Chinggis rides out in Derby

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mongols

I have been holding off on this post for a while, because I intended to play at the Derby World Team Championships..  (Wargames seems to be like wrestling, there's IWF, WWF, XWF, and WTF.. ok, the last one was made up..)

Anyway, Jeff Caruso announced some time ago on Fanaticus that he was stopping casting his figures, and having seen pictures, I contacted him, and asked what he had left.. almost enough to make a DBMM 400 point army, (assuming I took a Brilliant General and some 'stratagems') - I was still four figures short, and Greg found some in the pile and very kindly posted them to me. So with a month to go, figures available..   it's painting time!

The whole army...  one of the smallest I have ever used

Mongol Light Horse

More Light Horse, Pack Camels in the background

And yet more..

Light Horse and the Khitan Liao Sub-General with his escort cavalry

  

At Long Last

Firstly - if you actually follow this blog, it has been a very long interval between posts. Real life, in the form of a new job, an international move, and so on, has intervened. Virtually all of my toys have been sold, put in storage or loaned out to friends. So wargaming has been on something of a hiatus, not least till I find some players here in my new home in Scotland.

But all has not been lost, I managed to make it to Carronade - the wargames show in Falkirk, and to Claymore, which is the big Scottish show in Edinburgh, and I picked up some bits and pieces at both. My Indiegogo and Kickstarter stuff has started to trickle in, a good friend in Australia has sent on some lead, and I have even picked up a paint-brush. So - a quick recap:

Arrived with all my 6mm Baccus stuff packed into a small box, hidden in a cardboard box of clothing along with paints..  Rules, I brought Horse, Foot & Guns, and DBMM, ordered a replacement copy of DBA3, and when I got here, got my copy of Sharp Practice 2, plus counters. So, have rules, figures next.

Baueda sent me the Indiegogo funded packs I had been waiting for,'Italo-Normans' - lovely figures, but unfortunately, still pending their release of crossbowmen. These will eventually form a DBMM Early Crusader army, led by Bohemond, once Claudio gets the crossbowmen done.

In other DBMM news, John sent me over the Pass of the North Mongols, a tiny army, and even padding with a 'Brilliant' General, plus stratagems, left me two elements short of a 400AP standard army. A quick appeal on 'Fanaticus' and the very generous Greg K. dropped some leftovers in the post. Absolutely lovely figures, with a huge number of variants, and sadly out of production now. These guys have to be ready by October to compete at Derby so painting is underway!

At Carronade: the second hand stall had a whole bunch of American War of Independence (AWI) British, 28mm Foundry so I picked up enough for Sharp Practice, and a box of the Perry Plastics for their opponents..   Warbases supplied a pack of carts..  some dice, and bob's your uncle.

Claymore - hmm..   Baccus was there, so I came away with a whole WSS Imperials pack, plus flags.

And for some inexplicable reason - I had a look at the 1st Corps 28mm WW2 range, and ended up with a pack each of their German and British infantry squads...

Oh well, at some stage I will add another couple of squads each, and get some Chain of Command games in..

Back to the Mongols...   Bactrian baggage camels arrived in the post yesterday. Now there's a phrase you don't use very often!