Once more, I headed off to HK to join friends from HK, Thailand, China & Taiwan for drinks (not me), dinners, laughter and even some DBMM. Benny had hoped to join us but other commitments prevented that although my brother Brett did come over to play after dropping in on us in Thailand on the way.
It was a Book 2 dates competition.
Brett picked Early Frankish etc and designed his own Alammani list. I painted it and we both had some pre-event practice games with the Thailand guys. Unfortunately Brett hadn’t got enough practice in NZ or Thailand and having never run an irregular army, let alone a warband army, didn’t have a good understanding of it’s dynamics and picked up 15VP for a draw and no VPs from the other three games, although some of that was just unlucky. He finished 13th from 14.
I also took my first ever attempt at a warband army – Galatians, although I tried to balance it with a mounted arm & a terrain capable ally. I did get six practice games in, two victories & four draws. But I learnt that I don’t understand warband tactics and that even when winning they are fragile and things change fast if an unfortunate roll occurs.
I picked the army because I was expecting a large number of Roman armies (as in 2018 when over 50% were Roman) and it was the only suitable figures on hand for a late rush painting job. Then of course, of the 14 players, only two had Romans.
On arrival in HK, it seemed that nobody wanted to play the Galatians, all chatter was that they were scary – I knew better.
For the first game I was drawn with Herbert W, whose tournament win record is in double figures for Asian events, way ahead of anyone else. Our previous two match ups had been timed out draws. This time Herbert had brought a Southern Dynasties Chinese army which looked stunning but was an experiment with many WWgO & I, CmX and I think maximum Art including a road placed tower centre table with ArtS.
With tasty targets ahead of my massed WbS up a gentle hill, I had a total brain fart, didn’t check the combat factors & charged up the hill. But I don’t get 2nd rank against Train, it gets upslope when I thought it was only Foot that did & we were fighting in ‘mud’. By the time I’d learnt my mistake it was too late & warband don’t do reverse gear stuff!! Elsewhere I was just dealing with WWgO by annoying it and avoiding it but then the ArtS in the tower survived my assaults & shot a general out of his chariot.
Got 2VP from that game and a lot of embarrassment although with a couple of 25-0 games I wasn’t on bottom table.
Second game verse James C with Bastarnae, a very competent player and generally all round good guy & organiser.
With a 2FE DH projecting inward from the centre of both flank edges it was very much a centre of table head on clash and as my light troops had secured the hill on my left, James’ Ps had secured the one on my right we were both weary of getting into a WbS vs WbS stouch with exposed flanks so the battle developed slowly.
But eventually to retain control of my smaller Wb command it got advance too far ahead on my left (luckily not the exposed right) and eventually I was forced to combat where I wasn’t well covered and the dice were a bit unkind and I was taking more losses than James. But due to the tentative engagement from both sides we timed out at 10-15.
Now I was on the bottom table!!
Sunday morning, game three was with Andrew N, a Kiwi long resident in Taiwan where he suffers from a lack of opponents and acknowledges his lack of game time can be seen in his results. He was using Zhao Warring Chinese States.
The battle was entirely in the mist which hadn’t cleared in the 4 ½ pairs of bounds we played before the result. Having had my 1st practice game with a few bounds of mist, I had an advantage but did go through each appropriate rule with Andrew before we rolled the 1st dice, although Andrew still had groups of troops out of sight of their general which had an effect later.
Under mist cover I advanced as fast as possible with WbS straight at the line of BwX double ranked with KnO chariots on each end, covered by mist invisibility from archery then held just out of view so charging in would only receive one round of archery but Andrew came forward short also so got a single round of fire in before I hit his entire line.
On the left, with low PiPs and three groups of mounted, only the group with the general was able to manoeuvre but was up against my single group of more numerous cavalry and with PiPs to spare which turned onto the end of his line but lost the combat. Next bound Andrew decided he needed to engage in combat so pushed through the mist to hit my longer Cv line with his. Combats even but it left the rear of two Cv, including the general exposed to my outer earlier flanking elements.
Next bound I had enough PiPs to rear attack the enemy general, plus two hard flanks elsewhere with most combats in my favour so the general plus two more destroyed. Meanwhile in two of my bounds the warband had smashed through the BwX line, chased off the general and taken down enough chariots to break the command with the knock-on taking the army down just as the mist was about to clear. To me 25-0.
Onto the last game against Neil B with Han Chinese. We’ve played several times before over the years always with tense, cat & mouse draws.
Table had a smattering of terrain features including two GH near Neil’s edge and to my right of centre with a road running behind them, one near the flank edge. After deployment it was clear something was missing, including all the Kn chariots, so I guessed at an ambush on far RHS as I though his generals were all present. It suited me to avoid engaging on my RHS anyway.
For the 1st time my ally was unreliable, being on difficult terrain on my left but needed to be flank guards for my CnC Wb command as I intended my centrally placed Wb commands to push forward then wheel right into the main body of enemy who were mostly right of centre using the inner GH as a defensive position but with a number of Lh out to the left to annoy me if I wheeled away from them.
Behind the Wb and to its right my mounted command was providing flank protection with some also discouraging any attempt to go around a marsh on my right which some of my Ps had occupied.
Initial PiPs apart from the ally were good and I shook out into my intended format and tried to activate the ally. It didn’t work and thereafter the CnC never got more than 3, so no more attempts were possible with the ally, the 2nd Wb command was as bad although the mounted command was okay for PiPs. The CnC was trying to control Wb and scare off the LH so never got to wheel and the 2nd command was forced to advance and engage on the GH.
During this time the chariots & some cavalry appeared on the road from behind the more central hill and turned between the hill to threaten the Wb on the hill and to engage with my cavalry. Soon thereafter a small group of Lh came over the other hill, thought better of trying to fight to outflank my right and joined the chariots.
While the PiPs were generally poor, my combat dice continually were strong so the Wb got up the hill without too many casualties, the cavalry survived the Kn chariots, even destroying one and only had one casualty. The one bound when the PiPs were good and the CnC could wheel inward & split to deal with the Lh, the combat dice failed and the casualties occurred.
PiPs fell away again but combat returned to strong and the Wb pushed aside a line of cavalry and were closing down on the baggage & their Hd guards while the mounted command kept their own & the Wb’s flanks intact and fought backwards and forwards until we timed out. And time out we did before the Wb could reach the baggage and a swirling Wb vs BwX fight which was pivoting 180* atop the GH reached a conclusion.
So a 13-12 from a fun but challenging game for a total of 50VP & 8th place after two submarines passed through.
First place to Lawrence Grieves, 2nd Chris Doran and 3rd Philip Nash, details on the HKWS pages along with multiple photos.
And then back to the food, (drink), boasting, commiserating and deconstructing games & outcomes.
It’s Book 1 armies next year, on the last weekend of November and I plan on going again, conditions permitting, and if anyone would like to join us you’d be most welcome.
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