My fourth and last game at the Welsh Open To The Strongest tournament was against Steve’s Wars of the Roses Yorkists: a difficult army to face, packed full of longbows and with infantry armed with two-handed cutting weapons!

Attacking an enemy like that with a frontal advance is suicide: you walk right into a hail of longbow fire. The only way to do it is to attack its flanks and/or wings. I therefore sent the Knights forward, with the infantry pausing just outside longbow range, waiting for their own opportunity to go in.

Unfortunately, on the right, my Knights were wearing their cardboard armour, and were soon fleeing the field. The intervention of my Light Mounted Crossbowmen, who had started the game off table and Lost, didn’t achieve anything, and despite huge opportunities for success on that flank, my attack petered out into nothing, with Steve able to bring the infantry that had disposed of my Knights back to counter the strength of my Later Knights.

I did have an opportunity to take the camp there, but chose to try and improve the situation overall by sending the Lights into the rear of a Yorkist unit, but that didn’t work, leaving me to regret a potential three coins squandered.

Meanwhile, on the left, my Knights had broken onto the enemy flank, but the units there were veteran and proving very tough to actually evict from the tabletop, and I had to content myself from killing a general there. I also just couldn’t quite get my Knights into the enemy camp there: the cards weren’t quite falling for me.

I was now slightly ahead in terms of coins captured, but I needed an outright victory if I was going to make up for the crashing defeat I’d suffered against Peter. I therefore then made my second mistake of the game: with the wings tied up but with the potential for my cavalry on either to head in to the centre, I sent my infantry there forward to pin the Yorkist troops in place.

This was a mistake, as my poor spearmen and even the Alabardiers promply got cut to pieces by the enemy Billmen!

This gave Steve enough coins to draw level and, with the game absolutely in the balance, astutely break through my line with his foot and attack my weakest line unit, the crossbowmen, sending them and my last two coins fleeing from the table for a 10-12 close fought loss!

A great game of To The Strongest despite the result, and very well played by Steve.

Overall, I was surprised to end up in 5th place, a good deal better than I was expecting and probably down to the size of my first two wins. Steve ended up second…which is presumably where I would have been if I’d beaten him!

Cracking tournament: my thanks to Ty for organising and for all four of my opponents on the day.

It’s now on to the delayed 2025 Doubles next weekend…