The missus left town for the weekend, and I, being a good husband, cleaned and washed up everything so by noon saturday all my chores were completed. Dinner and lunch were already made, the Guiness was acquired and gaming needed to commence. My boys were both busy with friends and work so it was the perfect time for my friend Roy Martin to graciously agree to “play a couple of games”.
Well, we play 7 games over the next 10 hours – 4 DBA, 3 BBDBA!!! Whew!!!!!!! Man that was a lot of gaming. So much so I can’t remember all that went on for every game. But we did have a REAL slugfest with our second BBDBA game so I will describe that one. (sorry no pics – wife had the camera with her 
)
The game had Roy invading with the Feudal Spanish (Bk III, year 999) vs my latest army – Later Crusaders(Bk IV/17) with a Syrian Ally (Bk IV/6). Below is the initial setup using the NASAMW rules for setup (Defender places terrain, attacker chooses which side, defender sets up 2 commands, attacker 3, then the final defender command). The Crusader right wing command setup last.
I had a plan – to sweep towards Roy’s camp and/or attack the end of his knight line on my right, skirmish with the Syrians on the left and scrum for the marsh in the center of the field. However, Roy also had a plan – slowly queeze my left wing, sweep my right with his knight wall, while taking the marsh with his horde of Psiloi (Roy had paid the price in some earlier games that day of NOT taking terrain to his great displeasure).
To that end, listed below are our initial few moves.
Roy took off with his light horse on my left, hoping to catch me in column. On my right, he started to angle his knight line to meet mine, but was running short of pips to lengthen it. In the center, the Spanish general roared, and the psiloi screamed into the marsh, forming column to get there the first bound. They then started spreading out to meet my oncoming psiloi and bow.
Well it was a bad start for Roy, as one of my bowmen shot down one of his psiloi – first blood to the Crusaders! Then on my left, our two Light Horse groups commenced to battling, but I peeled off a Syrian Cav unit to flank him, and soon all his Light horse were gone. It was looking to be a skunk against the Spanish – so obviously the Crusader Templar general on my right decided it was time to go on in and flank the Spanish center line with the general right in there!!!
As noted above here is where the crisis started. I did flank Roy’s line, killing the end knight and prepared to march down his knight line. However, the Crusader knight in front of the Templar general was killed on my turn, allowing Roy to flank my general on his turn. And POOF! – broken command! While this brought howls of glee to the Spanish left wing, on the right he was taking a beating.
My light horse were beginning to regroup as his spear closed. In the space between the center marsh and the woods on my left, his Cav started to push through, along with further attempts to clear the marsh by his psiloi. He killed one of my psiloi in the marsh, but in return lost a cav and psiloi on his right flank – breaking that command. He did kill one of the Syrian cav who moved up to block the hole, breaking that command of mine as well. On my right, Roy was doing a fine job mopping up on the broken Templars.
But unfortunately for Roy, a bad set of combat rolls had his spear and then psiloi on his left of the marsh die to my knights (after 4 bounds of hacking at him though!!) breaking his CinC’s command.
We figured out the total points – 67 to 33!! Wow what a bloodbath!
Well, now after all that practice, we get to try this soon at Cold Wars! 11 days and counting!
