Four excellent games over the weekend at the annual Pukekohe "Heavy Metal" Convention, although I dodged too much heavy lifting by using my mainly plastic 28mm Andalusians for 3 games and my 20mm New Kingdom Egyptians for the last. Great games against excellent opponents in a fun atmosphere, with many people already issuing challenges and booking opponents for next year.
My four games are summarised below:
Game One was the Andalusians against Paul Graham's Late Imperial Romans
in a 450AP encounter. If anything could go wrong it did. My flank marching Feudal Spanish Ally arrived in good time but then rolled 2,1,1 for pips in subsequent bounds and so never got into the game. I engaged Paul's mounted command with my significantly more numerous mounted, on the foolish assumption that superior numbers would be decisive.....they weren't. And then, with my mounted command broken, my CinC skillfully allowed himself to be 6-1'd by a Roman legionary, causing his already damaged command to also break for a 22-3 to Paul.
Game Two was my annual grudge match against against Mark Caunter using Later Carthaginians at 400AP. While I could claim appalling dice as a mitigating factor in the previous game, against Mark I can use no such crutch. Using a poorly constructed Andalusian list, the Feudal Spanish ally was thrown away in a badly timed and inadequately supported charge, a brain explosion of epic proportions handed my defensive left flank to Mark on a plate and, despite surrounding and attacking Mark's elephants from all directions (honestly, one of them must have become dizzy from the number of times it was forced to spin around by unsuccessful rear attacks), I was only able to get one of four. Against such a well organised player as Mark, all this meant that I was probably flattered by the 2-23 scoreline, with Mark now taking a decisive 463-461 lead in our lifetime rivalry. Grrrrrrr
Game Three saw the Andalusians in action again, this time playing Bryan Osbourne's Classical Indians, also at 400AP. I was using a much simpler and better organised list than in the previous game, although that helped little as Bryan's Indian Bd and massed elephants smashed their way through the Andalusian spear line. However Bryan was exceptionally unlucky to lose the War Wagons that were anchoring his flank to successive 5-1 dice splits by my mounted troops, opening up the flank and rear of his victorious command and allowing me to scrape to a 19-6 win.
Game Four was another epic grudge match, this time against Richard Foster; my New Kingdom Egyptians (in small but perfectly formed 20mm) against his full sized Middle Assyrians. Poor Richard was on the back foot from the start, not only having to deploy first but with poor early pips preventing him redeploying to improve the match ups. In addition, despite using the Delayed Battle stratagem, his flank march was so late it almost missed the game entirely. The Egyptian mercenary foot, Sherden Bd(O) and Libyan Wb(F), steadily chewed through the Assyrian foot while massed Egyptian archers fragmented the Assyrian chariot formations. These then arrived piecemeal, taking losses on the way in and with any breakthroughs swiftly dealt with by lurking Egyptian axemen (Bd(X)). Late in the game, Richard looked forlornly at the 14 elements in the 'dead pile' of one Egyptian command, thinking they must be close to breaking. The trouble was the losses were all 1/2 ME Libyans and Bw(I), so only 7 ME from a command of 36! The final result was a 25-0 to the plucky 20mm Egyptians over their gigantic 28mm opponents!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2456838011142443/
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Paul's Late Imperial Romans
 | Over confident Andalusian horsemen swoop down on the outnumbered Roman mounted wing.
 | "Surely we must overwhelm them"
 | Apparently not........
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The flank marching Feudal Spanish are too late to achieve much
 | The final indignity.........
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 | Mark's Later Carthaginians (in 20mm plastic - another who bucked the "Heavy Metal" theme)
 | This flank "looks" safe enough - I was too ashamed of what eventually happened here to photograph it. Insanity!
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 | A fruitless attempt to outflank the Carthaginian line
 | The Feudal Spanish charge and die unsupported. I was too demoralised by this stage to photograph further what was becoming inevitable 
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Bryan's Classical Indians
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My Andalusians line up to face them
 | The WWg covering Bryan's left flank have been overwhelmed by the Andalusian mounted (and dice!)
 | Undeterred, the Indian elephants and Bd line up the Andalusian spearline.....
 | And smash straight through!
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 | However, a rear attack on the Indian General seals the game for the Andalusians
 | Richard's Assyrians
 | Their Egyptian opponents
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 | An example of Richard's shocking early pips. They did get better but by then it was too late
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| Assyrian chariot attacks are broken up Egyptian shooting......... |
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.......while Sherden Bd(O) commence dining on Assyrian Ax.
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| Losses mount on the Assyrian chariots who will eventually break before their late arriving flank march can intervene |
Vincent Cholewa+1
Many thanks for the reports and pics, Andrew. I enjoyed reading and seeing them. Is there a message in your results perhaps? Cold, hard bronze prevailed like no other. I wonder about this new-fangled medieval steel ...
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