TTS AAR: Ewelme 25 Game 4: Venice Abroad vs Hussites
/My fourth and final game at the Ewelme tournament this year was against the Hussites: a controversial army featuring a large amount of fortified war wagons.
Why controversial, you ask? Well, in a tournament setting that super-rewards an outright victory, it’s hard to achieve a conclusive result when one party sits at the back of the battlefield and just waits for his opponent to attack.
Personally I don’t agree. It’s a competition, it’s a legitimate army list…learn how to beat it in a timely fashion rather than just complaining!
Anyhoo: on to the game. First up, a bit of psychological warfare. I announced to Neil, commanding the Hussites, that I had enough points to rank in the top four or five so didn’t need to risk losing the game, so my Venetians would also stay at the back of the battlefield and not move!
This seemed to somewhat annoy him (which was, after all, the whole idea) so after stretching things out for a bit (as a good joke deserves a bit of time to mature!) I knuckled down and got to work.
The Hussites had set up in their usual formation: a long line of wagons backed by infantry with impassable terrain at either end.
Now I used to play a lot of 19th Century Colonial wargaming, and the one thing that commanding the Mahdists or the Zulus taught me (apart from not fighting a modern war with medieval weapons!) was that it was the corners of a square that were vulnerable i.e. don’t charge straight at it where the whole of one side can target you, go for the corners where only some of the enemy can shoot you.
My tactics therefore were to concentrate my missile troops on the left front corner of the Hussite line, also getting around their flank and shooting over the impassable terrain, whilst I advanced my dismounted later knights up to attack once the fire from the missile troops had started to have an effect.
Yes, I dismounted my later knights (who dismount with two-handed choppers!) but kept my standard knights on horseback in case I needed a quick reaction force for something.
This worked very nicely indeed, and I had soon killed one war wagon and one unit of supporting infantry for the loss of three quarters of my ammunition, and had my later knights ready to go in.
Unfortunately, the later knights were having one of their off days, and didn’t carve through the oppositio n like they should have done, but things werre progressing nicely, and it was only a matter of time before that end of the Hussite line collapsed.
At this point Neil realised that he had to do something different, so opened up the other end of his line of wagons and let his cavalry (decent lancers and light cavalry) out with the intention of marauding around my right flank.
This was, of course, utterly anticipated, and my knights (still on their horses) moved forward to counter the threat.
The initial clash wasn’t as successful as I had hoped - as I said, for some reason my knights were all having an off day - but with the infantry helping the enemy cavalry were soon on the run.
Particularly pleasing was squishing his light cavalry up against one of his own war wagons now positioned in front of some impassable terrain:
Unfortunately, time had been ticking away, and although I only needed a few more coins to win outright, I only had one last turn to get them.
My later knights didn’t manage it, so the only other chance was my Alabardiers charging into the back of the Hussite veteran cavalry (with general who had no other unit to go to, so would disappear if the cavalry broke): unable to evade because, you guessed it, they were also squished up against the wall of war wagons.
Unfortunately, although the Alabardiers had two goes at breaking the cavalry, and hit several times, the Hussite horse were veterans and managed to save the lot: Neil drawing high cards out of his deck right, left and centre!
So the game ended in 113-53 winning draw for the Venetians: frustrating as I would have had ‘em properly if there had been one more turn to play! Still, a satisfying result that showed the Hussites can be beaten: especially as I achieved this result with all my knights, mounted and dismounted, having a really bad set of cards.
This was the final game of the day, and when the points were totted up, my two wins, one winning draw and one loss saw me into fourth place: not a bad result.
Frustratingly, once the final scores were published, I realised just how close the top spots had been. Had my Alabardiers managed to finish off the Hussite cavalry and their general in the closing moments of the game—securing me an outright victory—I would have taken second place overall! How annoying is that? Probably as annoying as when I turned to Neil and cheerfully declared that the Venetians, too, would be staying right where they were on their side of the table at the start of the game…
