So a quick update about the 'Worlds' at Derby, I played in the DBMM Teams competition, which thankfully had a nice round 8 teams, each team having three players, playing in each of three periods aligned with the DBMM List Books 2, 3, and 4. Teams were paired based on their progressive total score, i.e a Swiss Chess for teams.
I took the only army I had in 15mm, which I had finished the week before; Mongols, to discover I had one of three Mongol armies in the Book 4 pool.
Game 1 - Phil Hosker, Later Hungarian.. wedges, a mix of Light Horse and not much else.
I used exaggerated enemy strength and flank attack stratagems to try and get him to focus on my left, while sending a flank march on my right. I basically misjudged the distance, and the small LH command was hit by an overlapped wedge vs my General, plus two other Kn marched into the LH at the other end of the command... I had of course forgotten that Kn wedges weren't overlapped, and a series of 1s and 2s on the dice against his 5s and 6s.. and I had lost the general, plus two LH to break the command ... Not great.
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| Oops. my left hand command is monstered, as the flank march arrives. |
My flank march came on and very quickly caught and eventually broke the LH opposing, but in the meantime, I was having to dance to try and line up attacks on the numerous Kn wedges. Phil did a brilliant job of minimising chances for a successful attack with really strong local tactical and PIP ise skill. I had 3 or 4 opportunities with the wedges hard flanked at even or better odds, including one with a flank, and my CinC using a brilliant stroke at 4(S) to 2.. not a single one came off and Phil's dice continued to be exceptional. I managed to knock over 20% of his army with his broken LH command, and I had my chances.. but eventually the Kn(S) wedges were simply unstoppable. 21-4 to Phil.
Game 2 - Peter Kershaw, French Ordonnance
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| Game start |
Peter saw what he thought was an exposed space, and perhaps assumed he should push forward as fast as possible before a possible flank march arrived. Except that I had a concealed command behind the central hill, which rushed forward and charged downhill into his column.
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| Downhill attack and Mongols redeploying |
Peter took heavy casualties from the initial Mongol charge, and proceeded to put on a master class in using PIPS to fall back, get exposed elements out of the way, and hold off the Mongols to the end of the game. A draw with Chinggis unable to convert a winning position into an outright win. 15-10 to me.
Unfortunately, none of the team had been very lucky on day 1, and as day 2 started we had drifted inexorably to the bottom tables.
Game 3 - Javan Brierley, Teutonic Knights
You had to feel for Javan, this was his third Mongol opponent in three games, and I benefited from his frustration after spending the first two games swinging at air. I must confess to doing the same. I deployed a massive total of 14 fighting elements at the game start... with one Concealed Command and another on a Flank Attack. Javan decided to come out fighting, and just got caught front, flank and rear all over the place. Not much else he could do except try to kill a few.
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| The Mongols dance |
And that was that.. 25-0. Somewhat undeserved; as Javan had been softened up by the previous Mongols, and had no combat dice luck at all.
Game 4 - Steve Scott, Mongol
Another Mongol, this one larger, but with fewer elite cavalry, and with allied generals. Steve wasn't having his best day, and I made it worse. We literally finished before the neighbouring game had rolled their first movement PIP dice.
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| Mongols Charge!! |
After my first move! His ally general on my left was unreliable, so I decided just to go hard.. having Cavalry versus Light Horse in several spots. I rolled good PIPS and was within 15mm of him after my move. He had nowhere to go... so charged me, and did some damage, but my second move was also good for movement, and I was able to exploit where overlaps had been created to blow several holes in his line. I had three Cavalry generals in combat, and was able to get the bonus for their wing men (in DBMM a General who destroys his opponent, inspires his neighbouring troops). His ally became reliable, but was simply too late to do any damage to my flank guards before I broke his army. 25-0 to Chinggis.
So at the end of the day, a couple of lucky wins, and with maximum points from Games 3 & 4 against unlucky opponents, I somehow managed to sneak into 3rd place in the individual standings. I will draw a veil over the overall team results, where we managed to manfully hold up everyone else. Oops.
Pretty happy for my first DBMM competition outing in the UK, and fantastic hospitality from John Saunders, but I can see from the games against Peter and Phil that I will have to really up my game.
