Feudal Ages at Warfare 2021
Feudal Hungarian vs Jurchen Jin
Game 1 Feudal Hungarian vs Komnenan Byzantine
Game 2 Feudal Hungarian vs Tuareg
Game 3 Feudal Hungarian vs Feudal English
Game 4 Feudal Hungarian vs Jurchen Jin
Game 5 Feudal Hungarian vs Feudal German
Day 2, and the combination of consumption of a hearty curry plus a hurried car-drop-off in order to get back in time to drink Italian craft beers at London prices prefaced a rather truncated sleep and another morning excursion to deepest, and by then still darkest posh sub-suburban Ascot and environs.
The weather if anything had turned even colder, giving a veneer of familiarity to the Hungarians and reminding them of nights spent gathered round the camp fire, eating goulash together and sharing stories of rolling 1's on D6 back in days of yore.
It also came dammed close to adding a veneer of ice on the inside of the windows of the stadium pavilion function room in which we were playing, and where which the heating had clearly been turned off overnight - so, as the Hungarians considered the prospect of another cold-weather opponent in the shape of the Jurchen-Jin, myself and Mr Sharp huddled in our hats, scarves and coats and blew gamely upon our dice in an effor to warm them up for the coming maelstrom of melee.
The lists for the Feudal Hungarian and Jurchen Jin from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Warfare can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
Jurchen Jin is a top-end cavalry army, with plenty of double-armed (although somewhat de-fanged in v4) shooty chargey cavalry and a handy extra bonus detachment of impressed Chinese subjects who can carry some more effective longer ranged shooting punch into battle to help the horsemen do their thing.
On a table which, bar the lack of a waterway (which would surely have been frozen over that morning anyway) was strangely balder than the one from yesterday evening, the two armies lined up across the mostly featureless plain, with only some scrub and hillocks for entertainment.
The Jurchen plan was pretty obviously to envelop the more compact and bijoux Hungarian force as it advanced recklessly into the wide open spaces, and then pick it apart piece by piece. It sounded like a great plan, so the Hungarians resolved to do their part as best they could to help it come to fruition.
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Mostly cavalry armies are not the easiest to use in ADLG, as is the case with pretty much every other set out there too. But, with good terrain choices, high initiative to move first or alternatively making full use of the depth of your deployment dzone they can redeploy quickly to pick on a weak wing of an enemy army. With the default for many lists seemingly being 2 LH, having a strong LH wing can also often surprise and quickly outmatch any token enemy flank guard force
The Jurcheneers had split their penny packets of supporting infantry into two divisions, one on each flank.
This gave the polychromatic Paprikaistic Hungarian spearmen a surprisingly straightforward looking target to aim for (assuming it didn't respond in any way at all) as they anchored the end of the advancing line of Knights, cavalry and god knows what - even as the rather overstrength and "I can't see a point in having more than 2LH"-beating 3 LF Jurchen outrider force moved up to bully the end of the Magyar line.
L'Art de la Guerre hint - There's a common trope amongst ADLG players that you only really need to take two LH in most armies, as that gets you an extra initiative point - implying their use on table is somewhat limited. As these Jurchen's are proving here, if you are pretty certain before every battle that your enemy buys into this theory and will have one, or at most two LH on the end of their line, taking "more than that" in your own LH contingent, and having a plan that can neutralise the possibility of any of their proper mounted troops from sliding out to the wings to support their now-embattled light horse has a pretty good chance of paying dividends!
This surprisingly numerical trickery immediately forced the more traditionally binary Hungarians to fall back to a location much closer to the gently bubbling Goulash-pots of their camp, effectively surrendering the right flank to the trifecta of Jurchen horsemen units, well at least until yet more Hungarian proper (ahem Medium) cavalry could appear to re-bully the bullyeering threesome and drive them back in turn.
Meanwhile the rest of the army of the Danube had advanced and started to form an appealing and visually interesting yet militarily rather tricky crescent.
Who the hell are these dudes then?
With the Hungarian spearmen drifting ever more to the right, presumably under the direction of an Orbanese commander, suddenly a line of Knights found itself bearing down on the classic Medium Foot in the Open Who Can Shoot A Little target category they so enjoyed ploughing into the ground in the last game yesterday evening.
If the Jurchen had a plan for this, it must be a dashedly devious one.
Elsewhere on the table the Croats were starting to wonder what an axeman does in a landscape which has already been denuded entirely of meaningful vegetation, never mind honest to goodness trees.
Advancing incautiously they sought to zero in on the Chinese levied mixed shooters, a target type who's ability to evade their potential axe-waving charge was materially less (as in "nil") than almost anything else on the Jurchenese side of the table.
Clearly with loads of other troops floating around, this may well go horribly wrong, but optimism and self confidence in your own ability never hurt anyone attempting to march long distances across a frozen country did it? OK, maybe that little French chap wozzisname, but I'm sure these Croats would learn from his mistakes, once he makes them, several hundred years in the future.
What's Going on Here Then?
The Hungarian army is chasing the Jurchen wherever they can be found, which is starting to spread the Magyars across the table and make the concept of a battle line increasingly redundant (or laughable, depending which side of the table you stand).
With the Jurchens clearly able and willing to evade away from danger whenever possible, the Hungarians plan is one of trying to pick on specific blocks of units and rack up casualties on the Jurchen army as and where they can find them - and the pedestrian Chinese impressed bowmen are an obvious target both in the open and in terrain.
Combined with a drive for the Jurchen baggage, this may be enough to tip the small but high quality Jurchen army to defeat.
With one lot of Jurchen hinese infantry in terrain, the Croat Axemen are sent to deal with them on their own, as the challenge of covering the wide open stepp part of he table means the Hungarians are finding it difficult to send any cavarly to support the Croats in their important mission.
Flipping back over to the other flank, a dramatic push by some of the Great Khan's Guard had drawn the Paprika Pole-shovers even further to the edge of the table, safely out of the way of the Chinese infantry who thanked their lucky stars for the rest of the Khans men's fervent desire to protect the least noble and unimportant members of their slave-empire from the flower of Hungarian Chivalry for at least a while longer
The two lines clashed, with quality on the Jurchen side playing off against solid bodies pressed together for warmth in the Magyar army
Suddenly the Khans troops started to panic, as the combat cacophony had started drawing in some helpful Knights who clearly wanted to try and tip the balance, and pull the Khanate's troops into a protracted war of attrition against a more competent foe.
The rest of the Magyarorszag Knights, all furiously couching giant Biros instead of lances, had hoped to be running down pedestrians by now, but the pesky Khanate troopers had moved up to threaten their flanks if they ploughed into the Chinese foot, forcing the Knights to first initiate a feint charge to drive off the skirmish-capable steppe tribe horsemen of the Greater Eurasian Plain.
With Croat spearmen also moving up quickly to help keep the Khanate horsemen at bay in future, this really felt more like a temporary reprieve for the Oriental Infantry rather than a permanent saving of fate and face.
Hungarian Facts
Hungary has won the second most gold medals in the Olympic summer games of all countries per capita?
They've won gold medals in every Olympics they've ever ompeted in.
And what makes it an even more impressive is that Hungary was banned from the Olympic games 1920 and joined the Soviet-led boycott of the summer Olympics 1984
The Croats had been busy suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or at least their accompanying comedy hatted Hungaro-bowmen colleagues had been anyway after being left behind to begin losing out in a shooting match against a lone Light Horse
This development was looking like it may leave the eager Croats rather bereft of friends as they marched toward the pavise-lite line of combat-wary, shooting-keen Chinese Mixed Sword and Bowmen at high speed.
The speed and movement of the Khanates mounted troopers was really coming into its own now, as they had broken off from, and then cunningly slipped past the Hungaro-spearmen and were making merry in the rear echelons of the Magyar army.
Baggage clerks hurriedly packed up their supplies of spare Goulash-ladles, considering briefly if they might serve as makeshift weapons before dismissing that out of hand given ADLG is still largely an effect-based (rather than old school ilteral weapon and armament based) ruleset, so there are no factors for "Levy Ladle".
Luckily the poorly constructed Hungarian list design had meant that there were some quite potent units still kicking around who had been unable to secure the pips to move up with the rest of their commands, and voila, a Reserve hoveinto view riding to the rescue led by none other than the Crusading Knights!
The Croats seemed determined to use this battle to demonstrate how troops who perform well at the end of Day 1 will often counterbalance their good fortune with a shocking display of malpractice on Day 2 of a competition.
Even with that aim in mind they appeared intent on excelling themselves in disaster, losing almost instantly to the supposedly crappy mixed formations of the Chinese impressed (and increasingly renamed as Impressive) shooters.
More Hungaro-bowmen, safe in terrain, were still continuing to come off worse against a lone light horse unit in an exchange of fire - things were not going well on this part of the table where a few cheap points had earlier looked in prospect.
The mercenary German Knights were in a world and a game of their own it seemed. Placed at the heart of the Hungarian line, they had been sailing majestically forward as all of these other complex shenanigans were ongoing elsewhere on the field of battle, driving away a thin skirmish screen of Jurchen-Jin horse archers as they advanced and shrugging off any missile fire coming their way.
As if seen through a slowly defrosting window as the heating started to kick in at the Ascot venue, the Jin baggage camp suddenly drifted into view in tantalizing reach (perhaps?) of the Teutonic yet somewhat mercantile horsemen
What's Going on Here Then?
The Hungarian army has been pushing forward on a broad front that covers roughly 2/3 of the table, boundaried on their left by the rough terrain in their half of the board. This is a little wide for the whole army to cover, and the fast moving and mobile Jurchen have probed and pushed where they can (mostly on the Hungarian right) and fallen back elsewhere (before the Hungarian Centre and left.
Where combats have happened, honours are broadly even - an outcome which the Hungarians, with their better quality Knights and Croat Axeman - are somewhat unhappy about.
The centre is where the Hungarians are now driving for the Jurchen baggage, which will mark the point at which the Jurchen plan of falling back will have to evolve into one of more confrontation, as the loss of the baggage will finish their army. Fortunately the table widens out considerably in the Jurchen half, giving them more space to find yet more HUngarian flanks.
The Hungarians are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with the multiple attack vectors as they advance, not least as their army is now spread out beyond the abillity of its generals to issue orders to the far-flung units
Things were now hotting up with the other non-Hungarian Knights too.
Their strategic reserve role had been brought to the front line by the Jurchens cheeky attempt to outflank the Magyar army, and now both sides had gotten past the dancing and shooting phase and were deep into the OMG we actually need to fight one another? section of the game.
Locked together in combat, cavalry and light horse fought ineffectually at close quarters while the Christian Germanics built up a head of steam ready for a decisive charge.
The sounds of combat had inexorably drawn in more troops than if it had been initiated between two enormous rare-earth magnets on a table top on which the troops were all based on metal 40x30's for travel in a magnabase-floored storage box.
Goulash Ahoy! Now the stage was in theory set for the Religious Orders to come in and sweep everything away in a cascade of destruction, leaving only Hungarians in possession of the field and knock over enough Jurchen to win the entire game outright!
A huge 4-0 initial combat advantage turned into ... not quite enough hits to do it in one go, but now surely it was only a matter of time before this sweeping outflanking move by the Jin was ended once and for all..?
Well, maybe it could be a little more time yet, as the unfeasibly resilient and somewhat more irritating by the moment Jurchen cavalry turned and then pulled out of the bag yet another unlikely victory, this time from 2-0 down in the second round of combat
As the cavalry stood firm, the Jin LH also made further inroads into the scene of supposed guaranteed Hungarian Victory.
The Jin baggage, and its rich treasure trove of Jinnese spices, and Jinnesque herbs were by now awaiting imminent inclusion a whole new era of Goulash-based Sino-Eurasian fusion culinary creativity once they were captured by the advancing Hungarian forces, but the Jurchen horse had other ideas!
Outfoxing and out-dancing the by-now well separated Mercenary knights they put a rapid stop to the advance, catching the mercantile elements of mounted mayhem in the flank and possibly preventing a whole new era in spicy thick soup from coming to fruition in the process.
Would there be time for the Croat spearmen and bowmen to make the final dash?
More Jurchen Malarkey
Or would the Religious Order Knights do the business in their multiple attempt to win the game?
Well, actually, no - the Jurchen horsemen successfully survived and indeed thrived in adversity, throwing back every attack that the Hungarians and their cross-bearing mates could conjure up, eventually tipping the Hungarian army to defeat just one point short of breaking the Jin in turn!
The Result is a second narrow, oh-so-narrow 87-23 defeat of the weekend!
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition as the Hungarians go back to Europe to take on the Feudal German army, 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 Feudal Hungarian Commander
Ah, cruel fortune and fickel fate! What disaster lurks so unkindly in the shadows and around the nose-hanging icicles of this freezing game hall to unseat my army so close yet so far from the victory which we surely deserved?
The numbers of chances - and good chances at that - I had to win this game were legion, yet each time my faltering men stumbled at the final fence as if a falling rider on the track outside thise ice-encrusted windows was painful to ennumerate.
What else could I do other than play up and play the game well, and if the gods of dice decide that the final furlong is not one for me to stagger across ahead of my opponent so be it.
Truly, the number of sporting metaphors I have available to me at this stage in history before many sports really start to take place is limited, but I can at least go hunting for warmth around this great building secure in the knowledge that my military genius is unbeaten even if my army happened to fall to an unlucky defeat.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Truly thou art the cap of all the fools for even attempting what you did in this battle, and far from being unjust to fall to defeat, you were fortunate not to have the stewards walk onto the track and disqualify you when your men were still at the starting gate.
Taking on a all-cavalry (ish) army on an open field involved control, discipline, caution and a keen desire not to give up your flanks. Your approach to the battle discarded all of these within moments of the starting gun being anachronistically fired thou crusty beetle-headed punk!
You claim a moral victory, but your stupidity in trying to take on this cloud of horsemen at their own game marks you as a foul spoken coward, that thund'rest with thy tongue, and with thy weapon nothing dares perform.
Only a puking decayed plebian such as yourself would overstretch your forces, leave huge gaps in your line, over-extend your geneals command ranges time and time again, and then claim poor luck cost you the game. You have one more chance to redeem yourself against the Feudal Germans in the final game of this campaign, so let's see if you take it or are taken to the cleaner by it?
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition against the powerhouse of the Feudal Germans
You may also like....
Game 1 Feudal Hungarian vs Komnenan Byzantine
Game 2 Feudal Hungarian vs Tuareg
Game 3 Feudal Hungarian vs Feudal English
Game 4 Feudal Hungarian vs Jurchen Jin
Game 5 Feudal Hungarian vs Feudal German
See more pics of the Hungarian Army being painted
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