We all know Later
Hungarians, right? A few dead good
knights, some highly expensive foot,
maybe a few War Wagons, and bucket-loads
LH(F)? I'll avoid the foot, ride the
LH(F) down and then chip the rest away -
no problemo, they cant catch me....right?
Erm, guess again!
The Good Burghers of Niall's particular
Hungarian Province prove to be almost as
"Light-Horsed Up" as me! 4
Commands, - all with just a couple of
Knights in each. Ho Humm.
Having had an
incredibly hard fought game in Roll Call
against Niall, things looked interesting
to say the least!
The terrain was
almost a copy of the previous game, with
a central wood - not ideal either! Woods -
(green bit) and 3 gentle hills (yellow)
At the
off, I am still thinking there will be
lots of Knights for me to play with, but
as deployment starts to happen, it all
becomes clear. As we always like to
say...
"Its
a game of skill"
LH
vs LH all across the board - the
Hungarians start playing "can I get
my (S) into your (O)?", whereas I am
equally enthusiastic about "Can I
get my (9 in total) Cv into his LH",
and "can I get my LH (S) into his LH
(F)". In the centre it is a face-off
- the wood is crawling with Ps (S), and
my Auxilia (O) aren't exactly enthused
with the idea of moving up the
evolutionary ladder from
"padding" to "potential
game winners"...or "game
losers" more likley!
I deploy L to R with Crim Tatars, CinC (The
Knight command), with its Ax facing off against
the wood, the nurdler and then the Cv (O)/LH (S)
command. facing me is Lh (S), LH (O), more Ps (S)
than i have ever seen making a bee-line for the
wood, and then 2 more LH (S)/(O)/(F) commands.
Its nip and
tuck all across the line - at basically
2-2 everywhere, any overlap could be
vital, and it often is - as soon ay you
are 0-2 down, the 6-1's are guaranteed to
come out of the bag and turn the tide,
and a more than a few happened!
The poor
dice must have been worn out, with about
4' of combats in play. Traditional
"game of skill" highlights
included my Cv (O) beating back a
Hungarian general on the right and my
entire Crim Tatar command taking about 2
weeks to align themselves perfectly to
steam down the hill on my left into a
line of LH (S) & (F) - and then not
winning a single combat when they got
there!
View
from a Regular Kn (O)'s General's rear
view mirror
The tension
is getting to both of us - first to crack
is the small Hungarian command on the far
right - those Cv (O) are really deadly!
Then my CinC goes down - the Kn prove to
be the weak link - falling over vs LH
(O).
The Tatars are starting to make
some headway - but they have no safe
right flank - and the hole on the left
isn't quite big enough to exploit, as the
Hungarian general teams up with the
remaining Knights and holds up the Cv (O)
command.
Every element is vital - I am even
forced to risk LH to pick off single
Psiloi as they occasionally fall out of
the edges of the wood
My CinC's
Command
Eventually, another Hungarian
Command goes! The game is over - 8-2 to the
Lithuanians...and I have lost 30.5EE - -break
point of 31.5...what a corker!!!
