Game 3 came after a rather expansive many course meal for 35 euros including unlimited white wine.
- Prosecco
- Mixed Starters - sliced meats and cheeses
- Mushroom Risotto
- Pasta
- Seafood (Moules in a tomato sauce) - including a 2nd stage demi-course of stuffed moules
- Frito Misto - mixed fried seafood, including some excellent octopus, very tender
- (lemon sorbet mousse)
- Veal & potatoes
- Fish and salad
- Italian cream cake
- Coffee
- Grappa (if you can)
However game 3 the next morning proved much more easily digestible!
It was against another Nice army - this time Southern Dynasties Chinese:
Again the terrain fell kindly for me, with only one piece of any use to the Chinese, who were forced to huddle in a corner awaiting the onslaught of the barbarian hordes.
I had guessed spearmen would be against the waterway, so deployed my knights facing them, with the auxilia command jammed in a narrow gap between the cataphracts and the fast knight command.
With another flier on the pip dice, followed by a very poor Chinese score the Hsien Pi crashed down in waves upon the Chinese lines like the waves on the nearby shore (poetic, huh?- -I won't do it again, I promise).
Faced with onrushing irregular knights, the blade line opted to kink slightly - but to no avail, as decent pips from the Hsien Pi allowed a controlled attack, and soon the blades were being knocked around like skittles - as on my right the CinC considered whether he would even be needed to attack the solid line of spearmen.
On the opposite flank the Chinese were putting up a valiant rearguard action, with a handful of Bw (I) manfully defending the hill against hordes of LH (F) - and as the blade line started to crumble, the Chinese knights entered the fray.
But soon the centre had collapsed, and after that there was no hope for the Chinese as their desperate efforts to protect the flanks of the blade formation only led to more troops being sucked into a vortex of death, destruction and unfortunate dice scores. Game over, 10-0 to the Hsien Pi !
