Historicon 2009

Round One

My Medieval Burgundians take on Matt Iverson's Ilkhanid Mongols.

I first played Matt back at Fall In. He crushed me. He's an excellent player. He's also patient with less experienced players and was always willing to explain rules mechanisms. It was a pleasure losing to him...again.

I actually felt pretty good about the first round draw. I thought my Medieval Burgundians were a good match for the Ilkhanids. I had a massive wall of heavily armored knight who could take on anything (almost) that he could throw at me. I also had three units of longbowmen who definitely could take on anything he had.

My army:

Inspired Commander

Two Troop Commanders

6 undrilled heavily armored average knights with lance and sword

4 undrilled heavily armored average knights with sword

8 English longbow. Drilled protected medium foot with longbow and sword and stakes

6 Picard longbow. Drilled protected medium foot with longbow and stakes

6 Crossbow. Undrilled protected medium foot with crossbow

4 Handgunners. Drilled protected light foot with handgun.

*All the knights could dismount as undrilled heavily armored superior close foot with heavy weapon.

It was a very small army. Only nine battle groups. This meant that I couldn't afford to throw any units away (I still managed it). However, I thought it could deal with a variety of threats. I specifically brought it as an antidote for shooty cavalry armies.

Back to my battle (after my initial move) with Matt's Mongols...

Matt (despite rolling a one) managed to get the initiative and select steppes. He then rolled two sixes during terrain placement and eliminated a large section of brush that would have been a great help in securing my left flank. After deployment I knew that Matt had a flank march. I decided to try and hit him hard before the flank march could arrive. I put all my longbow on the left to hold the flank while my wall of steel advanced on the right.

A few turns later.... my crossbow on the far right have shot up a unit of light horse. Another unit of light horse is attempting to slow my advance toward the baggage. In the background you can see his Knights Hospitaller attempting to get to the flank. I am going to attempt to wheel my battle line to the right and trap his three units in the corner. This is a dangerous gamble as I "know" that he has a flank march attempting to arrive on this flank. At one point I charge a unit of light horse and have a 1/3 chance of hitting the Hospitallers in the flank. This would have been HUGE! It didn't happen and then the flank march arrives. Things go downhill fast.

I have three units of longbow and one unit of handgunners attempting to hold the flank against three Mongol light horse, two cavalry (one armored), and one light foot. Matt has to take a long detour around me, but eventually we come to blows. My handgunnerd do a decent job of holding off the light horse before getting ridden down. My left flank Picard longbow face off against two light horse before getting charged in flank. They survive, but are in danger. My English longbow (in column) charge the armored Mongol cavalry and cover themselves in glory. To the right of the English, more Picard longbow advance and shoot the proteted Mongol cavalry to pieces.

Battle results... I have destroyed two units of Mongol cavalry and sacked his camp. However, the disaster on my right flank is complete. My army is broken.

What did I learn? I gambled and lost on the arrival of the flank march. I should have been more responsible in dealing with the threat.

Point of pride... Matt won three tournaments (Mini, Theme, and Open) this weekend. I did more damage to him than anyone else at the con! Whoohoo for me!

Round Two

I am up against Scott Kimball and his Later Carthaginians.

Scott and I are both fairly new players (both have under 20 Field of Glory games under our belts). Between us we had a good grasp of the rules (he knew them better). Scott was a great guy and it would be a pleasure to face off against him again.

The plan... Scott had 18 stands of armored superior offensive spear. He also had some elephants. There was no way I wanted to charge my average knights into that wall. It was very frustrating for Scott, but I ran away.

I had first move and double marched my knights forward/left. As soon as they cleared the field they chased off his Numidians and one units of knights charged (and destroyed) some Spanish scutarii. The second unit of knights and my English longbow go after the Carthaginian armored cavalry. The English have a tough task ahead of them. They will have to sacrifice themselves in order to give the knights the time they need to clear through the cavalry. The enemy armored cavalry hang in there a LONG time against my knights. The longbow are forced to charge the elephants in order to prevent a flank attack against my knights. Scott has some terrible luck, rolls a one, and the elephant die in melee against the longbow. The longbow then get hammered by the armored spearmen.

On the far right (not pictured) my two Picard longbow are chasing after and shooting down some light foot and light horse. It takes time, but they are eventually successful.

My knights eventually destroy a unit of Numidians and then get into the enemy camp to end the game.

Scott gets some points off of me as his Balearic slingers destroyed both my handgun unit and my feudal crossbow unit. He had also lined up some strong attacks against my knights, but his army broke before he had a chance to charge. With only nine battle groups I could ill afford to lose any more units.

It was a very frustrating battle for Scott, but he bore it like a gentleman and managed to put some fear into me at the end.

Round Three

My Burgundians take on an Alexandrian Successor Thingy.

This army was loaded with five or six units of pike and four units of Thracian offensive spear. I decided to load the table with as much bad terrain as I could manage in order to channel/break up/slow doen his pike formations. I'm sure my opponent was anxiously awaiting his chance to steamroll my 22 stands of knights with his pike. Sooo....I dismounted all of them as superior heavily armored close foot with heavy weapons.

The left flank. I deployed one unit of knights and one unit of crossbow to the left of the open field. As I hoped, he counted with pike. On my first bound I changed formation and started marching away from him. I wanted to defeat the rest of his army before these pike could ever see action. Unfortunately for me, my undrilled knights just can't manage to get back into formation and get hit in front and flank by the Thracian offensive spear. They go down quickly. My crossbow never stop running.

The right. All three longbow units and my single unit of handgunners occupy the bad terrain on the right of the battlefield. I'm planning on turning his flank with these troops. They are opposed by two units of Thracian offensive spear and one unit of loose foot javelin. The longbow successfully rout one unit of Thracians and are dead even with another unit. A Picard longbow unit successfully halts it's pursuit of the broken Thracians just inches in front of the Macedonian Companions. It is my turn next, and the Companions are in for it.

The Center (not pictured)

Three battlegroups of dismounted knight take on the phalanx and a unit of elephants. The fight starts badly for the succssors, when a six stand unit of knights destroys the elephants in the first round of combat. Things go just as badly for the eight stand average pike blocks.

What I learned:

1) Longbow can stand up to protected medium foot offensive spear. It's no guaranteed victory, but it can be done. If you have numbers on him he's in trouble.

2) Superior dismounted knights can really hammer average pike. To add insult to injury I put generals into the fights and then proceeded to roll really well.

It was a very frustrating battle for my opponent. Not only was I winning all the dice matches, but I (as a less experienced player) was asking a lot of questions.

Overall

I enjoyed playing Medieval Burgundians, but I probably won't do it again. It was something I did as an experiment, and enjoyed, but it isn't really my style of army.

I really like superior dismounted knights with heavy weapons and heavy armor. They are tough dudes.

My only loss was to the tournament winner. I ended up in third place.

Marc Croutteau did a really nice job running the event. My thanks to him for his efforts.