The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold

On Monday I had another game of Impetus in 25mm, against Pete's New Kingdom Egyptians.  This is the army that I used to some effect last year with the chariots proving very powerful against almost all opposition.  Pete confessed at the start that in the 20 odd times he had used his Egyptians against Assyrians, under a number of different rule sets he had not managed a single win.  The omens were good.

I deployed first with the chariots in the centre, archers to either side, a decent unit of cavalry on the left and some scythians on the right. Pete put archers backed by spear in the centre and his chariots on his right.  His left flank was covered by a wood.

My plan was to angle my chariots across to take on the Egyptian chariots supported by the left flank archers with the other archers pinning the remainder of the Egyptian army. Pete advanced his chariots to take out the archers to their front supported by the foot archers on opportunity.

Put simply the Egyptian plan was superior!  My chariots were pretty much shot up by the foot archers and even though I was able to take out some chariots my army disintegrated before my eyes.  My charismatic general dying in the second turn, throwing a six on cohesion test and a six on a dice of destiny reroll did not help.

More like a mangy cur against a barricade than a wolf on the fold I am afraid!

Warhammer Fantasy - a bloody draw

Last Monday my Chaos Warriors, complete with new chariot and sorcerer on a floating disk took on Kev's Dark Elves

We had agreed on 2000 points which is a bit of a stretch for me so I bulked out with more magic stuff.

The scenario was from the rules and was the one with diagonal deployment.  I chose sides and then deployed first.  This scenario should help my forces get to grips earlier es but by deploying second Kev was able to pack one flank, which reduced this advantage.  His mounted knights arrived late as did a unit of my Chaos Warriors

The battle itself was a tale of two flanks.  On my leftt a unit of chaos knights did a lot of damage taking out 2 enemy units.  The late arriving warriors managed to kill off a unit of crossbowmen, which included a wizard.  The Elves success here was largely provided by a muli headed fire breathing beast which took out my mounted mauraders and was eventually able to chase down my sorcerer.

On the other flank the tardy knights went through a large unit of maurauders like a knife through butter and then took out the chaos warriors led by my general.  My lone sucess was the chariot taking out an enemy unit in one turn.

A bloody affair with by the end honours being about even.

I think next time I will spend the extra points on troops rather than magic

Update

A quick round up of my wargaming activity since my last post

5 games of Impetus, including 3 at our Impetus Tournament ‘Antonine’s Folly’  My Parthians did OK, finishing 5^th out of 10.  A lot of fun was had by all who took part.

The Renaissance equivalent of Impetus is Baroque (or will be when it’s published) and I have had a couple of ECW games of the free version, Basic Baroque.  Enough to whet my appetite – I will definitely buy the full version when it comes out, hopefully later this year,  

I have also had a game using the Great War rules for the immediate post WWI period with my Freikorps taking on some dastardly Soviet types.  This was very much an trial game, but worked well enough for a first attempt.

Most recently I have had a couple of games of Hail Ceasar, the second being Cimollia II, the next in my plan to refight the battles of the Peloponnesian Wars.  I got absolutely stuffed – the combat results can be (and were) pretty brutal with my entire centre disappearing after the first melee phase.

My only other game was at Carronade, a participation games entitled ‘A Needle in an ocean of Haystacks’ put on by the inimitable Blues Bears (I always want to call them the Blues Brothers for some reason).  My Wellington went out on a patrol over the North Atlantic looking for the proverbial needle in a Haystack and……. saw absolutely no enemy activity whatsoever.  Very realistic but not the most exciting game I am afraid!

Carronade itself was another great event.  I help organise it so don’t get a chance to see as much as I would like, it’s a very busy day.  It is a big commitment to put on a decent sized show for a relatively small club like ours but the result is always worth the effort and this year was no exception.  We had record numbers through the door, lots of entries for the painting competition and the flea market was very well utilised.  Thanks to all the traders and to the clubs who put on some fantastic games. 

As far as the blog goes the plan is to get regular postings going again, hopefully with some photos!