To The World's Strongest, Game 4: Venice Abroad vs Normans
/My final game at this year’s world championships was against old friend Matt’s Normans.
Matt won the scouting, and deployed his massed cavalry in two chunks facing my wings:
The game began,, and I was almost immediaely in trouble on not one but both wings: my Knights having dressed, as is often the case, in their ceremonial cardboard armour instead of the proper metal kit!
Let’s start on the right, where I then repidly lost the Later Knights and was forced to withdraw right to the table’s edge to regroup and send infantry over from the centre to help.
Although the Knights on the right rallied and pushed forward, I was now facing a roll up from the right as the Norman cavalry pivoted through 90 degrees and headed for the centre.
The infantry I had redeployed to stabilise the situation succumbed to attacks from their flank and rear, and it was only by throwing in the Alabardiers and some desperate fighting from the Crossbowmen and Lights that I managed to stave off disaster.
Meanwhile, on the left, I had managed to rally the Later Knights and push forward to drive the Norman cavalry back, but had had the Knights become disordered and was threatened by enemy infantry lapping around the flank.
At this point we were starting to run out of time. My first thought was that this was a relief, as I had really felt that I was only just holding on throughout the game so far.
Then I looked at the table again and thought, hang on, I’ve killed everything threatening me on the right and am actually now chasing disordered Norman units to finish them off…and actually the same is true on the left. With each of us down to our last few coins - helped by the fact that I had killed two of Matt’s generals - I could actually win this game despite the fact that I had nearly crumbled into defeat in turn two!
Unfortunately it was not to be.
On the right, in the last turn of the game, my Knights and Alabardier units, each led by their command’s generals, failed to break units of already-disordered enemy cavalry…
And on the left, a desperate melee involving three already-disordered Norman units also failed to result in any coins heading my way.
Time was called, and we had both taken nine of our opponent’s coins, so a technical win for the Normans as they started with one less coin than I did…but what a game!
I honestly thought the game would end after about three turns as my Knights crumbled and the Norman army lapped around both my flanks, but a great fight back ensued until the Venetians were within Ames Ace of victory: just failing to secure a win mainly due to some outrageous saving cards from Matt, probably deserved as his officers had fallen like flies earlier in the game.
So what did all this mean for the competition as a whole?
Well, I came eighth overall—a considerable improvement on the 19th place I managed last year, when I had a real mare! But if you look at the results table below, you can see just how close the competition was. Not so much for first place (with four wins out of four, Peter was well ahead of everyone else), but for the other top spots: the extra 25 points from one more outright win, rather than a winning draw, would have given any of the next eight players second place—including me!
A cracking tournament all round, and I really would encourage people to enter the To The Strongest competitions that are run just about throughout the year: great fun, great sportsmanship, great gameplay…just great!
