TTS AAR: Britcon Game One: Venice Abroad versus Bretons
/My first game proper at this year’s Britcon tournament was against Chris’ Bretons i.e. lots of cavalry and light cavalry!
Unsurprisingly, I lost the scouting, so set up in a largely defensive position in the centre of the table. I did have one unit of Knights off-table to begin with: they were carrying out a flank march on the right and were designed to be my battle-winning trump card, arriving just in time to roll up the Breton flank!
Unfortunately, Chris got some pretty decent cards on his first turn and, almost before I knew what was going on, the Bretons were all over me, especially on my left flank, the one that was weakened by the absence of the flanking Knights.
Worse, the Later Knights who were on that side of the table seemed to have put their ceremonial cardboard armour on that morning, so that rather than runnng rough-shod over the opposition, any initial success that they had was soon wiped out as the Bretons in front of them evaded and those to the side flank-charged them off the table!
That’s what happens when you pull six Aces in one turn, two of them doubles!
In a tournament as well!
I was now pretty beleagured on the left side of my camps, and it looked as if the game could be over very quickly.
Fortunately, my off-table flanking force chose that moment to arrive, and did exactly what they were supposed to do: driving into the left flank of the Bretons and starting to roll them up.
At the same time, the troops on the left of my line suddenly remembered how to fight, and the situation around that end of my camps stabilised.
The game could now go either way. We each had eight coins remaining, but whilst I had begun on 14 coins, Chris had begun on 11, so all I needed to do to win the game was to take out 1½ of his units…and I could see two clear opportunities to do so.
Unfortunately, both these opportunities slipped through my fingers - a combination of more poor cards and some excellently slippery tactics from Chris - and the initiative passed to the Bretons without me having been able to firmly put them to bed!
Chris, too, could see an opportunity to take the last of my coins and, without hesitation, he swept a unit of light cavalry into two of my now undefended camps (we were busy trying to stabilise the other end!) taking the last six of my coins and the game for a 14-8 victory!
Excellently played by Chris, but highly annoying for the Venetians. If you look at the picture above, you can see a unit of light infantry handgunners on the flank of some Breton horse. If those handgunners had managed to step back into the camp (anything but an Ace!) then Chris would only have been able to take one camp and I’d have had another chance to win myself.
So that was two defeats in a row for the Venetians (the warm up game and game one) and with a result that somewhat belied the actual situation on the tabletop. All credit to Chris for taking full advantage of the opportunity on my left and his super evading tactics (which made it very difficult to kill the Bretons as they retreated and were then recycled back into the action) and I had better pull my finger out for the next four games if I was to have any chance of holding on to my title!
