It seems that in most tournaments we are inevitably drawn to each other, almost like a gaming version of Tinder. Until BRITCON, I was Rob’s kryptonite and no matter what he did, it always went wrong for him. At BRITCON he managed to break that streak. That time I unfairly blamed my defeat on the fact I forgot to use my stratagem, but to be fair to Rob he played a blinder.
Spookily enough, the stratagems played a massive part in this game.
Being an Ancients only tournament, Rob was reduced to dragging out his Principate Romans, the figures were from his school days, so from the silver age of the hobby and contemporaneous with Donald Featherstone. Most of Rob’s gaming has recently been with his Venetians so we were both using armies we hadn’t fielded in years.
The terrain fell not as I wanted, but the massive hills on my flanks disappeared, leaving only a few steep hills scattered about; not a great start. Rob had some quality cavalry and certainly more than me, even a lance armed unit. However, there was a single hill on my far right and just inside my half of the table. I drew the AMBUSH strategy so thought I could hide a LI unit from my cavalry command there. The plan was to put my cavalry on that right flank but hold back to draw him into the ambush. My elite Linen legion troops would be on my left and my camp and raw command also on my left. I had one of my two strong commands in the centre looking to go where any gaps appeared.
Rob had a quality but expensive command, so I hoped to hold his cavalry with the ambush. On my left push hard to draw his troops that way, then hopefully gaps would appear in the centre to enable me to slip units into his large triple camp. The Romans, unlike the Venetians Rob usually used had no crossbows or any other long ranged troops to make a killing zone near the camp and limit my movements. If he held his camp in strength, then I might overwhelm the troops outside his camp. I’m not saying it was a good plan, but it was an actual plan.
Rob deployed more or less as expected with his cavalry on his left and a lot of legions stretched across the table, although there was a gap to his right. His veteran legions were in his centre, with that horrible 5+ save. His camp had a single LI unit, so it looks like he was coming for me.
The game started well with my left advancing and my right holding back. Rob pushed his left forward but his centre command of elite legions did the double ace and stalled. In fact that command stalled for the first three turns much to Robs chagrin and my uncharitable amusement. This gave my left the chance to push forward and I managed to disorder some of his right flank legion and threaten to encircle them. His Praetorians (with the army standard) did push forward in the centre, but their support lagged behind, somewhat isolating them.
Meanwhile on my right the plan actually succeeded, Rob pushed forward against my rubbish cavalry to be surprised by the LI ambush appearing on their flank. My other javelin LI managed to disorder his cavalry closest to the centre. Which means that when one of my javelin units charged them, they bottled it and evaded. This game of ‘catch me, catch me’ went on all game taking both units out of the battle. This was fine by me, as I limited his cavalry threat and opened up a gap between his left and centre.