Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[John Murphy]

After settling down for the past couple weeks I am ready to try the
Cold Wars Doubles after-action report.

My teamate again this year, as for the past three-four-five years,
was Mark Hissam. After putting up with my somewhat random and
unexplainable decision-making for this time, Mark is moving and I
will be losing a long-time doubles partner. With that in mind I
really wanted to put on the 'A' game this year.

We ran my 2000-pt Moldavian list in 15mm (6x4 tables, no X-rules).
To whit...

2,002 tot. pts. (114 scout)
1 unit of CinC & Boyars 2E Irr A/B HK L,Sh PA-std @ 172 = 172
2 units of Sub-general & Boyars 2E Irr A/B HK L,Sh P-std @ 112 = 224
3 units of Boyars 2E Irr A/B HK L,Sh @ 94 = 282
4 units of Viteji 6E Irr C LC JLS,B,Sh @ 109 = 436 (1.5 ranks list
rule)
1 unit of Roumanian Foot 4E Irr C LMI JLS,Sh @ 61 = 61
6 units of Roumanian Bowmen 6E Irr C LI B,Sh/B @ 55 = 330
1 unit of Bombards 2E Reg C Art 4-crew, oxen @ 90 = 90
1 unit of Ally-general & Tartar Cavalry 2E Reg B/C HC L,B,Sh/L,B P-
std @ 141 = 141
2 units of Tartar Cavalry 2E Reg C HC/MC L,B,Sh/L,B @ 70 = 140
3 units of Tartar Cavalry 2E Reg C LC JLS,B,Sh/B @ 42 = 126
(Tartars get Mongol list rules)

This reflects pretty much the way I play this army nowdays. It was
perhaps a bit different for Mark though, but I must say he did very
well with them. We finished pretty much mid-table, but the game we
lost was mostly my loss and the game we drew we were winning on his
side of the board so I would say he picked it up pretty well, plus I
think there is not much question that Mark is the better player and
I am fortunate to have learned so much from him over the past few
years in our tournament games.

I am pretty comfortable with this army but have not entirely gotten
the hang of the new Mongol list rules (new in being applied to the
Tartar allies, that is). So I took the Tartars and a sub-general's
command consisting of half the Viteji, an LI unit, and the
obligatory LMI. Mark got the cannon (good choice - he did well with
them), the bulk of the LI and the wonderful Boyars as well as the
sub-general's command on his side.

We played the following opposition:
Round ONE: Dave & Hans Dietrich, Alexandrian Imperial
Round TWO: Bill Low & Mike Mallamaci, Tang Dynasty Chinese
Round THREE: Mike & Patrick Byrnes, Serbian

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Round ONE

This game was a reminder, needed everynow and then, that while teeny
advantages in LC combat are decisive it is also still very much a
crap-shoot. Mark squared off against Dave and the Macedonians while
I got Hans and the Indian allies. A large wood squarely in the
center of the board made this almost like two seperate battles.

After my swearing up and down to Mark "the Viteji kick butt on
anything they can n0t run away from - just toss them in and be
aggressive" we both put them up against enemies who rolled up in
support shooting and then we both rolled down in combat. Mark was
lucky, he was facing shielded LI so the worst that happened to him
was he broke off, I broke off, was caught and routed against some
Indian Irreg D shieldless bow-only dirtbags - not exactly but that
is what it felt like. Not an auspicious start to the battle. To make
matter worse I repeated the exact same feat on the next set of LC
units (at least these were Skythians or something). Meanwhile my LI
became elephant toe-jam and my sub-general's command went into
retirement just the very turn I was set to charge out of the woods
from concealment into the open flank of the elephants. The Tartars,
well, when they see the command next to them fold like that they
don't stick around very long - I am lucky they didn't decide to sack
my own baggage camp or something.

Mark handled things better on his side and firmed things up to trade
a couple shaken units. So we at least got a point, maybe two, to
their five.

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Round TWO

Bill and Mike for this game had very similar commands. Mark squared
off against Bill while I faced Mike. I have played Mike a couple
times before.

We had some great luck in this game - early on Mark's bombards shot
the bejeepers out of one of those nasty Tang MI LTS,B,Sh units (up
two or three) and forced a waver which they failed. They broke
pretty soon after that and Bill couldn't pass a waver test if his
life depended on it in that game.

On my side I did not really have anything to deal with the Tang
infantry, and Mike always seems to have a way to prevent you from
hitting the units he doesn't want you to hit. A wheel here, an
oblique there, and somehow his stuff you really don't want to tangle
with always winds up being in your way.

So I tried dismounting the Tartars. That game me the same foot
elements as he had, split into three units to his one larger unit
with the advantage to me of being HI in the front rank. Fine, I
could at least face him as equals even if I could not press my
advantage in LC. Well, the foot squared off a bound of prep
shooting. I rolled first, rolled up, and did the 2 CPF to him. He
wavered (shieless since he is firing back) and failed shaking his
huge foot unit. For just a single pristine moment things were
looking real great. Then he shot back at my three little units.
Against the two flanking units he only did 1 CPF, but against my
general he did 2 CPF and I had to take the waver now. I failed.
Unfortunately, he had his cataphracts nearby and my sub-general's
Boyars were nowhere near. The Tartar LC got one last charge in
against a shaken unit and caused it to break but Mike was passing
his wavers now. Just to tempt fate, my sub auto-rallied to disorder
at the end phase but sure enough next bound he was charged while
disordered by the cats and broke. The slew of checks did not go well
for me and the entire command was toast, while the sub-general's was
alright but with nothing to really make any headway.

This wound up, thanks to Mark's efforts on the other flank, a bloody
3-3 draw.

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Round THREE

I play Mike and Patrick a lot in the NoVa tourneys - both great
opponents to play against. In fact, while they have a few different
armies I can distinctly remember playing each of them as Serbians
with my Moldavians. Furthermore, Mike and I had been joking around
last time that if we both brought these armies to Cold Wars we would
certainly be assured of playing each other. And so it came to pass.

Mark faced Mike while I faced Patrick for this one. Most of the
Serbian knights were in the center with a couple large foot units to
each side and the light troops on the flanks.

I was starting to get the hang of the Tartars by now. They can crowd
into a very tight frontage on the flank and can move the heavies
right up behind to both cover them if they lose in combat and have
to break off and also exploit any success they achieve. This, I am
guessing, seems to be the way to use these. It worked here, against
a single 6E enemy LC unit my three Tartar LC got the upper hand with
the extra half rank, then had three chances to roll long, needed it
being regulars but sure enough one of the three did it and caught
and broke the enemy. This opened up the flank of the next unit of
lights to the Tartar heavies. Meanwhile my LMI unit was advancing
trying to present a nice target for the Serbian knights (with the
hope that the Boyars would be able to support). This did not exactly
play out. Instead the Serbian knights hung back a bit and the LMI
wound up facing the rapidly advancing enemy foot, which are big
nasty units with two handed weapons of some sort and a bad look in
their eyes. But Mark assured me if I got into position to charge
them impetuously he would crash some Boyars into their flank (which
was opened by the lagging Serbian knights staying back) and cancel
their charge. So with trepidation I set it up and lo and behold that
is how it happened. One or both of our units rolled up to boot and
the Serbian foot unit was broken. Not too much on the waver tests
except one of the knights backing up the outside flank shook, and
was sitting where some of the Tartars who were by now turning the
flank of the army could perhaps get to them. Well, that did not
happen but I did manage to start bringing up my sub-general. Patrick
moved his sub into contact to rally the unit and another bound would
have seen him pull it off without incident. Lucking my sub arrived
just in time and charged his sub, forcing him to abandon the rally
and counter-charge. It was looking bleak for Patrick but all he had
to was clobber my sub-general and he was still in it. He rolled up,
I didn't, but he only managed to recoil me as we were both
disordered. Next bound some Viteji charged into him alongside my sub
and that did the trick as he broke and that, combined with the fine
day for the Tartars, did his command in.

Mark got into a bit of a pickle rescuing my LMI as he failed to roll
up against the now-oncoming Serbian EHK in the knight battle and in
fact get his Irreg A CinC (he is less used to this) where he had to
charge a bound earlier than ideal with the result that the CinC
broke. Did well on wavers tho but still an expensive unit to lose..

I think this was a five-two or five-three.

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Overall, I had a blast as I always do playing in this tournament
every year. My favorite event of the year. This year, as always, the
sportmanship was excellent and the opposition tough - and the games
were all hard-fought.