So Anton and I recently played another one of our afternoon WRG games. This time Anton ended up in the Orange book (book 1) and I ended up in the Yellow book (book 2). Anton selected the Roman era Spanish, and I selected the Normans. We hope you will enjoy the results.
Here is the terrain for the game and both of our armies laid out on the table (Anton is near, mine is the further)
Anton's army consisted of the following.
CinC HC, JLS & Sh
16x"Long Shield" Cav 1/2 HC, 1/2 MC, all Irg B JLS & Sh. These are conjoined with16xCaetrati which are Irg B, LI, JLS & Sh. Creating a 32 figure unit!
2x14 "Round Shield" cav Irg C, LC, JLS & Sh
4x36 "Scutari, 1/3 Irg B, 2/3 Irg C, all LMI HTW and Sh
16x"Caetrati" Irg C, LI, JLS & Sh
17x"Caetrati" Irg C, LI, JLS & Sh
73 Scouting Points
My Army Consisted of the following.
CinC HC, L, & Sh accompanied by a bodyguard of 1x Irg B, HC, L & Sh with PA standard.
12x"Caballarii" Irg A, HC, L & Sh
2x12 Caballarii Irg B, HC, L & Sh
12x "Retainers" Irg C, HC, L & Sh
32x "Dismounted Knights" Irg B, HI, JLS & Sh
32x "Spearmen" Irg C, 18 HI/14MI, JLS & Sh
30x Swabians and friends Irg C, 18 HI, 2HCW & Sh/12 MI JLS & Sh
47x"Peasants" Irg D, LMI, IPW
50 Scouting Points
By the NARROWEST of Margins I just barely avoided being out scouted by Anton. If he had just two more scouting points I would have been deploying first. But it was not to be.
As is our usual, we neglected to take a picture of our initial deployment and started taking pictures on turn Two.
On Turn One Anton's Light Cavalry, at the very bottom left of the photo below threw some javelins at my Irg A Knights, who promptly became impetuous at the thought of such an affront to dignity. Their immediate charge caused Anton's Light cavalry to flounce away as shown in the photo below, my impetuous cav are on the extreme left chasing Anton's lights who are curling to their right as they run off. On the same turn one of Anton's Light infantry units threw javelins at another of my Knight units, this time actually causing a casualty. Once again my knights seeing both the rash actions of the "A" class knights and being subject to such aspersions also became incensed, went impetuous and charged Light Infantry. These knaves sashayed between two units of Scutari allowing my Knights to pounce on the closer Scutari unit. Meanwhile, my third unit of Knights seeing their brethren getting excited also decided that they would become impetuous and surged forward without contacting the enemy (the third wedge of cavalry in from the board edge. My Retainers seeing the insanity the Knights were about decided that they should move up and get ready to attack the other unit of Scutari. The life of a retainer has always been to try their best to cover for whatever their "boss" is doing!
Beyond all this chaos you can see that Anton has plunged his remaining two units of Scutari into the woods, while I have drawn up all three of my close order units on my side of the woods. These units are drawn up with the foot Knights, Swabians and spearmen (left to right), naturally with heavy infantry in the front of all three units. Finally, Anton has sent his last unit of Light Infantry into the woods on the far right and has his second unit of "Round Shield" light cavalry following slowly.
The one pair of units that made Contact on Turn Two accomplished nothing of consequence, both of us rolling poorly, and while I did more casualties to him then he did to me, I did not do enough to push back his 36 man unit. Thus, I kept the hasty knight in contact and charged in with the other Impetuous unit on turn three. As you can see below My "A" class unit and Anton's "Long Shields" charged each other, and my retainers charged Anton's second Scutari unit. Meanwhile the scurrilous dogs that initiated all this unpleasantness are reforming comfortably behind their braver betters.
This picture shows the over all situation. Anton's two remaining Scutari are moving through the woods and he decided to have his Light infantry charge my peasants. Naturally, my peasants did not pass their morale test and refused to charge when the light infantry came at them. However, 47 figures is still a lot of figures. Anton also deciding to expand frontage trying to generate more casualties on my Peasants, but expansion is not advancing, so as Anton's Caetrati expanded, so to did my Peasants. the resultant combat led to my peasants smashing the "Caetrati" and running them off. All while my Peasants STILL refused to advance!
Turn Three saw my dice perform very poorly and stalemates ensued in all three combats on the cavalry flank. For my "A" class Knights Turn Four was disastrous as the stalemate allowed Anton to expand his larger unit of "Long Shields" and friends and flank my knights. Plus Anton managed to coax his "Round Shield" Blackguards into charging my knights in the side. As this close picture shows the heathen "Round Shields" soiled themselves at even this slight danger to their useless carcasses (rolling down three!).
In this larger shot you can see that in an attempt to force the action on this front Anton and I expanded our units for the flagging combats. Due to WILDLY fluctuating Dice rolls, Anton managed to push back both of my Knight units on his first Scutarii, but my retainers BROKE Anton's second Scutarii (I rolled up four and he rolled down one) in an even bigger surprise result. My Knight Units retired to regroup, while my Retainers pursued the broken second Scutarii unit.
Meanwhile Anton's remaining two units of Scutari have finally managed to come out of the woods, once all the morale tests for surprised sightings were passed we were ready to move on in the center. Anton's slow moving "Round Shields" advance to replace their routing "Caetrati" friends.
Turn Five in the center saw Anton Charge his third and fourth Scutari into my Swabians (left) and Spearmen (right).
On the cavalry flank my knights reorganize as Anton completes the surrounding of my "A" class Knights. This proved too much for the Knights who broke after reaching half strength.
In the center the melee's had VERY different results. My spearmen were crushed breaking and running on contact (Anton rolled up two, and I rolled down three!). However, the Swabians rolled even (Thanks to my general being attached) and Anton also rolled even, which resulted in my denser formation and better armor putting out more casualties and pushing the third Scutari back, where upon the third Scutari decided they liked things better back in the woods and ran off into the cover. My Swabians pursued up to the woods edge, but did not enter. Most importantly (as we shall see) my general was unharmed in the combat.
Turn Six saw my two remaining Knights reforming. My "A" class knights being ridden off by Anton's "Round Shield" Cavalry as his "Long Shield" and friends cavalry are also reforming. My retainers, seeing that Anton's baggage camp was on the other side of the routing Second Scutari unit were only TOO happy to continue riding down the Scutari on their way to the
promised land" of sacking a baggage camp.
promised land" of sacking a baggage camp.
In the center Anton's fourth Scutari Unit was easily able to stay in contact and chase my spearmen toward my own baggage camp. Much to the Scutari's delight.
On the woods flank my peasants stood about slowly accumulating casualties from the javelins of Anton's dismounted "Round Shields", but the effects were minimal.
Anton was in charge of taking the pictures and he seems to have neglected to take pictures of turn seven, the final turn. To sum turn seven up, my two reformed Knight units charged Anton's first Scutari unit. Anton chose to have his CinC join the Scutari to bolster it. Meanwhile due to some VERY weird dice rolling my broken "A" class knights (rolling a 6) managed to outdistance Anton's pursuing "Round Shields" (rolling a 1). The rest of the battle field remained static. In the critical melee Anton again rolled white hot and managed to push back both of my knight units (28 casualties to each of my knights, 24 casualties from each Knight unit to Anton's Scutari). The result was both of my Knight units were pushed back and for a moment it looked like the battle was going to be a tough fought narrow win for Anton.
But then as the dust of combat settled, Anton's CinC fell to the ground mortally wounded by my Knights spectacular charge! The death of the Spanish CinC resulted in compulsory morale checks for all units that could see him fall in order from (Anton's) right to left. So the Caetrati, who were also well aware of the rout of Scutari Unit Two and now could see the routing other unit of Caetrati as well. The combination of all three factors was too much for the Caetrati and they broke and ran for home. The first unit of Scutari were next to test and while they did not fail the test as badly as the Caetrati, still failed becoming "Shaken" and having to retire for two turns. When the reformed "Long Shields" tested they realized that the "unfortunate" death of the CinC meant that one of them was now the "King", rolling a "17" on three D6 they managed to pass their morale, not become impetuous, just pass! Finally, the unit of laggard "Round Shields" tested and failed spectacularly. So Anton found himself with one unit of Long Shield Cavalry facing three units of my Knights (the routed "A" class knights managed to rally only rolling two D6). Meanwhile, Anton's two units of Scutari had my foot knights and Swabians to contend with as my peasants stared at Anton's "Round Shields" in the woods. Anton Conceded.
Now that I think about it MAYBE there was a reason Anton neglected to take pictures of the last turn of the game!?!
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