The German Team Tournament: Medieval Pool at Germany 2024
Medieval German vs Sahelian Empire
Game 1 Medieval German vs Samurai
Game 2 Medieval German vs WOTR English
Game 3 Medieval German vs Hungarian
Game 4 Medieval German vs Sahelian Empire
Game 5 Medieval German vs Flemish Low Countries
Translations of German Exclamations
The remainder of the evening was spent jollily walking round the setting-up phases of Christmas Market season in Koblenz, taking in an epic Schnitzel meal with Currywurst as a particularly classy starter, and then strolling down by the river wondering what the weird blue emissions were over the tops of a nearby hillside
The next morning, after more bread and another suburban Rhine-side bus trip, the Germans were back in Germany facing this time one of the Sahelian Empires
Unabhängigkeitserklärung! A wall of Camels (in the shape of a predictable Tuareg allied contingent) was the main pointy bit of a large army of dusty sub-Saharan warriors who arrayed themselves in vast numbers in between a narrow defile in the blocks of terrain which festooned the battlefield like currywurst around a sausage
Keen to sweep out the terrain and allow the Cantonese spearmen to rush forward and try and pin the enemy Tuareg Camels into a plantation with a rapid advance, the Germanic handgunners raced ahead, only to find a rather more numerous ambush than they had hoped
Schmetterlingsschwanzfalte! It was a mass of mounted camel warriors with escorting light infantry which faced the shooters, square on at the edge of terrain
Lebensmittelunverträglichkeit! The canny camelistas then sent forth their own skirmishers to block the evade of Germany's finest mechanical gunnery infantrymen, after which the Camels themselves lurched unsteadily out of the plantation to sweep away the hapless high tech shootists at the first moment of contact!
ADLG hint - If someone is behind your unit and facing it (aka "ZoCcing" it), then you can't evade. To add insult to injury, Light Foot caught in the open by "real" (non light) troops are immediately destroyed, no dice needing to be rolled
The camelry were by now ploughing onwards, not too fussed about the rough terrain of the plantation but even less concerned about the wall of German spear and pikemen facing them
Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften! The Free Canton spearmen has really hoped to catch the Camels in the disordering congestion of the vineyard plantation, but even so they now only faced 2 of the snorting beasties, so with a bit of width and the innate spear-ey advantaged their brethren had against charging Medium cavalry perhaps this would still work out OK in the end?
Well, perhaps not. The Camelry wave of not quite horseflesh bowled forward, meeting a line of only partial resistance from every type of German troop available
The Camels had spectacularly checked the German response to their impudent attacks - none more so than the Light Camel at the left hand end of their first wave who had somehow managed to withstand the attack of a mounted Impact Knight German Commander with an additional overlap to boot !
Betäubungsmittelverschreibungsverordnung! – The Light Camel simply refused to die!
Even as the German infantry line pressed forward as neatly as a Christmas market vendor would proudly arrange his mugs in height order, the Germans poured more men into support their Commander (who in this shot is starting at a mere 3-0 up with better armour as well), the courageous odds-defying Cameleer continued to refuse to fall.
Touraeg Warriors from 1908
Hochgeschwindigkeitszugverbindung! By now the German Pikemen had long since left their commander to deal with the camel-poop-smelling mess he seemed to be stepping in, and were rushing forward as fast as their little Teutonic slippers could take them to try and engage yet more of the Tuareg camelry, who now stood in their way of an unlikely pike-based envelopment of the Sahelian centre.
On the opposite flank there were thankfully no Camels, but the incoherent command structure of the rag-tag German Kampfgruppen was proving more than a match for the abilities of it's commander even without enemy action interfering
Struggling to roll high enough pips to keep all of the various elements of his command moving in even vaguely the same direction and at the same speed, the German leader started to see his force break apart with some of the supposedly better elements (he Teutonic Knights!) being he ones left behind
Einwegpfandflaschenverordnung! By now the sneaky Sahelians had managed to almost totally redeploy their original Central infantry command onto the far right extremities of their army, and it was even now emerging in untold numbers through the terrain just about in time to see the Tuaregs complete their spectacular overrunning of the still-reeling German left flank.
On the right the German pikemen, halberdiers and War Wagons were finding that they were chasing shadows, as the Sahelian warriors faded back into the mists of the German Gymnasium desert
Klodeckelbefestigungsschraube! – This could prove to be a very long way for them to have walked only to find that an inferior quality enemy made up mostly of archers actually had no intention of hanging around to fight a solid line of Pikemen and halberdiers!
Teppichreinigungsgerät!
That's pretty much all there is to say about this photo, which just shows how completely and utterly the entire left flank of the German army has been eradicated y the fat-moving redeployment and fierce charges of the Tuareg/Sahelian empire troops in this part of the table
Staubsaugerroboter! With Sahelian warriors seemingly everywhere all at once, the hard-pressed Germanic Feudal Knights eventually succumbed, having spent half the game struggling to beat a lone Light Camelry rider
A fitting end to a dreadful day out for the embattled and now very Camel-phobic Germans
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Medieval German Commander
Meine tapferen Soldaten… tonight, I must admit a truth zat pains my orderly soul: ve haff been bested—not by superior discipline, nein, but by ze strangest, foulest, und most insulting combination of foes imaginable. Ve Germans haff faced knights, longbows, und ze wild horsemen of Hungary, but camels?! Camels, meine Freunde! Zese lumbering, odorous nightmares of nature haff turned our glorious army into a retreating caravan of frustration!
Zese Tuareg riders—ha! I vill not deny zey are cunning. Zey rode zrough ze dunes like ze devil himself vas zeir vanguard, und before ve could blink, zey vere upon our left vith ze speed of ze Alpine vinds und ze smell of a thousand unwashed oxen. Zey did not fight like men—zey fought like ghosts, disappearing into ze sands before ve could even point a spear!
Und our horses… ach, unsere poor, noble horses. Zey are brave, ja, but zey vere no match for ze horror of ze camel. Ze stench! Ze strange, bouncing gait! It turned our fine destriers into trembling foals. Ze Tuareg knew zis, und zey used it against us mit ze ruthlessness of a tax collector in December!
But let us not dwell only on ze shame of zis day. Nein, meine Freunde. For as much as zey haff bested us here, zey haff also taught us a lesson. Zese Sahelian warriors und zeir cursed Tuareg allies fight in zeir land, on zeir terms. Zey are swift, adaptable, und cunning—but so are ve! Ve are Germans! Ve learn from failure, und ve return stronger, more efficient, und mit better-smelling animals!
Do not forget vho ve are! Ve are ze sons of Ordnung und Präzision! Ve do not break under hardship—ve reorganize! Ve do not flee from chaos—ve conquer it! Zis is not ze end of our campaign. Nein! Zis is ze moment vhere ve steel ourselves for ze final battle. Ve march back from zis cursed desert, ja, but ve march mit purpose. Ve vill face zem again, und zis time, ve vill haff ze advantage!
Zey haff zeir camels, but ve haff ze greatest vapon of all: ze German mind! Ve shall adapt to zeir tricks, und ve vill overcome. Ve vill find zeir weakness, und ve vill exploit it mit ze precision of a Swiss clockmaker on overtime!
So tonight, rest your bodies. Sharpen your blades. Plug your noses if you must. For tomorrow, ve march not as defeated men, but as an army vith unfinished business! Ve haff learned from ze camels, und ve vill show zem zat even in ze sands, ze German banner vill fly vith pride!
Remember, meine Soldaten: ve are German. Ve do not quit. Ve do not falter. Und ve do not lose to overgrown goats mit delusions of grandeur! Forward, for ze Vaterland! For honor! Und for ze glorious art of efficiency!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
So, Kaiser Gnome and his ragtag band of blundering peasants have ventured far from their cold, familiar forests into the sweltering deserts of the Sahel. And what did they find there? Not the expected enemies, no—nothing so predictable. No, they met the Tuareg camel riders, those fleet-footed specters who know the harshness of the desert like the back of their hands. And how did Gnome respond? By flailing about like a drunken man stumbling into a lion’s den!
First, these 'warriors'—if you can call them that—march into terrain they know not, with no understanding of the very ground beneath their boots. A sensible commander would have sought local knowledge, allies, even a scout, but no, Gnome’s superior intellect decrees that the path forward is to charge into the unknown like a calf in the butcher’s yard. The first sign of trouble? Camels! Oh yes, camels. Such a grand shock to the German mind, as if they had never seen the likes of such beasts. And what did your poor horses do, Gnome? Panicked. Like children at their first encounter with a bogeyman.
Did I hear you boast of your Knights? I do not know if they were cavalry or simply a gaggle of poorly trained sheep, for they were as frightened of the camels as they would be of the devil himself. How do you fight what you do not understand, Gnome? And how do you fight with a force that crumbles under the smallest of surprises? Were your soldiers truly warriors, or merely pensioners in fancy uniforms? They stood no chance!
And the food! Ah yes, the food—perhaps I should have expected nothing less from such a culinary nation, where the boldest spice is a dash of mustard on their sausage. But when your army is fed on unfamiliar foods in an alien land, what do you expect but confusion and weakness? The Germans’ stomachs are as timid as their tactics, and I suspect that the delicate sensibilities of your men were more troubled by the flavour of the local spices than the enemy at hand. Do you truly believe that your soldiers could defeat seasoned warriors when their bellies churn from the unfamiliar heat of pepper and sumac? Bah!
You thought your military might would overcome the desert’s tricks, but no! You failed! You failed on every front, Gnome. The camel riders danced around your men like wind over sand, faster than the eye could follow, and your soldiers were too slow, too stiff, too unfamiliar with the battle’s rhythm. Your army crumbled—no, fled, more like a rabble than a disciplined force. And who can blame them? Who could fight effectively when their minds are distracted by the unfamiliar? The heat of the sun? The taste of spicy sauces? Your soldiers could barely fight, let alone mount any coherent defense!
There were no grand tactics here, no noble battles of strategy—just a total collapse into chaos. Your troops fought as if they had never seen a weapon, as though they had been awakened from a long sleep in their cold northern lands, only to find themselves stranded in the heart of a land they did not understand, with enemies they could not defeat. You did not fight as Germans, Gnome—you fought as lost sheep, aimlessly wandering in the dark.
This is not the first time Gnome has been shown to be an incapable fool, but this defeat—the defeat at the hands of the Tuareg riders—will be his most memorable. The fault lies not with the men or the camels, but with the fool who thought it a good idea to march an army into a land of fire and spice with no knowledge of its terrain or its warriors. Gnome’s army was beaten by the terrain, by the heat, by the foreign food, and by their own inability to adapt.
You are not worthy of praise, Gnome. You are not even worthy of the respect due to a half-wit. You and your men would have been better off sitting at home, stuffing yourselves with your bland, cold sausages, than to set foot in a land that so mercilessly exposed your ignorance. Maybe that indigestion will roll forward to the next game?
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
You may also like....
Game 1 Medieval German vs Samurai
Game 2 Medieval German vs WOTR English
Game 3 Medieval German vs Hungarian
Game 4 Medieval German vs Sahelian Empire
Game 5 Medieval German vs Flemish Low Countries
Translations of German Exclamations
View My Stats for My Match Reports Pages
