Yep. Played two excellent games at the club yesterday and remembered to take two whole photos of the second one. Some days I don't help myself with this insistence on a weekly posting schedule.
ADLG
I played my first game of ADLG in 15mm yesterday with Blogger Scotty with my ancient Wallachians invading the plains of Al-Andalus to battle Scotty's nascent Taifa Kingdoms army. My Strategist and hordes of light cavalry meant I won the roll to attack.
Scotty deployed a mix of medium foot and crossbow on his right with some Medium Cavalry Javelin, a solid centre of supported Heavy Spear and more Medium Cavalry Javelin and, on his left, some light horse and his Medium Knight Christian cavalry.
I deployed a screen of light horse and my bowmen in front of my portable fortifications and camp, largely refused the centre other than some light horse and deployed my Crusader knights and Boyars on the centre-right and right.
My pip dice started stupidly and largely stayed there for the whole game. I had SO many 6s for pips. I don't think there was a moment during the game that I had any shortage of activations. So I advanced my lights aggressively, partly to pop Scotty's one ambush marker, and he responded by aggressively advancing his cavalry.
On my right, his Light Cavalry Javelin engaged my Light Cavalry Bow and as that combat stalled Scotty engaged my Heavy Cavalry with his Medium Knight and my Heavy Knight with his Medium Cavalry Javelin and the grind began.
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| Die roll included to rub salt into that wound... |
As you can see from the photo above, Scotty got on the flanks of my Knights in the centre and I did the same on my right but these things that should have been sitters didn't wind up that way at all. Where his dice were bad, so were mine and where mine were good so were his. Until they weren't and my 6s were matched by his 1s...
Eventually, the Heavy Knight managed to push through the Medium Cavalry Javelin and my Heavy Cavalry held up Scotty's Medium Knights to eventually break the Taifa Kingdoms. You can see in the photo above Scotty's Spear and Bow never really made it into the fight which also gave me a lot more room to move.
Here we see a pivotal moment before my token resistance on my left flank collapsed (more on this later). Blogger Scotty's Medium Cavalry Javelin engaged my Bowmen and, over the course of two turns, broke them completely. That opened up the flank for Scotty's medium and loose medium infantry to crest a hill and sack my camp. Scotty charged up a hill into my fortifications (read: Levy) and I rolled a bunch of 6s and he rolled a bunch of not 6s and the Levy boldly defended the camp...!
It was a really good game made interesting because the slightly different board dimensions for 15mm meant there was (or certainly felt like) way more room to move with my light cavalry. Scotty's and Blogger McBeth's experience at an ADLG event last year also helped with clarifying things I had largely forgotten and getting a bit of good advice about some choices that would otherwise have been bad.
I definitely learned some things about the army and I think I'll get a bit more basing done to open up some other options. I also am going to have to go through and replace all the pewter lances with steel. They're just too bendy and I hate it. Very old school but as I think this army is going to see some more table time, I'm keen to get it looking it's best!
What about KoW?
I had a great game with blogger Tank and didn't take any photos at all so instead, some tactical reflections on trying out some new toys. Tank's use of the new Ordered March rule for his Dwarves definitely made my flying circus a lot less terrifying and given he took one of my flying troops of Spectres on the first turn, it became a lot more about applying good old fashioned fist to face!
The new Ravagers were impressive. Hordes of Large Infantry offer a fairly phenomenal number of attack dice and having Crushing Strength(1) and Piercing(1) on their melee and ranged attacks respectively definitely gives them utility. Almost makes the monetary cost of buying the models and the small stabbing while rebasing them worth it.
The Mindscreech won me the game in the end (that and an extra turn - if we'd stopped at 6, Tank would have had the win!) - two turns of shooting Lightning Bolt at damaged units did enough to push them to rout. It was lucky to survive being charged by Tank's uber-dwarf-golem thing and I absolutely wasted a turn using it in a rear charge against some DEF6+ Dwarves but all-in-all an impressive performance.
The Bloodworms were also impressive despite being fairly meh stat wise, they make up for that being Hordes with high Nerve Values and Lifeleech(2) gives them a bit more survivability. I might consider taking the less offensive version of the Mindscreech and using that to boost that healing and survivability.
Because pictures are nice, here's the whole finished force:
Next Time
I'm staring at the pile of stuff that wants doing and honestly at this point I have no idea. Next week will definitely be a painting post...
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