TTS AAR: Gauls versus Vikings
/Time to get the Celts back on the tabletop. Up until now they’ve manifested as Galatians, but I’d now had a chance to paint enough missile-armed light infantry to field them as Gauls…so today’s encounter would be Gauls against Vikings using To The Strongest.
The Gauls outscouted, and I managed to get all my cavalry onto the Vikings’ open wing on the right. The Scandies had, however, put their six units of veteran Huscarls (armed with big choppers) on their right, so I faced them with my two veteran warbands and hoped they could hold out until the cavalry had done its job.
Note that the Viking longship represents a three-square fortified camp: something that would prove highly significant in the battle that followed.
Things began with me advancing forward strongly on the right, with my cavalry aiming to outflank as my infantry pinned the enemy in place. As planned, I kept my left wing back and was lucky in that my opponent, Peter, drew poor cards and couldn’t, initially get his lethal Huscarls moving.
As battle was joined in the centre, my cavalry swept in from the flank…but to little or no effect: Peter had manoeuvred into an echelon formation anchored on his fortified camp which protected the flanks of nearly all his infantry, and those footsoldiers that I could get at stubbornly resisted my attempts to run them down.
Nothing I did with the cavalry seemed to work, and my “brilliant manouevre” looked like being nothing more than an inconvenience for the Vikings, even when the cards did decide to help me out a little. It was only the intervention of some slingers that actually managed to break one of his infantry units, even with my multiple flank attacks.
Meanwhile the infantry melee in the centre had drawn just about everyone else into one big scrap, and my poor Gauls were getting the worst of it.
Fortunately, I now managed to bring the warbands on the right into play: crashing them into the centre anyhow just to take the pressure off the rest of my troops.
Every surviving unit on both sides was now engaged either in the mass melee in the centre or on the right where my cavalry were still trying to win the game for the Gauls. Both sides were hemorrhaging coins, and the result was totally in the balance.
Ultimately, however, it was the Gauls who broke first: one of my veteran warbands (who’d already lost their general) finally giving up the ghost when assailed from front and flank. A victory for the Vikings!
It had been a very close and exciting game. I still can’t quite work out why my cavalry didn’t sweep all before them but, looking through the pictures above, it was probably down to a combination of brilliant manouevring on Peter’s part backed up by some very lucky “save” cards. If the cavalry had been able to break even just one of the Viking units they had spent most of the game attacking from the flank, then I think it would have been the Gauls celebrating rather than the Scandies!
An excellent game of To The Strongest!
