Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Murray Evans]

The next Australian Warrior comp is being held in Newcastle on 25th / 26th August 2007.

The theme is to use an army which has not been previously used by anyone in an Australian Warrior comp previously. We have prepared a list of the 142 possible armies to choose from (attached).

1500 points, 8 x 5 size tables over 4 games of 3 1/2 hours.

Should be interesting to see what turns up.

Muz

[Murray Evans]

At the end of day 1 of the Newcastle comp, the standings are as follows:

10 pts Paul Collins Ptolemaic
Greg Preston Romanian Frank
Murray Evans Navarrese
9 pts John Ball Pyrrhic
8 pts Dale Dobie Skythian
Martin Williams Northern / Southern Chinese
6 pts Paul Rattray Italian Ostrogoth
Mike Morgan Early Saxon
Mark Ball 10 Independent State Chinese
Jeff Tillitzki Burmese
Ian Poade Pyrrhic
5 pts Bob Jeffrey Champa
Leigh Dunn Boran Irish
3 pts Darren Holmes Tang Chinese
Garry Coughlin Boran Irish
Steve Honeyman Blemye / Nobades
Graeme Ralph Polybian Romanian
John Harris Early Teutonic
2 pts Barry Hayes Illyrian
1 pt Geoff Crick Serbian

20 starters, which is great. The theme for the comp is to choose an army which has not been used in an Australian Warrior comp before. Lots of interesting stuff being used.

Muz

[Greg Preston]

The latest oz comp has been run and won.
Special thanks to Murray Evans for his organizational work, Darren Holmes for the trophies, Bob J and Warren H for the tables and terrain.

The comp was run over 2 days. 2 by 3.5 hour games per day. 1500pts on 8 by 6 tables. Preset terrain.
The “theme” was armies which hadn’t been used in an Oz warrior comp before (see list in previous post). 20 players- therefore 40 games across the two days- (notably only 4 draws). Standard warrior rules and scoring.

The final results were as follows:

17 pts Paul Collins Ptolemaic
16pts Greg Preston Romanian Frank
15 pts Paul Rattray Italian Ostrogoth

Special award: Steve Honeyman Blemye / Nobades

Other players
Murray Evans Navarrese
John Ball Pyrrhic
Dale Dobie Skythian
Martin Williams Northern / Southern Chinese
Mike Morgan Early Saxon
Mark Ball 10 Independent State Chinese
Jeff Tillitzki Burmese
Ian Poade Pyrrhic
Bob Jeffrey Champa
Leigh Dunn Boran Irish
Darren Holmes Tang Chinese
Garry Coughlin Boran Irish
Warren Hedley Later Tang
Graeme Ralph Polybian Roman
John Harris Early Teutonic
Barry Hayes Illyrian
Geoff Crick Serbian

For those who are interested in such things, my match reports follow:

I took Romanian Frank

My army was:

4 by 2E blocks of EHK (2 with generals)
2 by 6E spearman/xbow mixed units
1 6E LC
4 units of LI -2 with, J/Sh- 2 with Bow
two identical commands (except the CinC’s command had the LC added)

single element Cat. EHK ally general
4E LC
2 by 6 E Moogs

The plan was a traditional one for this type of army: to hold/pin things with the LI, use the spear/xbow units the ‘help out” the LC and hit with the knights and Moogs.

Deployment was the same for each game. Cin C on the left with the LI Bow and LI J/Sh force marched. Sub on the right with both units of LI force marched, with the Cat. Command deployed behind the Sub command (so the Cat. LC could cover my right flank)

Game One
Vs North/South Chinese

On paper not a bad matchup- the Knights should take care of the SHC and the Moogs will be more than a match for the spear blocks. BUT two problems. 1. My opponent is one that I traditionally don’t do well against and, 2 facing lots of rank-and-a-half LC didn’t seem like the ideal way to try to win the battle of the lights. After some indecisive shooting, all four blocks of my Light infantry were charged by opp. LC. Some good dice and useful shooting, combined with some bad combat dice for my opponent meant that NONE of the LI units routed. Thus next bound saw all the LI blocks “replaced” by real fighting troops- the resulting routs and wavers meant the result was never in doubt. A couple of knight units got a little “carried away” in the resulting pursuits but still-an early finish 5-3 to the good guys.

Game two
Vs early Saxon.

Now the more observant of you will have noted that early saxon wasn’t actually one of the armies which hadn’t been used before-and therefore wasn’t really eligible- however, anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the early saxon list will likewise recognise that nobody in their right mind SHOULD have used it before- therefore it was allowed.
My opponent, usually one of the most aggressive player on the local scene, took the unusual step of setting up in a corner, with a defendable obstacle covering most of the “non-table edge” flank. He had 4 by 12 foot blocks supported by a number of smaller HI blocks and plenty of LI. Now in fairness, I am not sure that I would have been any braver. Foot with pointy sticks against EHK and Moogs is not a matchup that I would enjoy. Anyway, I picked a large foot block not behind the obstacle, punched two knight blocks into it an waited for the failed waver. It came eventually, and the army rolled up from the exposed flank. An interesting sideline to this battle was that the Saxon general flank marched a command consisting of a large foot block with sub-general and a small block of LI archers. Seeing a chance to see off the entire FM with the rout of the LI my Catalan LC foolishly decided to test rather than recall as a shooting response. Mental Note(for the 500th time): NEVER test when you don’t have to!!.
5-1 to the good guys.

Game three;
Vs Ptolemaic
A fairly even game with chances on both sides in this one. Facing a traditional Pike and jumbo army is a challenging prospect for a Moog Knight army. Primarily because the knights end up without real targets in the centre of the battlefield. They usually need to be close enough to the Moogs to provide support, but need to be careful of the Jumbos supporting the pikes. Similarly, the opposition EHC/HC need to be careful to avoid the knights but be close enough to keep the Moogs honest. Surprisingly in this battle I lost the LI battle ( a big dice swing seeing my LI jav/sh guys swept away by shieldless bowman) which meant that I really couldn’t set the tempo in the centre. The combination of enemy LI in a forward position plus enemy Jumbos meant that the Moogs had to be more circumspect to retain their eagerness. Some knights finally got into peltasts but the peltasts kept passing tests long enough for some friends to arrive. 2-1 to the bad guys.

Game Four
Vs Pyrrhic

More Jumbos and Pikes
The terrain in this battle was quite interesting. A large river down my right flank (about 7 elements in) and a number of terrain “blocks” meant that the frontage was quite reduced but with chances for outflanking if care wasn’t taken.
Things generally went well on my left flank with some enemy LC being shot to disorder and proving to be a constant problem for my opponent. This meant that I was able to get the Moog vs Pike block match up I was after on this flank. In the centre/right however things were less promising. The early departure of some LI left a unit of Moogs exposed to the joys of a mutual charge against elephants, with the elephants supported on each side by a waiting Pike block. Didn’t look pretty. However, by the time the supporting pike blocks were ready to go in, some nearby Pikes had been routed on contact and the wavers saw the supporting pikes less keen to assist their pachyderm partners. 5-1 to the good guys.

The idea of using an “unused’ army was one that I think worked well. It was good to see a range of different troops on the table and some different challenges. I think that it would/will work even better if we run it again as an additional set of the strongest armies have been eliminated from the mix. Perhaps we should keep going until every one turns up with Hyskos and Italian Hill Tribes

Cheers,

Greg P.