War of the Strategists at Alicante 2023
Berber vs Feudal English
The Journey to Alicante (via Valencia)
Game 3 Berber vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 6 Berber vs Feudal English
The Journey back from to Alicante (again via Valencia)
Utterly bizarre - the Berbers were sitting atop the table going into the final round, and seemingly able to beat everything that had been put before them so far
Admittedly that range of armies had included 3 very similar "elephant and horse archer" combinations, and a couple of other very horse archery heavy forces as well, so at least there was a reasonable possibility that I hadn't just accidentally stumbled on a lucky combination capable of beating all comers, and it was just blind luck and good matchups propelling me to the dizzy heights of the top table
With two of my opponents from previous rounds now in the other podium places the Berbers ended up dropping down a few places to take on my second former World Champion of the weekend, Massimiliano and his Feudal English army
The Feudal English should provide quite a different test for the Berbers, with a bucketload of Medium Knights ready to rush at the enemy, and an early appearance for the MG34-like Longbow units as well
At least the Longbows are well, just Longbows (and not the more potent Longbow/Sword combinations of the later 100YW armies), but even so a lot of Knights might well provide a stern test of the Berber and Andalusian spearmen's mettle.
The lists for the Berber and Feudal English from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Alicante can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
So, with lunch consumed and the early afternoon 6th (yes 6!!!) game about to start, the Berbers now faced their ultimate - in more ways than one - test!
The battlefield was wider than had been the case in previous games, with not much at all to anchor the English right flank, although a terrain-cluttered hill sat nicely on their left.
Masimilliano was at the time showing off his Italian heritage by sporting a lovely and stylish grey zip-neck sweater, which almost certainly must have been Cashmere or Merino wool. I say this not because I casually brushed up against him en-passant on my way to get a coffee, but because, well, "Italians" eh?
L'Art de la Guerre hint - the material used in the manufacture of your sweater does not confer any advantages for your army in ADLG, either in terms of movement, combat ability or morale.
Amusingly the English had chosen to go with a Welsh ally and an unreliable sub general out of their three commanders - a situation exacerbated when both of these commands rolled to be Unreliable at the start of the game!
Oh how we both laughed at this quite remarkable 1 in 36 eventuality happening here, on the top table in the final round of a 6-game competition !
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Allied, and "unreliable" generals in ADLG cost less points, but do have the possibility of refusing to play at the start of the game if their first PIP dice is a "1". They then come back online again if they roll a 6 in a subsequent turn, or if the enemy approaches within 4MU of anything in their command. The CinC can spend 2 of his own PIPs to send a (no doubt rather pithy and to the point) message to an unreliable commander each turn, which gives them a +1 to their next reliability-checking die roll
Of course, it was then my time to roll my first set of PIP dice, and, almost inevitably, my own Taifa Andalusian allied contingent also decided that today was the day for bloodless Condottieri-style warfare and also rolled a spectacular "1"
With both sides now having unreliable generals - and a deployment which saw each of the three reliable commands on table facing unreliable opponents - the stage was now set for, well, something than neither of us could quite work out what might come next to be honest!
The Berbers' Strategist-led command really didn't fancy advancing to trigger their opponents back into life, so took the opportunity to creep forward carefully, reshuffling their pack of random cards as they tried to optimise their array of troops so as to be well prepared once the knight-tastic opposition facing them chugged into life`
The three-pack of Christian Knights also now were enjoying the opportunity to reshuffle as well, having (as usual) been deployed in the wrong place facing a wall of Welsh allied Longbowmen
All in all this second bite at the deployment cherry seemed a bit of a win for the Berbers right now - correcting mistakes before the game even really started
The battlefield was set, the sun rose high, As the Berber army marched beneath the sky, With swords and shields, and hearts filled with pride, They faced the might of the English side,
The English army stood in disciplined rows, Their armour shining, their weapons aglow, With trained skill and tactics, they knew their foes, The Berbers, a fierce and unrelenting horde,
The two armies clashed with a mighty roar, The sound of steel ringing through the land's shore, The Berbers fought with a bravery rare, But the English fought back with cunning flair,
(Yusuf ibn Tashfin & ChatGPT)
The Africans had been hiding (as usual) but with the enemy seemingly intent on sitting still and doing nothing they too emerged from their woodland encampment and joined up with the end of the line of Berber spearmen and their Christian crossbow-armed colleagues to set up a wide and confusing formation
Just as the Berbers decided to advance anyway, the English forces sprung finally into life, advancing to match the Berbers own forward momentum
The stage was now set for a fairly linear clash of the two styles of warfare - the fury and insanity of the 4-legged assaults of the Impetuous English nobles against the stoic resistance of the wall of pedestrian spears (interspersed by some of their own nut-job Spanish Knights) and archery of the North African desert legions.
In yet another one of this seemingly endless array of photographs of two lines of troops inching toward one another, the full extent of the coming clash of empires can be clearly seen.
Unfortunately, even with ChatGPT to help out, my ability to describe this scene yet again has somewhat exhausted both my, and the flowery text-spewing online robot's lexiconic capabilities and so I'll have to leave you to just look at the pictures really. Fill your boots, why don't you?
The English Strategist for this list is Edward I. Unfortunately he wasn't known as "Patch" to his mates, as having already made the rather lame joke earlier in these reports my ability to suggest he was known as "One Eye" is a play on the "I" in his title that is a little too hard to pull off for a second time.
He did however have two real nicknames, Edward Longshanks and The Hammer of the Scots, and reportedly much preferred the second one (tough call I know..). Before he became King of England in 1272 he was Prince, briefly changing his name to Symbol in 1268 to record a jazz fusion album on a different record label to the one owned by his father. He was one of the more greedy Kings of England, holding down a couple of lucrative side jobs including being Lord of Ireland, ruling Gascony as Duke of Aquitaine as a vassal of the French king, and hosting a late night radio phone in programme on alternate Wednesdays.
After suppressing a minor conflict in Wales in 1276–77 Edward responded to a second one in 1282–83 by just wading in with fists flying and simply conquered the whole place and claimed it as his own. He immediately started building castles as part of a long term plan to boost tourism in the principality.
After the death of the heir to the Scottish throne Edward was invited to arbitrate the resulting succession dispute, and - as had happened in Wales - decided that he was in fact the best King-shaped option on the table. Honestly, after the whole Welsh thing you'd think the Scots would have been more careful?
This whole Scottish thing dragged on so long that Australian actor Mel Gibson had time to be born, grow up, become famous and make a film about how cool the Scottish landscape was, all of which ended up with him being declared Coolest Man In Scotland, an honour which allowed him to paint half of his face blue and then raise an army to oppose the English annexation of Scotland. Edward also formed an army (this one) and headed North but sadly after an unwise stop at Leicester Forest East services developed dysentery on the way. On 6 July he found a rather grimy campsite south of the Scottish border, and when his servants came the next morning to wake him up they discovered he'd poo'ed himself to death during the night. Well, to be fair they kinda realised before they got to the tent - I mean, let's just say the Geordie air has been clearer.
The legendary warriors of the Black Guard had also by now taken matters into their own hands, a great relief and problem all rolled into one noirish package for the Welsh, who's unreliability had now been sorted out by the rapid approach of the elite Guardsmen of the Berber empire.
As the hardy and brave Berber infantry rushed at the Celtic archer corps, the rest of the English army felt obliged to get involved, with their own Strategist driving his second set of Knights forward to threaten the flank of the Black Guardsmen
This development was really exciting for the Taifa Andalusians, who still sat unengaged and becalmed - if the English took a misstep they could easily get close enough to the Taifa contingent to also trigger it back into life.
It also came as a great relief to me, as at least it was something for me to describe other than those two lines of stuff on the other wing gently ambling towards one another.
Suddenly, all across what now appeared to be a fairly tightly packed line of battle, things were happening at quite a rate of knots.
As the road to Tunis echoed to the footsteps of Algeria's former Liby-Phonecian missing eye, the Berber's Christian contingent were, as usual, first to battle and had charged somewhat recklessly into the middle of the English line, giving up a flank against England's Knights on one side in order to gain the potential advantage of a charge into the potentially extra-squishy Longbowmen on the other end of their 3-unit-wide formation.
The Black Guard were also agonisingly close to slamming into the Welsh bowmen, but had been intercepted by a desperate English Knightly charge as well
Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom! The Spanish Knights had played a blinder, smashing through and over the loose formation Longbowmen and also giving a real bloody nose to the English Knights as well in the initial clash of forces
The English line now was crumbling faster than the White Cliffs of Dover when measured over a geological timeframe, with what already looked like it could quickly develop into an unfillable hole opening up like a chasm in front of the jubilant Christian Spanish knights - although the Black Guard were perhaps not doing quite so well as they staggered under the sheer force of the English charge against them
The two armies clashed with a mighty roar, The sound of steel ringing through the land's shore, The Berbers fought with a bravery rare, But the English fought back with cunning flair,
Thus, the battle between the Berbers and English, Was a tale of courage, and a story of fights and finesse, A tale of bravery, and a story of strategic design, A tale that will live on, forever entwined!
(Yusuf ibn Tashfin & ChatGPT)
Iberian religious zeal and a healthy respect for the pecuniary motivations of well-paid mercenary jobs in the early Medieval Spanish economy combined to deadly effect as the Christian threesome started to spread out and unzip the English army from the inside out
Inspired by the success of the Knights, and clearly unwilling to let the game run away from them without attempting to claim at least some of the credit for Berber Might of Arms, the Black Guard girded their loins (non-pork based of course), sharpened their spears and giving a mighty battle cry surged forward to fight back and destroy the English Knights opposing them
Their spectacular victory instantly opened up a clear path for the Black Guard to subsequently assail the continuingly unlucky, and far more squishy Welsh archers, who were struggling to remember having the chance to fire off more than a couple of arrows shot in the game so far
What eventually did for the Berbers
Having been badly distracted by the intense sounds and smells of combat in their immediate vicinity, the English commander and his top management team had failed to spot that some of their Knights were champing at the bit to get involved as well
The over-eager little Englanders, like a Mini Metro full of teeny tiny little Mark Francois' literally exploding after seeing a banana straightness regulation writ large on a billboard in their Essex homeland, charged forward uncontrollably in a vain attempt to try and catch some taunting Berber light horsemen.. and in so doing, over-extended themselves so much that they accidentally ended up within 4MUs of the still-uncommitted Andalusians, bringing them back to life and participation in the battle!
L'Art de la Guerre hint - These English Knights are Impetuous, meaning that unless their commander spends 3 PIPs of command points on them they must charge anything in range - in this case the Berber Light Horsemen some distance away. The Berbers will of course evade from such a deadly opponent, and are too far away to be caught
The Knights will then roll a random modifier to their normal charge distance, and in this case that die roll has seen them "roll long" - charging 4MU instead of their standard 3MU. This leaves them within 4 MU of the Taifa ally, triggering them to participate in the battle
The English left flank was being rolled up like that classic Arabian carpet, in a metaphor only slightly stretched beyond breaking point by the inconvenient fact the Christian Knights on the Berber side were the ones doing the rolling
At least Zaid and his mates (still mounted in this game) and some of the fast moving Berber light horsemen were also contributing, adding insult (and an overlap) to the already seriously injurious attacks of the Commander of the Spanish Knights.
The English were being done up like kippers, and so had little left to grasp at other than a rather against the odds charge into the front of the well supported Berber spearmen.
Having absorbed this assault with aplomb, As the road to Tunis echoed to the footsteps of the camel-toed Pharoh-cursed massive curved sword, the North African Moorish infantry then waited in glee as yet more devastation was rained down upon the hapless English by the speedy arrival of Knights and, of course, Zaid and his limelight-hogging band of dudes to smash into the flanks and rear of the English forces.
Bursting through the shattered and tattered remnants of the English line, more marauding Berber horsemen were delighted to find that the initial bout of unreliability had left the English remarkably close to their own baggage camp when battle had been joined.
Scooting forward like Arabian toothpaste expelled from a tube fallen on by an entire regiment of dying elephants (thats a callback to game 5 in case you missed it) the horsemen charged at full pelt to seize the English baggage
Urging themselves forward with thoughts of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan's tummy-rot inducing Tuareg jazz quartet, these brave and piratical Berber cavalry would now be taking back to Tunis an amazing panoply of shiny historic artefacts of mysterious functions, many baskets of rather bland root vegetables, flat caps, whippets, and a strange paper-wrapped confection known only as "Feeshand Heeps" as their looting gathered pace,
More importantly the Berber army would be taking back a 5-1-0 record and a totally unexpected trophy for winning the whole dammed tournament too!
Yes, it's true - the Result is a crushing victory for the Berbers, leaving them atop the pile of players to record a first place out of 68 people!
Read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal, or jump straight to my commentary on why the army worked so well, and also some snaps from the rest of our holiday exploits on our trip to Alicante and Valencia !
Post Match Summary from the Berber Commander
Today, we gather to celebrate a great victory, a victory that could not have been achieved without the power of our collective strength and the unwavering courage of my men. But, I must give credit where credit is due. There is one particular element that has played a crucial role in our success, and that is the simple yet mighty brew of Yorkshire Moorish tea.
Now, I know what you're all thinking. How could a cup of tea possibly make such a difference in battle? Well, let me tell you. The tea I've been drinking comes from none other than Bettys Tea Room in Harrogate, a true symbol of the finest Yorkshire hospitality.
It's not just any ordinary tea, mind you. This tea has given me the clarity of mind and the fortitude of spirit needed to make the tough decisions, to lead my men to victory, and to outsmart our opponents at every turn.
So, let us raise a cup of this fine brew to our fallen brothers, to the brave men who fought by my side, and to the future of our army as we march on triumphantly to claim the ultimate prose at the end of this gruelling competition. And remember, the next time you find yourself on the Yorkshire Moors, and in the heat of battle, reach for a cup of Bettys tea - for it may just be the secret to your success.too.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
This is all utterly ridiculous
I have seen many so-called 'generals' in my time climb the podium, and now you are numbered amongst them too. However, neither you nor any others can compare to my own skills and tactics. It is a shame that others in this field fall short in comparison. They lack the strategic mind, the courage, and the determination that I possess.
Forsooth, I am Hannibal, conqueror of lands and vanquisher of enemies. My genius is unmatched, and my strategic prowess is beyond compare
You are just a pale Yorkshire imitator, trying to emulate my successes but failing miserably. I have earned my place as the greatest general in history and no one can take that away from me. But never fear, I am here to guide you. For I am Hannibal, the conqueror, the master of war. And I promise, if you listen closely, you just might learn something.
Anyways, lets see some more of your holiday snaps - they will be far more interesting than this battle nonsense.
My own 10-minute video run-through of the game
See some more photos from the rest of our trip to Alicante and Valencia - if you still have the stamina to carry on.
You may also like....
The Journey to Alicante (via Valencia)
Game 3 Berber vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 6 Berber vs Feudal English
The Journey back from to Alicante (again via Valencia)
View My Stats for My Match Reports Pages
