Feudal Ages at Warfare 2021
Feudal Hungarian vs Feudal German
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
After a quick scoot round the trade stands, dodging freezing blasts of air from any doors unwisely left open to the outside, the final round saw the two wins, two narrowest-margin-possible defeats Hungarian army pitched into battle against a Feudal German force commanded by a Swede.
The lists for the Feudal Hungarian and Feudal German 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.
Feudal Germans in ADLG follow the long held tradition of the DBM Feudal German list, in being an inordinately long and complex series of options to represent the various city states and min-empires of the region and era. In terms of content, that means almost anything Medieval, they can have it - but finding what is in each sub-list is a task many dare not even start.
This matchup, or more accurately the deployment, immediately confirmed beyond question my lack of joined up thinking, as with Frederik having not played any v4 at all prior to his trip to England for this tournament, I'd been chatting to him a couple of weeks earlier about his list and had helped him sanity-check it a little as well before submission.
Sadly all memory of what was in the list, other than the usual mix of knights, spears and some other stuff, had long since gotten so badly jubled that it had to all intents and purposes evaporated from my mind in the run-up to the event
This meant when the cleverly constructed force opposite me had finished deploying I was not only astonished to see what troops were in the list (Pikemen! Polearm Guys!), but also completely sideswiped by a deployment setup which utterly wrongfooted my much less imaginatively compiled army
The Hungaro-knights position in the middle of the line was obviously now a huge mistake, as it pitched them against a far larger infantry force of pokey pokey German-engineered anti-knight stuff than could be imagined, leaving my half-hearted refusal of the flank next to the waterway looking like it would just be swept away by a tide of mounted knights and sergeants in short order.
Stuff needed to be done, and done quickly if this game was to go even half the distance!
In a move almost guaranteed to not inspire confidence, the Magyars parted like a pair of goulash-stained kitchen curtains thrown open by the wife of Hungary's greatest Paprika-farmer first thing on "Bring your Favourite Biro to Work" day morning.
Knights raced to the right, cavalry steamed to the left, and spearmen sat their looking like a very easy set of pickings for the advancing German wall of steel indeed.
What's Going on Here Then?
This is already a mess for the Hungarians, as the combination of narrow table, misjudging the enemy deployment, and the Knight and spear-defeating mix of troops in the German army are all conspiring to make life very difficult for the Magyars.
Undertaking what amounts to a complete redeployment of two whole commands of the three-command army while the enemy advances towards you is never going to be pretty, and the only saving grace is that the complex mix of troops in the German army is going to find it challenging to advance all that swiftly. The Hungarian cavalry will need to do some serious skirmishing to delay the German advance as the rest of their army sorts itself out - all of which is a drain on the command and control capacity of the Magyar cadre of generals.
With the Croat spearmen making a run forward on the Hungarian left, the Germanic Horde started to separate efficiently, as parts of the line of infantry wheeled to block off the Croats advance.
In normal circumstances this might have opened up opportunities, but the Hungaro-Knights and anything else dangerous had already vacated the centre at speed, leaving very little still in place to threaten this new junction in the Feudal German battle line.
Hungarian Facts
In Hungary, you can't give a name to your child unless it's approved by the government
There is a list of pre-approved names that you can choose from to name your child, but if you want to give a name to your child with a name that's not on the list, you have to submit an application to have it aproved.
Still, the bravery of the Croats advancing under orders they clearly did not fully understand the implications of had already seen them manage to force something of a gap between two pre-disjointed components of the Germanic army.
Mercenary knights raced up to support the Croats, with Szecklers lurking hopefully in the wings as well, all working to seize an overlap, and try and work it quickly into a meaningful exploitable hole in the event line to unhinge and unzip heir formation before the main bodies of troops slammed together.
What's Going on Here Then?
This may look like a rather slim (and partly broken) reed on which to base an entire battle plan, but given the limited range of places where the German battle line is weaker than the Hungarian one, an opportunity to drive a wedge between 2 German commands, and take advantage of the Hungarians line being longer than the German one, is to be grabbed at with both hands
Knight on Knight with a single overlap to the Hungarians, and the possibility of the Croat Axemen also joining in from the left at some point in future looks very attractive indeed in this scenario - and to give it the best chance of success, Croat Spearmen have been delegated to stand fast against a German Pike block to cover the other flank of the Hungarian Knights.
This does mean both sides in this 2-3 unit wide micro-fight have advantages at each end of the baby-battle-line, the difference being that if the Hungarians can force a win their faster moving Knights, and the supporting cavalry (and possibly Croat foot) they will be able to then take advantage by rolling up the German line far more quickly than the lumbering units of German Pikemen - making the risk of loss pretty similar for both armies, but the potential reward far greater for Hungary.
The German army was unfolding and deploying like a big polished blackened steel Medieval Transformer (now, there's a movie idea you can have for free...) as the Hungarians scrabbled furiously to try and rearrange their badly deployed shambles of bits and pieces to match off against what was clearly going to be superior numbers and quality in most of the table.
The Hungarian spearmen however stayed serenely in place, and remained a beacon of calm and sanity in the middle of all of this seemingly directionless activity, mainly as there was so much going on the CinC had no command capability left to move them as well.
The classic staple of mounted crossbowmen suddenly found themselves in a starring role in this arthouse German movie as they appeared as significant overlaps at the end of the something-else-house Hungarian horror-show hastily cobbled together redeployment.
The Hungarian knights were confident in their own ability but perhaps not in their ability to pretend to be twice as numerous as they actually were.
Mounted Crossbows - do they really work?
With the Croat spearmen leading the charge in the centre, the Croat Axemen were the first elements of the Hungarian forces to see action, charging across uneven ground to make big inroads into fighting the flank force of the German army.
Axes against spears should be good, right, with bowmen and Szecklers making up the extras, this was starting to feel like a good place for the Magyars to start the actual fighting - consequently the Croats were feelin' confident as they stepped forward to start their contribution to the fight.
The Germans were now pushing deep columns of pikemen (originally based for FoGR) forwards in some strength in a sort of "Battle of the Bulge if the Wermacht had ever been looking like they could actually win it" sort of way, forcing the Magyarorszag army to grab whatever came to hand to try and stave off the ignominy of being overrun by Heavy Infantry.
The Croat/Knight assault to engineer a flank on the German pedestrian line was also running into deep sand, with the Germans steadfastly refusing to conform to statistical probability and fighting bravely to check the Hungarian mercenaries assault.
Numbers and Quality were the name of the game on the other side, as two walls of knights hurled themselves together with an almighty crash which would be heard the length and breadth of the 120cm wide playing surface which sat between the two still-shivering players at this stage in the day.
The battle of the Knights was an exciting contest for sure, but the presence of the two units of German mounted crossbowees looked like they had the clever bit of technology on their side which would allow them to make the casting vote for deciding the winner.
With the relentless pressure of the German pikemen and infantry still driving forward, suddenly the Croat speamen's morale started to falter as they realised that their own German Mercenary Knights were not exactly doing the business in terms of rolling up the enemy flank.
The Clash of Knights was also resolving itself in an unhelpful way if you happened to be a fan of Dynamo Budapest, but a great one for any Borussia Moenchegladbach supporters out there in wargaming land (still..) reading this battle report, even despite the complete lack of mention of the near-legendary team from North Rhine-Westphalia that plays in the Bundesliga (and was always a Subbuteo kit to aspire to for many of us in our youth) prior to this moment in this report.
Hungarian knights stuttered and exploded under the assault of the Teutonic types, with the mounted crossbows mere presence seemingly enough to unnerve and distract the Goulash Brigade from fighting properly at all.
The morale and integrity of the haphazardly assembled, laughingly-described so-called "battle line" of the Hungarian army was collapsing more quickly than a British Prime Ministers credibility after claiming not to recognise what a party looks like even when he's been invited to attend by email (I'm aware that this may be horribly dated by the time this report comes out, mainly as there seems to be another utter sh-t show practically on a daily basis at the moment).
As the trestle tables of battle groaned under the oak smoked Germanic cheeses of combat the Magyars flaked like water biscuits intended just for Gouda but finding themselves now wildly over-laden with additional apple and quince, and started to collapse everywhere you looked.
The German Knights had finally decided to accept a smidge of support and help from their own crossbow cavalry, and that had triggered an even faster implosion in the line of Hungarian Knights than had been inevitably going to happen anyway.
Goulash Ahoy! With their nobility swept from the table by the imperious Germanics the rest of the Hungarian army started to feel a rap tap tap on its right flank grow ever more insistent...
By now reserve German Knights had arrived to shore up what was supposed to be the weak point in the German line, where the Hungarian forces had been hammering without success since the very start of the battle.
Their arrival did not so much patch a possible hole as deliver a stunning coup de grace to the exhausted and battle-battered Croats and Mercenary Knights who had battled without success against German defences all game.
Feudal German History in 12 minutes (with stick men)
The Croats and the Mercenaries, first to combat, were last to go as the entire Hungarian force was swept from the field by the ruthless and efficient - and, one must admit, brilliantly composed in terms of command structure - German army.
The Result is an 84-29 defeat!
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
Perhaps I should retire to my paprika-infused tent and take some dessert wine to calm my nerves after this seemingly impossible to beat opposing army has gone a long way to ending my weekend of uninterrupted success and some other largely incidental and unimportant results in such firm but fair style?
At least I can rest easy knowing that my military academy had a role in setting up our Teutonic cousins for success, with a rejigging of their army design that I must admit worked better than I could have imagined.
The Hungarian military planners will be under strict instructions to invent some more troop types soon which can give us more options than our current feudal array of knights, spearmen and some cavalry I think
At least the event has now passed and I can look forward to the new year and more outings for these gaudily painted chaps and their array of flags!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
I do not recognise from your narrative the outcome or happenings of the game I have just witnesses. Your sorry story is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing!
The truth is that your scouting failed spectacularly, in a disaster than can only give comfort to future opponents who can now be sure that you will fail to learn from any past mistakes, even those which have only just been presented to you only days or moments before, you mumbling ill-nurtured hedge-pig!
And even in your explanantion lies the seeds of your mistakes of the highest order. Your army has steppe cavalry, it lives on the stepp, yet you attempted to create a European force of knights and infantry from base material ill suited to such an endeavour - why not use the unique strengths of this country of yours and design an army to use all of your mounted archery prowess? They may be mostly Medium Cavalry, but in a period of knights that is surely not such an issue unless you are a fool who's wit’s as thick as a Tewkesbury mustard?
The seeds of your defeat were writ large here - trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear, when the market for porcine auditory equipment was still thriving and healthy! You need to go away for a long time and come up with a better plan fro the next event you spleeny shag-haired writhled shrimp!
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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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