Warfare 2004
The annual outing to Reading left me with somewhat of a problem this year.
For reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on the themes chosen this year
didn’t really catch my imagination - apart from the Indo-Chinese one but
that was 25mm and I have no armies for that.
After toying with the idea of taking Alwa in DBR using the figures I’d used
for Christian Nubian at Britcon I finally decided that the Byzantine theme
would allow me to take the Dynastic Bedouin for a ride again - they’d been
neglected so far this year. Despite my fondness for this army the dates of
the theme did not allow it any of the usual “toys” leaving it looking a bit
tame IMO. The allowed armies in the Byzantine theme were:
Book 3. Army List 47(PECHENEG), 48 (RUS), 50 (BAGRATID ARMENIAN), 52 (EAST
FRANKISH), 53 (DYNASTIC BEDOUIN), 60 (DYNASTIC KURDISH), 65 (FATIMID
EGYPTIAN), 70 (GEORGIAN), 73 (SELJUQ TURK), 75 (KONSTANTINIAN BYZANTINE), 79
(CUMAN KIPCHAK)
Book 4. Army List 1 (KOMNENAN BYZANTINE), 2 (CILICIAN ARMENIAN), 6 (SYRIAN),
7 (EARLY CRUSADER), 17 (LATER CRUSADER), 20 (AYYUBID EGYPTIAN), 22 (SERBIAN
EMPIRE), 25 (LATER BULGAR), 31 (NIKAIAN BYZANTINE), 32 (ROMANIAN FRANK), 33
(EPIROT BYZANTINE), 34 (TRAPEZUNTINE BYZANTINE ), 45 (MAMLUK EGYPTIAN), 46
(ILKHANID), 47 (GOLDEN HORDE AND SUCCESSORS), 49 (ANATOLIAN TURKOMAN), 50
(PALAIOLOGAN BYZANTINE), 51 (MOREAN BYZANTINE), 55 (OTTOMAN), 60 (CATALAN
COMPANY)
So a reasonable number of Ottomans and Serbs was to be expected - the fact
that they were such an obvious choice was one of the demotivational things
about this theme for me.
With the usual Hamdanid, etc. choices not available the army is reduced to
taking more and more Bedouins and after a little playing around I came up
with (all irregular):
C-in-C: Cv(O) gen, 6 LH(O), 4 Cv(O), 4 mtd Bw(O), 6 mtd Bd(I), 1 mtd Ps(O),
6 Hd(O);
Sub: LH(O) gen, 7 LH(O), 4 Cv(O), 6 mtd Bw(O), 1 Ps(O), 1 Hd(O), 8 Bg;
Sub: LH(O) gen, 4 LH(O), 5 LH(I), 6 mtd Bw(O), 5 Ps(O), 3 Hd(O);
Ally: LH(O) gen, 8 LH(O), 2 Bw(I), 3 Ps(O);
I chose to be the Uquaylids as it suggested that I may have a Dynastic
Kurdish ally and the option of a few boats - I did this just in case an
opponent may be fooled into thinking I’d take either. I doubt anyone was :-)
Despite my many many uses of the Dynastic Bedouin I still needed to paint a
whole load of new elements for the extra troops I don’t usually field.
A week or so before the off the runners and riders were published which
threw up: Syrian, Ottoman x 3, Nikaian Byzantine, Seljuq, Bedouin x 2 (inc
me), Early Crusader, Cilician Armenian, Fatimid, Serb x 3, Rus and Georgian.
The danger armies IMO were:
i) the Fatimid run by Graham Evans if it was a massed Bw version because (a)
he’s a damned good player and (b) the mainly mounted Bedouin don’t have much
to threaten massed bows,
ii) Rus because all that spear is pretty much indestructible to the Bedouin
- this was more a danger that I couldn’t beat it rather than a real worry I
could lose,
iii) Early Crusader if mainly on foot, again because of the combination of a
very good player and an army whose troops it is difficult for me to destroy,
iv) Dynastic Bedouin because of the civil war lottery syndrome exacerbated
by the fact that Tim Watts and I are closely matched in ranking positions.
I wasn’t too bothered about the Ottomans as I think Dynastic Bedouin can do
a very good job at chewing them up, however, 2 of the players using them
were good so it wouldn’t be easy. The Serb Empire Kn(S) are, of course,
always capable of going through an opponent, however, I’ve had a lot of
practice taking on armies such as them so I was hopeful if I met any.
So with a dodgy army and no practice games I rolled up at Reading to do
battle.
After a suitably Warfare-esque delay in getting the first round draw up
I find that I’m drawn against Gary Buckley who is using a Serbian Empire
army ...
So the mighty (cough) Uquaylids face an invasion of the evil Serbian empire
led by the not so evil Gary Buckley. There is no weather and Gary chooses to
invade down a river 2’ in from my left - surprise, surprise ;-) I place a
small BUA on my base line and a couple of Rd and 3 small pieces of scrub
which have no effect on the game.
I deploy with the C-in-C on my right, ally to his left, sub 1 and then sub
2, the LH of which is across the river, the thinking being that a Serb army
is likely to have the Kn(S) pretty much central with support troops covering
their wings so I want a fairly lightweight centre (I have nothing that can
stand up to the Kn frontally) and to attack the support troops. I hope that
my Bw will be useful in driving off LH and so uncovering the flanks of the
Kn where I may be able to use my few Cv. Gary deploys a 4 command army
including a single element Bosnian allied command which is on my left. He
has 3 serb commands each of which have 4 Kn(S) plus a Kn(S) general plus
support troops - these are Sp and LH with his C-in-C on my left and mainly
Bw(O) in the command facing my centre and C-in-C. Gary’s aim is clearly to
get the Kn(S) into whatever in as coherant a formation as is possible using
his Bw, mainly, to hold off my troops from the Kn’s flanks.
We both start off with our allies unreliable which doesn’t really affect
either of us - Gary because his is only 1 element of Kn(O) and mine because
it is in the centre and just needs to fall back anyway, and it is likely
that I can leave an element or two behind and force Gary to attack it.
Gary’s PIPs are not stellar and his centre command gets ahead of the other
two with the Kn getting ahead of their supporting archers, his left wing Kn
also start to get ahead of their supporting archers as well, also due to
poor PIPs. On my left Gary’s C-in-C has a small block of 6 Sp(O) which he
pushes forward leaving the flank rather hanging. In one of those “it would
be rude not to” moves I throw LH into the flank to see if I can get lots of
them with a good combat. I fail but this then means that Gary has to now
attack the LH with his C-in-C’s Kn to clear them out of the way and this
rapidly leads to the Kn ending up as single elements - with me having 12
Bw(O) looming as a reception committee.
With the Kn flanks now flapping in the breeze I decide it is time to cause
more disruption by attacking them with LH, helped by my ally coming back to
play - although attacking the end of the Kn line still requires a roll of up
2 to get a kill the disrution caused by turning elements is worth a few
losses and my army can take it. However, I consistently roll 3 higher than
Gary (2-5 being the usual dice rolls) and destroy a load of the Kn at the
first attempt added to which various archer units shoot a couple more dead.
After a couple of bounds of this I have killed 13 elements from 3 of Gary’s
commands of which 11 are Kn(S). Gary’s PIPs continue to be poor to awful. I
also move my LH from across the Rv to threaten behind his C-in-C and my
LH(I) attack Hd(F) in scrub right at the rear which leads to 2 dead LH(I)
fairly soon. However, the end is nigh as I move some of my Bd to attack
gary’s central Bw block and with the help of flanking LH break the command
and so the unrelaibale ally changes sides and total losses bring down Gary’s
army. Now the more observant of you will now have noticed what it took me 5
minutes of chatting to Gary after the game to realise - the Bosnian ally is
internal and so does not change sides. Fortunatley we had not moved any
figures and we could restart the game, Gary kindly agreeing we would make up
any lost time even if last bound was called. However, as I only needed 1
more element it soon arrived - in this case Hd(F) destroyed by the LH(I).
30-2, or 10-0 in old money. I actually think 6-4 to me would have been a
fairer result for Gary as his plan was pretty sound but his PIPs were pretty
poor all game and I had the luck in the combats.
This good start left me in 3rd place where I faced John Nicholson using ....
Serbian Empire. Hum, sounds familiar :-)
Once again the peace loving Uqaylids are opressed by the imperialistic
invading Serbs who once again invade down a river - but this time it on my
right, how novel :-) However, these Serbs have not read their weather
reports for springtime near Mosul and we have threat of duststorm and strong
winds blowing from my left. I choose the same terrain as last time and again
the RGo has no effect as it all lands across the river.
In a fit of originalty I deploy the same way as last time, but this time
from my left to right. I did consider flank marching Sub 2 on my left (away
from the river so they’d have the wind at their backs) but in the end
decided I’d prefer to have all the troops on table. John deploys mostly in
the left hand side of the table as I look at it with a infantry command on
his left of Bw(I) and Bd angled back to prevent my running round the flank.
He has 2 commands based around 6 Kn(S) + general with LH and Ax as support
and these are deployed one behind the other to the right of his infabtry
facing my left flank. He is clearly going for the heavy hammer blow of Kn(S)
to break as much of my army as possible on a fairly narrow front. My plan
again revolves around avoiding the Kn(S) as much as possible and attacking
the support troops - if the dust storm arrives all well and good as that
will also shift the wind to more behind me.
John starts by advancing relatively cautiously with his 2 main commands and
I send the LH forward to restrict his room to manoeuvre and send troops
round to face off his Bw and Bd command on my right and be able to attack
the join between that command and the Kn commands. Bound 3 sees the
duststorm arrive and it blows for the rest of the game - as my army is near
enough wholly bedouin this is a great advantage for me; also the wind moves
a further 2 times in the game both to my advantage. With this advantage I
now attack the Bw(I) with my LH, although John has sensibly moved the 2
ranks apart so I won’t get soft kills. It starts well with John losing 4 bw
to my loss of 1 LH. Unfortuantely for me after that the Bw fight back and
end up destroying a total of 7 LH(O) for a total loss of 6 Bw(I). Of course
I’ve attacked with the LH from 2 commands and so at least his command is
much worse off than either of mine.
At the same time I feel confident enough to also start to attack his front
Kn command, or more accurately attack the LH who are supporting them with my
Cv(O) with LH and Bw in support. Despite his being disadvantaged his LH hold
on quite well and I only destroy them slowly. However, the Bw clear away the
protection from the flank of his Kn and shoot dead a couple as well.
Combined with a few recoils and a 1 on the PIPs at a poor time the Kn then
have to go sponno and fall to LH and flank attacks and the command breaks.
However, before they go they kill enough of the allied LH, mainly through
ZOD as my PIPs had not let me make all safe, to break the command. However,
my army is in no danger and I’m just a couple of elemenst of his. Once
againit is the LH(I) who finish them off by mugging a couple of isolated
Bd(O)near his rear table edge whilst they were disadvantaged by the
duststorm and the serbs collapse and go home - albeit with highly polished
armour from sand-blasting :-) 29-3 or 9-1 in old money. The dust storm
doomed the Serbs.
So after day 1 I’m on 59 points and in 2nd place behind Graham Evan’s
Fatimids who are on 62. The rest of the field trail us both by some margin.
The weak version of the Dynastic Bedouin is doing rather well.
With both of us some way ahead of the field I rather think this set the tone
for the battle as we both realised that a big loss would allow the other one
to pretty much secure the competition win. I again defended and there was no
weather. Graham agonised over whether to invade down a river or not, he said
he’d decided not to on the drive in but in the end changed his mind and so
another river based invasion was faced. I went with the BUA plus roads
option to have as open a battlefield as possible. I also elected to flank
march Sub 2 on the side away from the river. Whilst I expected this to not
get too far as it would mostlikely face a lot of bows I hoped that it may
cause some problems and let me gang up on a small part of Graham’s army. At
worst I should only lose that command and a 4-6 result would still leave me
well placed.
Graham set his army, which had all the bowmen the list allowed plus the Wb,
in the half of his table side away from the river with a command of
Bw(X)/(O) ready to turn to face a flank march and the left flank angled back
towards the table edge 1 rank of Bw(O) deep. (Did I hear “corner sitting”
across the river. My flank march turned up immediately and I was able to
mass a reasonable amount of bowmen against the corner where 2 of his
commands joined so as to have local archer superiority with many of his
being DBE. I didn’t bring much else other than the archers and Ps on from
the flank march in order to keep the rest of his command honest in case they
would be fled by the rest arriving later. The rest of my army skirmished
against his.
Unfortunately my attempt with the archers didn’t come off. In fact to
continued amusement of us both all our archers across the field proved to be
completely hopeless shots regardless of the factors and usally failed to
make any impact on the other side, even a recoil was rare. Graham manoevred
his Wb to support his archers facing mine whilst I manoeuvred Bd(I) to try
and get at some of his Bw - whilst trying to ensure that I had Cv and LH
available to counter the Wb. The junction between his commands I was trying
to attack became quite congested as we both tried to fit a lot of our armies
into a fairly small space. In the end the game ran out to a fairly tame, and
probably predictable, 16-16 or 5-5 in old money. This still left me 10 BHGS
points ahead of the nearest challenge and Graham 3 ahead of me.
In the last round Graham faced off Dave Ruddock’s Cilician Armenians whilst
I took on Laurence Flint’s Nikaian Byzantines. For the first time in the
competition I invaded and there was no weather. I chose no terrain and
Laurence placed 3 H(G) only 1 of which had any impact on his right away from
the table edge. A pretty much open field, just what I needed. I deployed my
C-in-C on the right with Sub 2, Sub 1 and the ally extending the line to my
left across the whole front of my deployment area - the usual LH up front
with better troops behind routine. Laurence deployed his C-in-C opposite me,
a large 24.5EE job based around 6 Kn(O) and 4 Bw(O), next an 18.5EE version
of the same with no Bw and then a small 9.5EE Ps + LH(F) command on his
right holding the hill. IMO this looked very good for me as I would be able
to sweep the ally round the hill and crush the small command and then attack
the Bg and roll up his army.
So my ally is unreliable for 7 turns and the rest of my army suffers
universally poor PIPs which rather spoils things. Laurence players a sound
game and manages to get his right flank into some sort of order using the
hill and some Cv(I) thus cutting off any chance of a rapid sweep round the
side. He also pushes forward intelligently with his C-in-C using the Bw to
cause me problems which are exacerbated by my PIPs. To add insult to this
Graham Evans 32-0’s Dave’s Cilicians in fairly short order and so has won
the competition before the serious fighting starts on my table. Ah well it’s
time to grit the teeth and see if we can extract something from what is
becoming a quite difficult game.
Fortunately when my ally comes on side my PIPs improve a bit and I’m abale
to get Bw + Cv into positions where they can start tompu pressure on
Laurence’s Kn attack, and I take advantage of a mistake where he does not
cover the end of a line from a LH attack and so loses a couple of elements
that he shouldn’t have. My C-in-C’s command ends up in a bit of a lottery
with it’s LH being attacked by Ps, often double ranked, and come off worse
in the exchange. Also some of the Bd(I) have to fight his Kn a few times
which leads to a couple fo them dead as well - unsurprising. However, the Bw
fight back and with a Bw into the flank of a Kn start to pick up elements
and the worst of the crisis is past but this leaves both C-in-C’s 3 elemenst
off breaking. The rest of my army has done fairly well with my superior
numbers and better quality LH being important factors and his 18.5EE command
is reduced to 0.5EE off breaking for minimal losses to myself. The game is
finished fairly suddenly when I have a run of combat luck and take out
Laurence’s C-in-C which due to his army composition means that the army goes
on total losses and I have won 30-2, 10-0 in rule book scoring.
So over all I finish in 2nd place on 105 from my 4 games and Graham has 110
from his. Not a bad result for an army I think is a bit poor - although
better in the theme than it ever would be in an open competition. Tim Watts
with the other Dynastic Bedouin came 4th.