Sunday, October 25, 2015

Neil Thomas Medieval Batrep: #14 Static Defence, p.3

The battle continues to rage...

Turn 6.  Blue unleashes his knight who've pent-up fury to spend.  One slams into the crossbows, the other rolls short and has to settle for covering the flank.  While Red has a legal flank charge against the Blue knight battling the crossbows, they'd then be charged in the flank and that would be "bad" since they presently have a hill advantage [halved Hits] which they'd lose.  Not worth it.  


Spear and archers move up in support of the Knightly attack on the hill.  On the other side of the woods / field, Red's Men at Arms and Archers continue to work around their wood and the restriction to stay near the town.  It's hard to follow orders sometimes!

Turn 7.  Red Men at Arms at top have moved back to town and out of the way of Red Archers.  Meanwhile, the melee on the hill rages, with both sides grinding down the other.  The crossbows are weak in melee but take half Hits at the top of the hill, while their knights are both taking halved hits and inflicting them at the d5+2 for knights.  They are slowly getting the edge on their Blue attackers.  The spear and archer move up to support Blue knights.  The importance of infantry is clearly being seen.  They are critical to protect flanks and engage in supporting attacks.


Turn 8.  Blue knights on hill break.  Fortunately, there are spear to take their place and hopefully gain the hill!  Other blue knight slowly gains the upper hand on the crossbows. The menace of Red archer support is clear - could turn the tide if allowed to happen.  Blue archers move to run interference and protect their knights on the hill.


Turn 9.  Spearmen just make it into melee against Red knights, but probably regret it as they take 7 Hits while inflicting only 2!  Crossbowmen similarly lose ground to the Blue knights.  Red Archers move into strike range, supported by the men at arms.  Blue archers continue positioning themselves to protect Blue knights on the objective.


Turn 10.  Red archers start their volleys, but Blue archers are there to take it!  Crossbows are at 14 Hits, so will disappear next turn.  The Blue spearmen continue to do poorly against the Red chivalry on the hill.


Turn 11.  Archers exchange volleys, but as Blue's already had Hits, they will lose.  The crossbows and spearmen both break.  With mutual flank charges, the knight with the turn sequence will be the flank charger, and that's Blue!


Turn 11.  As said earlier, Blue has flank charge using the 45 degree marker you can see that their charge hits Red knight flank.  Blue archers take more Hits and their end is also in sight.


Turn 12.  Blue archers are destroyed, but Red force cannot project force onto the hill - remaining within 12" of the town leaves them short of shooting the knights.  If they could cover the hill with arrows, then the Knights would be forced to charge them, resulting in their destruction due to the support of Red's men at arms.  As Red's remaining units are forced to remain near the town, they can't.

With Blue in possession of the hill, and Red unable to stop it, the game is over.

A very interesting scenario!  Came down to the very end.  I made every effort to win the game for both sides, but in the end made a few mistakes that cost Red the game.  

The Blue advance wasn't well timed or set up.  The Red preemptive attack was too aggressive and lost knights for spearmen due to being shot in the rear. Had they attacked the Blue archers instead it may have gone better, but they would still be too far ahead of their archer unit supporting them.  

I think that the Red archers would've been more effective had I moved them in support of the hill sooner, since that's where the attack was being made.  Their shooting could've made a big difference, especially if I'd angled the defensive line towards the back of the board instead of towards the wood. This would've made the hill a tough and well-supported defense. 

Overall, very happy with both the rules and the scenario, altho there's probably some small details to work out.

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