Irr 14 Navarrese Javelinmen 56.0
Cmd Elts: 22 EEs: 22.0 Dem.Lvl: 8.0 25%: 5.5 Subtotal: 146.0

Sub-General
Kn(O) Irr G 1 General 20.0
Kn(O) Irr 2 Navarrese Mesnaderos 20.0
Kn(S) Irr 4 Norman Men-at-Arms 48.0
Bw(S) Reg M 2 Free Company English Archers 16.0
Ax(X) Irr 3 Gascon Brigans 9.0
Ps(O) Irr 1 Navarrese Slingers 2.0
Cmd Elts: 13 EEs: 12.5 Dem.Lvl: 4.5 25%: 3.5 Subtotal: 115.0

Sub-General
Kn(O) Irr G 1 General 20.0
Bw(S) Reg 4 Free Company English Archers 28.0
Ax(S) Irr 14 Navarrese Javelinmen 56.0
Ps(O) Irr 3 Navarrese Slingers 6.0
Cmd Elts: 22 EEs: 20.5 Dem.Lvl: 7.0 25%: 5.5 Subtotal: 110.0

Free Company Ally-General
Kn(O) Irr A 1 General 15.0
Kn(I) Reg 5 Free Company English Men-at-Arms 50.0
Kn(O) Irr 1 Free Company Gason Men-at-Arms 10.0
Bw(S) Reg M 2 Free Company English Archers 16.0
Ax(X) Irr 7 Gascon Brigans 21.0
Ps(S) Irr 3 Gascon Bidets 9.0
Bw(O) Irr 2 Gascon Crossbowmen 8.0
Cmd Elts: 21 EEs: 19.5 Dem.Lvl: 6.5 25%: 5.0 Subtotal: 129.0

Army Elts: 78 EEs: 74.5 Defeat Lvl: 37.5

Small and imperfectly formed :-)

First game matched us against Les Ames and Dave Haynes with a 3 command
Sicilian army who invaded us down a road with steep hills, the only one
of which that had an effect was a large one on our left. We added RGo
one piece of which was on our right the rest in their centre. We
deployed the C-in-C on the right with the Javelinmen behind the RGo and
the Kn dismounted 2 deep on the right to cover the gap to the table
edge, the small command was to their left then the ally and finally the
other Javelinmen command sat on the hill ready to advance if they could.
Les and Dave deployed a Bw(I) and Ax(S) command on their right in the
RGo in their central sector, a command of Bw, Kn and LH next to them and
the C-in-C with Kn and LH on their left. We were pretty happy that they
appeared to want to force the RGo with Bw(I) and (O) into our Ax(S)
supported by Kn(S) on the open flank.

They did indeed march their Bw mass towards out Ax, however, they also
made a critical mistake in not holding the Kn in that command, who were
Irr, in the first bound and so they went sponno towards the Ax in the
RGo ... This, in fact, rather sealed the game from that point. ALthough
they had the PIPs to pull back 2 of the Kn the other 3 went sponno
through the rear rank of the Bw just as these were in range of our Ax
who immediately charged the Bw - of course the Kn were not parallel to
the Bw at this point and so a number of rather easy kills were made. The
Ax cleaned up the command rather quickly after that despite its 11 break
point. As there were no Kn to worry them the Javelinmen on the hill on
our left raced accross the field to clobber the Bw in the RGo which they
did rather nicely and when the Kn(S) killed a few Bw from that command
that had tried to come up to help their doomed command it was all over.
10-0.

This pitched us up against Adrian Clarke and Fred Cartwright with a
Khmer army - we didn't fancy the 14 El they had at all. A touch
surprisingly we invaded and there was wind from behind our right
shoulder although it had no real effect on the game as it shifted to
behind us fairly quickly. The important terrain was a thin wood they
placed in our central sector parallel to our base edge which in effect
prevented them a clear channel down the centre - all agreed later that
this had been a mistake - and a large patch of RGo on their left. We
decided to mass all the Ax(S) on our right and push through the RGo and
turn their army. The small Kn command would hide on the base edge and
the ally would hold the left by skirmishing with his mounted archers and
hiding behind the Wd so nicely provided. We expected their El to attack
either side of the Wd and this is how they deployed. Most of their El
were on their right under a subbie and a Burmese ally whilst the C-in-C
commanded more on their left. The RGo was held by 8 Ax and 7 Ps ...

Well the massed Ax attack rather predictably worked well cleaning up the
small Khmer command in a couple of bounds and had plenty of Ax left over
to use some to htreaten the advance of the C-in-C's jumbos. The 4
English archers over here did sterling work as well shooting dead an El
with their first shot and then a few moves later taking down the Khmer
C-in-C as well! They passed the dice roll even though they needed a 6 by
that stage. On our left we just didled around a bit to ensure that the
massed El, etc. couldn't get into the game much and in that we were
fairly successful and even picked up a vital kill on an Ax(O) with an
overlapped Bd(S) in the wood - don't you love those 6-1's :-) On our
right we took out the El with Ps, Ax and good combat dice and finished
the army off with another shot by the English at an El who couldn't
recoil. The two broken commands plus the freak kill of the Ax by the Bd
meant their army collapsed. 10-0 again and equal top place and the end
of day 1.

Sunday morning dished up Ian Speed and Craig Allen who were using
Buyids. Rather surprisingly we invaded and we ended up with a mass of
RGo in their central sector on the base edge and on the centre line in
their right sector. They deployed all over on their right with Ax massed
to run through the RGo supported by lots of Cv(S) and then there were
more Ax(S) in the RGo in their centre to protect the baggage. They flank
marched a small Hamdanid ally on their right which slightly surprised us
as we expected it to be on their left on the open plain to harry our
right wing. We deployed with the Ax(S) and Bw(S) command on the left -
the Bw to hold up the Cv expected to drive round the edge - then the
ally then the C-in-C and the small Kn command on the far right, but
deployed facing left as we now knew they'd be flank marching and
expected that side.

We planned to hold up on the leaft as best we could in the face of more
Ax than we had - but not as badly outnumbered as the Khmer had been -
whilst pushing strongly in our centre and brining the Kn accross the
field. This we maanged pretty well with the C-in-C's Ax getting into
their baggage by move 4 or 5 as they had nothing to stop us getting over
there. They had to spend a lot of PIPs getting soem Cv and LH out of the
way of the advancing Free Company ally which delayed their attack on our
left, they were also hindered by the flank marching ally being
unreliable. However, with regular generals and no little skill they were
able to withdraw their troops from our onrushing troops sensibly
abandoning the baggage and trading space for time to allow their ally to
come on and for them to build a strong attack on our left. Their attack
went in quite late in the game and our troops fought like girls although
thanks to good PIPs we had got the small Kn command over there to cause
some trouble. Our Ax command went down but the Kn hung on - just - for
the end of the game, although as we'd lost nothing else the army wasn't
going to break even if both went down. So we finished up 4-6. Ian and
Craig went on to a deserved 2nd place.

Last game matched us against that competition stalwart Medieval
Portuguese, 1385AD, led by Alan and his son David Cutner. So fairly
similar armies matching off. We defended and a load of RGo including our
H(S) ended up on our left and the only terrain on their side was a pirce
in their central sector. We deployed our C-in-C on the left then the
other Ax command then the small Kn command and the ally on the right
hanging in the air a bit hoping his 2 mounted archers would be enough to
stop the inevitable LH raid round the edge. The deployed a Kn, LH and Ax
command oppopsite our C-in-C, and Ax and Irr Kn(S) command opposite our
Ax command and the small Kn command and then the English and a Bw, Kn
and LH command opposite the ally, but with the Kn dismounted. For the
only time we had deployed the C-in-C's Kn mounted, would this be a good
choice. On deployment we felt we were at a disadvantage.

Their attack was somewhat stalled by poor PIPs and, in general, this
continued for the whole game which rather cramped their game plan IMO
and to some degree handed us the initiative - our PIPs wer generally
good. On our left we advanced the Kn, leaving the C-in-C dismounted on
the hill, with the Ax to their left. Alan skirmished with LH to our
front and used their good PIP dice to bring his Kn to be in a position
to attack the end of our Kn line, however, we brought up Ps and Ax to
threaten ther end of his Kn line if he attacked. In the end poor PIPs
for both sides saw 2 of Alan's Kn sponno into Ax and Ps and die to
unkind recoil combinations and our Kn went sponno towards theirs and
their LH. As an aside here Alan decided not to sacrifice a LH to break
up our Kn earlier despite David's insistance that he should do so - we
agreed with David but were happy Alan didn't :-) We survived that attack
on us whilst disrupted and then took out the opposing Kn and a LH as
well to leave that command 1/2 from breaking. On our right we declined
to advance much but sent out the Free compant Bd(S) as a screen to act
as a deterrant to the English advancing, it was fairly quite here as
Alan had used their big PIPs on their right. In the centre we advaced Ax
led by a dismounted general at their Ax supported on the right by our
small Kn command - who it looked like would inevitably have to get
involved with a couple of Bw(S) along the way, whci they did and died.
However, the Ax attack was very successful and with one of Alan's Kn(S)
also going his C-in-C was broken. We then has an almighty scramble to
get the remaining element we needed to win the game and it came down to
a 4 Vs 4 with a Kn(S) general flanked as the last diece roll of the
game. We won that 6-2 for a 10-0 victory, 34 points overall and 3rd
place.

Not bad really :-)