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Alexander the (less than) Great goes to Call To Arms.
Fusilier Terry Swain reports on a Warhammer Ancient Battles tournament at the Wellington Warlords annual convention on August 20-21, 2005.
Alexander the (less than) Great marched his army back through the slain albino bull's entrails one more time. He could see the enemy across the valley, but the enemy commander still hadn’t made an appearance and he was having trouble finding enough entrails for his men to tread in. Fancy staying up all night before a battle and sleeping in - unheard of. Whats that, trumpets sounding at last? Here we go then ...
New Zealand’s inaugural 28mm Warhammer Ancient Battles tournament (well, really just a friendly gathering more than a cut-and-thrust tournie) had eight participants. They were:
- Bryan Orsborne from Auckland using Hittites
- Scott Bowman from Whakatane using HYW Lancastrians
- Brent Watterson from Napier using C10th Spanish (El Cid)
- Craig Watterson from Wellington using C10th Spanish (El Cid)
- Will Baillie from Wellington with C9th Scots
- Simon Taylor from Wellington using Early Imperial Romans (EIR)
- John Justice from Wellington using Early Imperial Romans (EIR)
- Terry Swain from Wellington using Alexandrian Macedonians.
The contestants were divided into two pools of four players (armies all 2000 points). Pool A had the earlier armies of Hittites, EIR and Alexandrian Macedonians. Pool B had the two El Cid armies, the Scots and Lancastrians. Games were to be played over two days with two games a day.
- Round One was standard pitched battle (each side set up twelve inches in from their baseline and flank edges, with alternate unit deployment).
- Round Two was a surprise attack (basically a pitched battle, but where the player who deployed all his units first could then start moving units forward while the player with less units was still deploying).
- Round Three was a flank attack where one player got to attack from a flank edge with one third of their army. The trick was that they would arrive on a random turn.
- Round Four was a two-on-two player game over two table lengths.
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Round One ...
Alexander the (less than) Great was a bit annoyed. When he charges with his gallant Companions, the enemy troops are meant to die in great numbers, and then be speared in the back as they cowardly run away. These Roman beetles just stood there, and killed his gay Companions as they ran away. As for those interbreed mongrel Thracians, I told them to avoid the ladz with all the metal and big shields (beetles), not attack them! But did they listen?... idiots ... hmmmm, I hear there are some fools still using chariots up country, we'll go and beat them up...
Okay, Round One down. My opponent sleeps in, gets here an hour late, luckily he is using one of my EIR armies so the troops are all set up. So John shows up, we get into it. Not much time left, so throw caution to wind, charge his cavalry with my Companions, and rout them. Looking good. His archers run away, even better. Hmm, time is getting on, what the heck, odds against me, feeling lucky, will charge the Praetorians with the Alexander/Companions combo with Agrianians covering the flank. Whoops, hard to kill these sods: 3+ save, who did this list?... oops, it was me! Fool! Companions run, everyone runs, bad day at office. Still Hittites next, chariots will be piece of cake!
In the other games, Simon's EIR draws with the Hittites (forboding really), Scott's Lancaster ladz do in Will's Scots, and in the battle of the El Cids, Brent defeats the pretender, Craig.
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Onto Round Two ...
Alexander the (less than) Great stared out over the field of battle in stunned amazement. He had marched his army through the entrails of two slain albino bulls, and the gods had still deserted him. Those useless Greek Hoplites deserved to die to the last man for not holding up those chariots … okay, so they did die … just as well, as I would have killed them if had been any left. They looked really fierce with those nice new shields he had given them. But all those hairy chests and gold medallions couldn’t stop ten chariots…pathetic! And I won’t talk about those Thracians …they never have the decency to die…just run away looking for more loot and sheep to do unnatural Thracian things to…
Well Round Two, and surprise attack. Very nice looking Hittite army of Brian's, got the award for best army. Lots of chariots (seventeen or so), and very fast they are to. Terrain had this great big hill in the middle with a huge ruin on it, what idiot set that up?.. okay, it was me and I made sure it was never seen again after this disaster!
When you have a nice Phalanx to hold the middle, you kind of need a middle to hold, so I set off to beat up one flank, and Brian did pretty much same on other flank. His chariots are a lot faster than my pikes. Enough said. Oh, and the Alexander/Companions killer unit ran away again (mental note: meant to use the Agrianians to shield them from missile fire, so unit is intact when it goes into battle). Two games and propping up table. Auspicious! And to cap it all off, Craig had a go with the Macedonians against Brian at end of day and won quickly. Not a happy wee camper, am I.
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Brent and his El Cid army is cleaning out the competition. The lad is sick: been up till 2.00am finishing units, has only played two games of WAB before, and he is winning - makes one ill!
Sunday.
Okay, feeling good (despite the fact I turned 46 overight!). Arranged for ladz to meet for breakfast, so rather than being like the rest of the convention players hard at it gaming, we headed off for a leisurely breakfast of good old fashioned sausages/eggs/bacon/hash browns/fried tomatoes/toast breakfast and coffees at a local café! That’s how you do a convention!!
Round Three ...
Alexander the (less than) Great gazed out over the battlefield once more…and looked upon yet another army of those Roman metal-encased beetles with the big red shields. Right, this time he would sacrifice three albino bulls, and 300 Persian Virgins (seen the film, he had no use for them)…and this time would use a cunning plan and attack from a flank with his gay Companions and the thieving Thracians. Maybe if they got a better look at enemy's sheep, they might hang around a bit longer…
Up against my old foe, Simon. He and I have had a few games over the last few months, so he is now as familiar with an EIR army as I was. It was one of mine, but Simon has added a unit of Gauls and has no Praetorians, only Regular Legionnaires - so maybe I could kill them this time…
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Round Four ...
Alexander the (less than) Great once more looked out over the field of battle…and gloated. There were a lot of dead beetles out there. Must have been those 300 Virgins that had the Gods on his side. All had gone well: the Thracians didn’t run away (well, they did, but they came back), the Companions had destroyed a unit of beetles, the Greek Hoplites had been charged by Gauls and beaten them and had then been charged by beetles to the front and flank, and had beaten them too, the Phalanx had once again been unable to catch anyone to play with. But the beetles had died or run away…hopefully the Thracians chasing them wouldn’t come back…shame about the sheep.
For this round, the players decided to stop the tournie side of things and just enjoy the final round of two-on-two games. So at this point, Brent was the clear winner. Scott was voted best sportsman and Brian got the best army award. So the three out-of-townies scooped the awards. Hopefully they will return next year, now we have let them win this year!
For the two-on-twos we had EIR v Hittite/Macedonians. Brian and I swapped commands, so Brian got Alexander and I got the Hittites. Needless to say Alexander the (less than) Great once again led his Companions to disaster and the Macedonian army crumbled in response to their leader's demise, yet again! I was carrying out our cunning plan of blocking John's Romans while assisting Brian to obliterate Simon's Romans. Chariots are fun, but not really when charging uphill against veteran legionnaires from the front! It can hurt…but not as much as putting your hand down on top of my pike block - those Foundry steel 100mm sharpened steel pikes are nasty!
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In the other game, I lost track of exactly who won, but it looked a draw and they did seem to be having a lot of fun with skirmishers and cavalry charging all over the place! Will had turned up on Day Two with an El Cid army instead of the Scots, as he felt Scots were a bit cheesy. As a consequence, this game had lots of cavalry units, lots of skirmishers and some good and some awful spear blocks. It did all look rather colourful.
So all in all, the players had a good time. Four games over a weekend didn’t tire anyone too much. Rulebooks didn’t really need consulting much, considering the lack of WAB play time of most of the gamers. Brent provided some superb terrain, his castle set was spectacular. All of the armies were well painted and each game looked good to the spectators - a bonus.
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Till next year……… and hopefully one or two more converts to Warhammer Ancient Battles.
