Champion of all Scotland !!

With my tongue firmly in my cheek, i can now claim to be the Fog am champion of all of Scotland... winning the scottish open 2013 !! A great weekend of fun filled action using an Albanian army from the 1450s. Living out in the sticks i dont get many ancient wargames in these days, so it was enjoyable playing four games in one weekend. All against gentlemen opponents. Here are my brief match reports; for my own delectation if no one elses.... Win or lose, the fun is in playing new opponents with armies I have never come up against before. Winning is just a happy by product of playing some (almost) vaguely intellectually challenging games with an historical theme. well here’s my match reports.... first game rob pooley early ottoman turks i lost initiative steep hill on my left and on my baseboard centre right- rough ground infront of centre right steep hill so a 3ft gap in middle of table he lines up with cav in the gap and sup LH on my right... mainly on/far side off the rough i push in centre with knights and cav... he skirmishes but has a block of cav not in one line who get mullered as they have to stand other charges/my cavalry shooting disrupts him/i charge and catch him etc etc... game 2 alan cutner seljuk turk but very interesting list... 1x 9dailami armourded MF sup IF 2x4 hc b/s arm sup 1x 4 hc pro b/s average 1x lf bow poor 1x lf jav poor 1x 2 els 3x LH b/s 2x dailami ally 9MF/LF IF sup i lose initiative steep hill in his middle base large rough on his right 2’6 gap in middle he has dailami and lf on his left.. cav in middle in a line, el at back right, lh and dialami ally on far right i skirmish on rf and push at an angle going towards the right in the centre gap his protected cav frag through my cavalry shooting. i charge and break them. my lh charge his lf which are hanging out the steep hill and catch them... then off into his camp – 6pts/12 i dance in the centre but pin some cav who cant move. he frags my cav and i have to charge with my knights... my kn and cav rout over a 4-5 turn period. i use this time to set a trap behind them with LH and handgunners so when his cav and els pursue i have 8 shots awaiting them... 6 hits on el.. rolls a one; his cav frag and break... 10/12 hard to see where i can get 2 pts from.. but he moves his hc towards my lh near his ex camp... i bring some lf bow all round the table all game and they appear over the steep hill. my lf and lh hit him and dirsupt him as he his near table edge; then frag him.. i rush my moves as we have played the 3.45hr game.. we get into shooting again. this time i have just 2 shots at him,... hit him and he routs... we look over to hunter and say whens last bound. hunter says quarter past.. we say its 16mins past... he shouts last bound !! game 3 hunter hope scots continental 8 longbow undrilled average 4 average hf h/w i win initiative and keep it uneven terrain on my left and rough on his far back left massive uneven on his centre right and a gentle hill in front of it i take a gamble and flank march... line my knights up on my left just in from the uneven against a line of bow my flank march of 1 lh arrives first bound... his line advances towards me his bowmen flee leaving the table edge open i advance my kn and lh and my lh had to charge his other bowmen in the flank to stop them moving away all the time he is pivoting his line elsewhere to trap me on the table edge my kn cut through the bowmen in front of me and i line up another charge into some more bows... which have a unit at an angle behind them not giving rear support but in the line of any rout... and then the camp behind them... he also has a unit of h/w hf isolated in the rough terrain. all that needs to happen is my kn charge, win and cut through into the rear bow beat them an d camp is gone too.. that would be 8pts/12 with at least another 2pts easy to be had except his 6 shots on my knights make 3 hits... i roll a 5 so even with rear support and a general i disrupt... and throw a one and lose a base... the chance of victory recedes and suddenly i look vulnerable all over the place... am staring a big loss in the face... after a bit more manouverings i realise i am only 40 minutes from the end of the game.. no need to take risks and i pull away as i still am not completely trapped on the table flank edge am losing 3-4 units for just one of his so its not looking good but by pushing forward he has left individual bow units isolated.... my cav shoot and disrupt a unit; charge in double drop him and career into the next unit along; which also disrupts and gets beaten in quick time.. routing through a h/w unit and my cav hit that unit too... on his right he has an isolated unit and i have 2 cav units there plus my foot bows who i bring up and shoot him.. disrupt and fragging him... 7/12 pts time is called before my cav fight his disputed average h/w and i have another h/w unit in the rough disrupted and vulnerable.. so maybe another pair of bounds would have seen me win big.. instead it was a draw but it was a hairy game and could have gone either way !! i was never really in control but the 2nd kn charge could have been a match winner... but no complaints game 4 jim copeland early scots i win initaive 8x8 mf off spear aver 2x 6 armoured hf i/f 2xlf 2x lh j/ls Alba v the Albanians... nice spot Jim! i liked his army and its an interesting one much under rated rough on his side on left and right side and a rough in my centre sector bound one and he is almost at the centre line... i was going to hit his left hard where he had lh and mf but he placed his hf in the rear near them.. so my last command of kns and cav switched to the rhs facing 3 mf units and a hanging flank. the cav and my lh shot his rhs end unit down my rh kn failed a test not to charge and went in and won my lh kn stood and passed tests not to charge pinning a mf unit... and simply waiting until the rh knights won, turned round and hit the mf in the rear at the same time as i charged frontally... his advancing mf in the centre were hit by lots of lf shots... with the hand gunner –1 twice taking him down and routing them... a lf unit routed seeing him rout and general dieing thanks to double dropping on low dice score.. i hit his camp... 12/13 pts in reasonable time.. my left was getting beaten a bit and looking squeezed so i sacrificed some cav and chanced a lh charge against his lh.. he had 2 mf units behind my LH but had no general and failed 3 times to turn his mf round to trap me. my lh beat his lh and he double dropped to fragged and that was game ! so other results meant i had pipped a couple of others to the champions spot- which was nice