Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Todd Schneider]

Team Tournament AAR.

Thisis just a review of my matches, not my teams.

My Main goal in this Tournament was to place better than half, if not
top 6 (dependent on the total number of participants of course. Win more
games than I lost, and have a good time. I succeeded in all counts, and
had a great time doing so!

Most of the local crowd tends to play the same time of Army, Shock.
Knights plus some Infantry scattered about (Hundred Years War English is
pretty popular, as is Medieval Spanish. The recent changes to Berbers
have also made them much more viable, in fact I am working on a 25mm
Berber Army, that’s how much I like it now…). As a play tester for
Fantasy Warrior spent a lot of time playing a Later Imperial Roman style
Army that I have to admit, while it forced me to learn the various
nuances of each type of unit, it didn’t really suit my playing style. I
am more of a defensive counter puncher by nature, and playing Knight
Armies just isn’t me. Personally, I am not sure how much skill there is
in running gobs of SHK (Or knights in various combinations), IMO I think
people tend to rely too heavily on them, or Elephant. I am biased in
that regards though, as I don’t run them the foundation for my argument
is weak…

Anyways, I have found a 15mm Army I like, and will probably be playing
it until then end of time. One of the reasons I did so well this
tournament was that I have played nothing but Araucanians for the past 9
months or so, ever since I came across the list. With the local team
tournament we’ve been playing, and the pickup games, I am getting better
at running it against all types of armies, and while it has its
problems, I think well handled this army can stand up to most anything.

Here’s the List I ran:

Araucanian, New World Warrior List 8

Cold

1E CinC and 1E Irr C MI LTS, B, Sh, PA @ 141

1E Sub G and 1E Irr C MI LTS, B, Sh @ 81

1E Tribal Ally Gen Irr B with JLS, B, Sh, P

6E Warriors Irr B LMI ½ HTW, B, Sh; ½ JLS, B Sh @ 106

6E Warriors Irr B LMI ½ HTW, B, Sh; ½ JLS, B Sh @ 106

6E Warriors Irr B LMI ½ HTW, B, Sh; ½ JLS, B Sh @ 106

6E Warrior 1E Irr B, 5E Irr C MI LTS, B, Sh @ 124

6E Warrior 1E Irr B, 5E Irr C MI LTS, B, Sh @ 124

6E Warrior 1E Irr B, 5E Irr C MI LTS, B, Sh @ 124

4E Warriors 1E Irr B, 3E Irr C MI ½ 2HCW, B, Sh; ½ JLS, B, Sh @ 90

4E Warriors 1E Irr B, 3E Irr C MI ½ 2HCW, B, Sh; ½ JLS, B, Sh @ 90

6E Runners 6E Irrc C LI B, Sh

5E Tribal Veterans 5E Irr C, LMI 2E @HCW, B, Sh, 3E JLS, B, Sh @ 81

6E Tribal Warriors 6E Irr C LI JLS, S, Sh @ 73

6E Tribal Warriors 6E Irr C LI JLS, S, Sh @ 73

6E Tribal Warriors 6E Irr C LI B, Sh @ 61

6E Tribal Warriors 6E Irr C LI B, Sh @ 61

3 Commands

15 Scouting points

16 Units

My primary plan is to let my opponent come to me if he wishes, and
attack if I have to. I am all about the Probe with this Army, there’s
little reason to ever be on attack orders, especially when the
opportunity to shoot my opponents to disorder and get the free charge is
there.

The Tribal Command (sometimes “supplemented by one of the 2HCW Units or
LTS moving over to assist after deployment) either skirmishes in front
or on the flank, depending opponent. I try and close or slow down one
flank with a Major Water Feature or a couple of brushes, a Marsh to
close down as much of that flank as possible, and then an open space to
leave some maneuvering room. More often than not my Opponents try and
take as many open spaces as possible to try and let their mounted have
free reign.

My First opponent was Will Muckle, playing Berbers. He’s very new to
Warrior, less than 10 games played, and it showed. His set up was quite
confused, he wasn’t sure where to put his Christian command, and he set
up much of his Light Cav in front of the rest his army. This is not to
say he’s a bad player, on the contrary his grasp of the rules and what
he did with the units he had in position are very good, better than I
was at 100 games, let alone 10. Had I any mounted myself I would have
been straining at the bit to cause as many waver test as I could, but
alas, I only move on 2’s and had to do what I could. I am pretty sure he
didn’t expect to see as many bows as I have, a common theme for all of
my opponents. His command of the rules however, is very good, and where
he had freedom to move his troops, he did it quite well. He sent one
small command against my skirmishers, moved the rest of his bodies
towards the center, and was moving the majority of his knights towards a
brush area when he realized his mistake. He spent the rest of the game
trying to get the out of the way, and they played no part in the battle.

The rest of the game went to the Araucanian plan: March forward, split
what fire he has, disorder his troops, and send in the “Half-Moogs” to
finish up the job. There was one turn where I broke one of his Spear
blocks, which caused a series of failed wavers down the line, and the
game was essentially over, a 5-0 victory to me.

After the game, Will and I sat and talked about deployment, and I gave
him what little wisdom I have in this regard. We had a good discussion,
and he took it very well, so much so that with a better deployment he
made Jon work for a 3-2 Victory later in the tournament (Although
admittedly Jon had a couple of bad die rolls at critical times).

If Will’s progression is the same as he showed this tournament, he’ll be
a force to be reckoned with very soon.

My Second game was against Kelly Wilkinson’s Seleucids. I’ve played
Kelly before, and knew what to expect, gobs of Elephants, some Pike
blocks and Mounted, with some LI. He didn’t disappoint, and he
capitalized on the mistakes I made Early and Often. I wasn’t as
aggressive as I could have been, and Kelly forced marched a large (10E
If I recall) block of LI, them marched it on my left flank, pinning most
of my troops there. While I could shoot it to pieces, I couldn’t force
it to run away, a failure that was due to a lack of aggressiveness on
may part. Kelly beat up on one of my commands while the other was
pinned, and if the game had gone longer, it would have been a bloody 5-3
Victory for him. As it was, it was a bloody 5-1 loss for me. It did show
me that I needed to be a bit more aggressive in certain situations, so
watch out next time Kelley!

The next morning my first game was against Jon Becker’s “Late Early
Poles”….well, they were Polish, and they gave me some fits. His main
Infantry units were big blocks of front ranked 2HCW guys, back rank JLS
and all of ‘em had bows. Lots of Knights running around as well.

I had my Tribal command on the left, behind some Brush and some Woods,
deployed in what I call the “Midianite Gambit”, one units about 100
paces behind the other, so they can interpenetrate each other on evades
and still be somewhat effective shooters.

Jon spent most of the game trying to maneuver to set up one or two
bloody rounds, I maneuvered to try and at least mitigate that, while
working up a way to split the fire of his two big infantry Units. He
sent 3 Knight units on the left towards my LI command, and the “Gambit”
worked very well, how much of it was luck I am not sure. One Unit
charged my LI through the brush, and the next turn, as it was rallying
as disordered HC, I shot it for 2. He failed the waver test, and the
next bound the same thing happened to another Knight unit, I shot it to
disordered, he charged, I evaded, and shot him again the next bound for
2COF, when he failed yet another waver. I am not going to rely on my
opponent failing wavers all the time, but the more my opponent does
fail, the better for me.

The last bound of combat was fairly anticlimactic, we set up a bunch of
mutual combats that left most of our troops disordered and tired, and
that was about it. Neither of us did enough to really hurt the other,
and we both had a couple of shaken units at the end of the game, a 1-1 tie.

My last game was against John Garlic’s NASAMW list Han. I closed down
one flank with a Major Water Feature, the other flank with a couple of
woods, and forced marched everything I had to the Center line. I am not
sure John was ready for that , but we we’re fighting in bound two. He
had some artillery deployed in the center that made short work of one of
my “Half Moog’s” forcing it to waver (which it failed). The rest of the
game was a shoving match, his chariots versus my bows and LTS, while he
tried to bring up as much infantry as he could, the artillery created a
traffic jam he had a hard time working around.

I got a couple of rolls I needed, driving of some of his mounted, which
forced a couple of wavers he failed. He did better in the center, and
this was one of those game that had it gone for one more round, it would
have been a very bloody affair. As it was, it ended up being a 2-1
victory to me. Admittedly, John and I were rushed because he had a hard
departure time, but it was a fun game to play. I had yet to play a
Chariot army with my guys, and they stood up quite well.

All in all, I am very pleased with the way I performed this tournament.
I have found an Army I like, and the more I play with it, the better I
get with it (as is the case for everyone else I believe).

I really appreciated John Garlic’s coming out, I had a very enjoyable
game with him, in fact all the games I played were very fun, and I
learned quite a bit from all of them.

Hopefully we’ll see more out-of-towners at next Years tournament, I
think I can safely say for everyone involved that it was a great time.

Todd



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