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2004 Played in at least one competition this year with Paul as my partner I will have to look at the NDBML to find results, just put it down to moving and middle age. Final Round of the 2003 NDBML held at the Tower Armouries at Leeds 30/11/03
We were just in time! We decided to give my Southern Dynasty Chinese army an outing or rather I did, Paul had never even seen them! First game against Adrian Steer & Paul Bradon with Ottomans and Serbian ally, we defended, terrain was around the edges and played little part in the debacle apart from a small hill that our Kn (f) sat on only to be shot to death by Janissaries (Bw(S) They lined their Serbian Knights up with Cv(S) charged our Chinese foot Bd(F) and that was that! we did not even kill an element, the plus was that we had lots and lots of time to wander around the museum! 0 - 10 Thanks for the game/lesson and for being such good sports. Game Two This time against another three command Knight base army, Romanian Frank as fielded by Chris Jackson & A Pinder just what our Chinese didn't want! Paul sent our Dare to Die and Southern Barbarian Warband to take on their Inf/Knight command, we lost but slowly and the remnants kept their victorious troops busy for the rest of the game, they lined their other two commands of Knights up with Bw(I) on the flank, I managed to get Chinese Bd(F) into them and the Chinese spears held the centre and that was that! with some Knight losses that took their C - in - C's command. In the center their Knights began to chew our Bd(F) but with some nice pips we managed to get a second line of Kn(F) into the breakthrough troops. Time called and 7 - 3 to us. Yes, we actually got a win or rather a winning draw and on top of that the booby prize for the lowest score over three matches!! What a year!
Ceasefire 2003 in Manchester on the 27th July provided the backdrop to Paul and My only singles competition so far this year. Paul was using his newly painted Numidians (see Paul thinking) and it was the third outing for my book one Early Nubians (For the Army lists used either use this link or the main link to the left). The format for Ceasefire is singles at 400 points; the first match was against Keith Nathan and another damn Pre-Islamic Arabs (LPIA) army! I invaded and as I had the mighty Nubian navy and I wanted to use my Boats (I), I put a Waterway down on my left and of course Keith had two Dhows, (Ship (O) Doh! Keith surprised me in putting a lot of terrain down none of which really played a significant part in the game. On my left I placed my C-in-C’s Bow (Bw (O) command with
Psiloi archers and Javelins plus the single Egyptian merc. Light horse (LH (F),
the boats I left in the box!, in the centre was the Warband command with Psiloi
archers and javelins and on the right a further Bow command with the
usual Psiloi archers and Javelins. 100.5 EE! Keith’s army was the usual mixture of Camels, Bows backed by Blades, Light horse and Psiloi and not forgetting his Navy, he had only three commands again a surprise, I’m used to them being in four commands, practically straight away I sent my single light horse into an end LH (I) but was 6-1 for my trouble, anyway the game looked like it would time out as a draw with Keith trying hard to move his Bd (o) out of the way of my Warband (F) in the centre and into my Bow on my left, he managed to remove some Bows with light horse attacks and then began to bring Bd (I) forward, however in desperation for a result he sent his C-in-C (Cv (O) against some isolated bow, won and picked up my C-in-C in the process. With 6.5 casualties already that was the end for my left hand command! Almost immediately I finished off his left command with bow fire, so a draw looked favourite, a quick visit to the toilet in which time final movement was called as per match rules, a little bit of unpleasantness later and I had lost the game (@#%4:*!) You live and learn. 4 points to me. See me not happy! Next Game against Chris Tonge from Rotherham with his wait for it.......Early Nubians, Yes a Nubian civil war and best of all the chance for the Nubian navy to see battle as he had naval elements as well, in fact to be more precise one naval element Bt (I) Ha! Chris had decided to go for an increase in Light Archer (Ps
(O) at the expense of Bows (Bw (O) and to use them aggressively, a tactic that
he thought that his opponents would not expect. He had three commands with his Warband (Wb (F) split between
the centre and his left commands, each of the commands also had a mixture of Bw
(O) and Ps (O/I) except for his right command that had the single element of
light horse (LH (F) at the back of his other troops. Chris invaded and laid down a Waterway on the right, I lost my 1.5 fee of compulsory Rough going but placed the 1.0 fe of marsh then as defender a further 3 x .5 fe of rough going but once again the terrain played little part in the game. 102 E.E. versus 100.5 E.E. He attacked strongly on my left with Ps (O), probing through rough going and then launched a series of attacks against my Bw (O), It really ended up as a spoiling attack and nothing else, if he could have got some supported combats at 2 v 2, with me in danger of losing 2 elements for the possible cost of .5 element to him then it was worth the risk but he came in piece meal, lost the combats and was shot away. On my right on the Waterway his single Bt (I) met my two Bt (I) and after some pushing and pulling his Bt (I) went to the bottom! Thank God for the Nubian Navy. Chris's spoiling attack on my left had created a gap between my left and my centre Warband command that had moved forward, Chris began to push Ps (O) into the gap so that he could flank the Warband and threaten my centre attack, all I had available was a single Ps (I) javelin, so in he went!, he hit a double ranked Ps (O) forced them to flee and also forced another four in the vicinity to do the same. My Warband command extended its frontage and went straight into Chris's centre Warband, I managed to get overlaps on them and began to eat through them to the bows, his left command had Bw (O)/Ps (O) in front of Warband facing my Bw (O), I began to shoot his Ps (O) away, plus his Bw (O) began to go down so he let his Wb (F) go spono!! They did not reach my troops and so were in disarray, I hit the first one with a Bw (O) plus one overlap and picked up three Warband for my trouble after that they began the fall apart but then time was called, so 17 - 15 to me. Great opponent and we laughed through most of the game. Once again a great event and many thanks to the organisers. Picked up a nice battle pack of Lancashire games Imp, Roman auxiliaries as the prize for the 'Unluckiest General!!'
The third round of the 2003 NDBML League was held at MAWS due to the cancellation of Fiasco at Leeds, we decided or should I say I decided we would use Dynastic Bedouin from Aleppo, plus Hamdanid Arab ally!!, Paul wanted us to use some fancy army that would allow us to win outright! bah! humbug. We were on time! at least. First game Against Pre-Islamic Arabs 586 AD as fielded by Jack Statin & Grahame Finney. Now as I have said before you really get more for your Pound with LPIA and this particular army was no exception, Lots of Cm (O), LH (O), LH (I), Bw (O) and Ax (O) I had always thought that the Bedouin was a fair sized army but not now! It was four commands each, with us invading, so we put down
a road and three steep hills, only one had any effect on the game and that was
in their LH sector with Arab warriors (Ax (O)) positioned on its forward flank
(by the way boys you should have sent your Ax(O) into a one element wide column
when attempting to move off the steep hill).
Their plan, I think was to apply pressure on both flanks whilst bringing
up their centre to do the dirty! Our plan was to hold and skirmish our right
flank and then form an attack on our left with Bedouin Volunteer Cavalry (Cv
(S)), Abid (Bw (X)) and Bedouin light horse. Facing us was Cm (O) in column,
Arab light horse and Arab archers, our idea was to get the Abid into the Camels
but poor pips and a game that was as slow as treacle put paid to that! They managed to come around on our right flank with light
horse to take a light horse element before we dismounted our archers to help
form a defensive wall, their centre moved slowly forward as ours did……..End
of game, they killed 3 light horse we killed one, 5-5.
IMHO they played for a draw and got it, but by God were they slow, nice
guys but slow players. Second game This time against Paul Crozier & Stuart Hunt, two excellent
protagonists we have played before, as last time when we played them they had Early
Crusader but this time it was the regular variety.
They had four commands and attacked
with a river down their left (They had tried for a Waterway but there’s
nothing like that in the Bedouin list), we put down three half element dunes and
three half element rough going, on the left we had our Daylami command, LH(O),
Cv(S), Ax(S) in rough going and PS(O) in ambush in a dune, in the centre we had
the mounted Archers and Swordsmen (Bd(I)) and more Cv(S) volunteers, light horse
(O) & (I), our right flank included the Abid, further light horse &
Volunteer Cv(S) then the river. Our
small Arab Ally was set back near our camp (We did this in both games to give
him a rest!) They advanced in one long line of spear, blade and bow with
a Kn(F) reserve, an awesome sight if ever there was one, I sent the Daylami
(Ax(S)) through the woods to the edge where they were attacked by Bd(O)
followed by Sp(O) and eventually Bw(O), on the left of the wood Bedouin light
horse skirmished with spear and bow, in the centre both armies met after the mounted
infantry had dismounted and some desultory bow fire.
Paul sent the Arab Ally across the river to attack the flank of the
approaching Blades and spears, things were looking interesting…… But the
Daylami command succumbed after destroying it’s fair share of enemy and soon
after the mounted Infantry command went down, so 0-10, but a great game
with sporting opponents even though they kept getting sixes…..Honest Paul I'm
not complaining Pluses for us were:
Minuses
The second round of the 2003 Northern DBM League was held at MAWS at Walkden Manchester on Sunday the 27th April, It was our turn to take our Class 1 army, Eastern Patrician Romans with Arab Ally, Pre 476 AD, this is Paul's army and we have had some good games with it in the past, it is the Cavalry version with LH(F), LH(O), Kn(F), Kn(X) and Cm(O)/LH(O) with the Arab Ally, trouble is it's a very small army and we are not corner sitters so there is always a result, usually against us!! Paul arrived early!! First game First game against Richard Hardy & Bryan Horrocks with Ottoman Turks 1400 AD, They had 4 commands as we did, they invaded, no weather, terrain of little interest and best of all their Albanian ally is unreliable! The rush is on then, for us to break any of their commands and give us the game with there ally changing sides! or them to break one of our commands and bring their unreliable ally back. They won the race but it was close for a while due to their poor dicing and our lack of imagination. We tried to do most of the fighting with one command and when that went down they took out our Arab ally which broke on 3 (sound familiar) High point for us was killing a nice compact block of 4 Janissaries (Bw(S), good friendly opponents who eventually won the competition. 0-12 Second game Feeling a little chastened we then took on Paul Johnson & Paul Dawson who used the dreaded Later Pre Islamic Arabs now that is a big army! lots of Cm(O), LH(O), Bw(O) & Bd(I) However we new we were in for trouble when we spotted that they had on matching BHGS Polo shirts, most peculiar having three Pauls around the table at the same time, I felt quite claustrophobic! Again our opponents had 4 commands with only three on the table... flank march! Terrain created a little Rough going festung in our left hand sector and with hindsight we should have corner sat there! (just joking folks...Honest!) so the flank march could only come on our right. The Idea was to hold on our right which was guarded by a BUA and our left by the rough going then the main attack would be in the centre, however they pinned us with LH(F) in the centre whilst they lined up their Cm(O).
On move three their very large flank attack came on drawing LH(F) from our flank Command and all our Arab Ally's Command from the centre, to no avail as we arrived piece meal and we were defeated in detail. High point for us in the centre was when our 4 Kn(X) took on all comers and held their ground. Our left, Paul's command did sterling work but suffered with archery causalities, our 4 Ax(S) took on a mixed bunch of Bw(O) and Bd(I) and acquitted themselves with style. All to no avail when our Kn(F) with overlaps took on their Cm(O) and a consecutive series of 6's were thrown!!! the only trouble was we didn't throw them! Same two commands as last time 0-12 Again another good friendly team. Our Arab ally must be getting worried, he has gone down in all four matches this year.
The first round of the 2003 Northern DBM league will be held Vapnartak at York Race Course on Sunday February 2nd 2003 (My Birthday) Paul and I both have parents in Hospital at the moment his in Wales mine in Boston, Lincs. now if you think this is just an excuse to explain any future losses you maybe right! We took Buyids of Baghdad Paul and I even managed to arrive on time First game. Against Khitan Liao as fielded by Paul Brandon & Brian Mitchell except Paul could not get a pass out!. We defend, 2 x RGo, 2 x D and 2 Wds, so far so good except 5 of the 6 pieces of terrain go in our opponent's right hand sector! He had 4 equal commands, we tried to take on one of the commands with our Bedouin Ally (Break on 3), very silly! and in the centre we sent Ax(S) from the C-in-C's Command against Kn(F), it worked for one period! Honest. In defence we did manage to break one of his commands so we went down 1-9 Wander around the show which was quite good, and an improvement on the Merchant Venturer's Hall in York centre, purchased some Elves for my Boys and some more pre cut bases then back to the Table.
Second game. This time Anglo Normans as fielded by Colin Betts and Mick Goss, we defend and go for the same terrain as before and this time it lands in the right place. We decide to ambush with Ax(S) in a Wd and Bd(F) in a gulley that Colin had placed, so far so good but then Colin pointed out our Pants Moment, the gulley was in the centre sector so no ambush and the Bd(F) start on the base line! doh!!! Same as before we try to take on a full command with our Bedouin Ally, with the same result (you think we would have learnt by now) then we sent the CinC's Ax(S) against a mixed bag of Bw(I), Kn(F) and others and guess what? history repeated itself. The high point for us was the Zott Mercenaries (Bd(F) after they had slogged it from the base line, creaming the Welsh Ax(X) in the gulley and causing the loss of their Welsh Ally Command, but still1-9 down. Overall result third from the bottom but nice folks to play with and at a much improved venue. ps, you would have thought that Colin and Mick would have let us win as it was my Birthday!!
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