Cold Wars '09 Round Three

Steve Payne and I (English War of the Roses) take on Ethan Zorick and Dan Hazelwood (Crown of Aragon)

This is not a match-up we were looking forward to. The Almughavars and armored offensive

spear were a strong threat to our longbowmen.

Terrain and setup:

The terrain was not that friendly to us. A gully and open field were the only terrain worth

mentioning. I was very concerned with the initial setup. I thought Ethan and Dan had us

outmatched on both sides of the battlefield.

Sooooo......

I suggested a massive redeployment to Steve. We would shift our longbow to the right in order

to go after Ethan's knights. The men-at-arms would move left to hit the Almughavars and

spear. We knew that our opponents would react to our moves, but we hoped that our drilled

soldiers and fast movement would wrong-foot them.

Unfortunately....

...we over-shifted. My light horse on the right ran like children and I was forced to send a

battlegroup of longbow to shore up the flank. They came very close to shooting Ethan's

mounted crossbow to pieces, but didn't. Now, would I be able to put enough pressure on Ethan

before Steve could be overwhelmed on our left?

The left:

Uh-oh. Knights are on the way. Maybe we should have left some longbow on this flank.

No problem. Steve's men-at-arms just need to hang in there for a few turns.

The right:

Time to put the pressure on. But how do longbow put the pressure on? By shooting. This

might take a little while. We have the matchups we need to win on this side. Some good

shooting will keep the offensive spear rattled. The Almughavars will get the worst of it from

our Northern Border defensive spear. Maybe we can do this!

The left:

Or not. Our dismounted men-at-arms are smashed by enemy knights. The flank is caving fast.

At this point a visitor to the table comments on the number of rout markers.

Thanks, we hadn't noticed.

Ethan and Dan roll up our flank for a 22-3 (or something like that) victory.

After action report:

Two units each of armored offensive spear and Almughavars made good match-ups hard

to arrange. They also had two units of light horse on my flank, and quickly neutralized my

single unit of light horse. A much-needed unit of longbow then had to shore up the right flank.

I think the re-deployment was a good idea, however, I oversold it. We needed at least one

unit of longbow on our left to keep the enemy knights honest.

Much appreciation to Steve Payne for partnering up with me for the doubles tournament.

He did a great job despite being weighed down by a relative noob.