Hello all,
Finally, after almost two years of absolutely no Warmaster games, we finally managed to set an entire day aside for delightful a Warmaster-extravaganze. We (Uffe, Per and myself) had decided to play a series of small games just to get familiar with the rules again and we had each made three 500-point armies: One consisting solely of infantry, one of only (or primarily) cavalry and one where the idea was to have one of each troop type in an army list (hence, very ineffective and weird armies). Also each army had a free general.
We made it through four games and each was very different but all were fun. The following is just a quick recap of each and the highlights of the campaign.
The table in all its glory - I may have gone a bit overboard with the terrain, but most of it needed to be aired and it made me happy to see most of it on the table!
The first game used the All-Infantry armies. My own consisted of one brigade of Irish Warbands, one unit of heavy Footknights, and four Longbow units and two Billmen, using the Army of York. My opponent was, as always, (ab)using the Teutonic Armylist and fielded the following: five Corssbowmen units and five spearmen - simple but effective.
When the Teutonic army deployed I noticed that he was spread very wide and my plan was to destroy his left flank or his centre as quickly as possible. Hopefully this could be achieved before he managed to get his right flank into the game. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men...
My army - just because army shots look great in this scale.
The Teutonic centre and right flank.
Unfortunately my gameplan didn't survive the realities of the game. My commander failed most orders the first turns while the teutonic commander managed to accomplish everything. This left me with an army that rather than being spread out, was perfectly poised for enveloping my own flanks.
I choose to try something bold and had a brigade of Infantry/longbowmen move forward either to put some hurt on his centre or perhaps to lure his troops away from his nice battleline.
This didn't work-curses!- Next, I tried attacking his right flank with my Irish warband. I thought they just might pull it off, but I had forgotten both how effective a combined brigade can be and just how quickly warbands crumble when things go wrong.
At the cost of my Irish allies I did manage to cripple his brigade, but not enough.
And while this was happening, his left flank and centre exposed my remaining troops to a withering punishment by Crossbowbolts and left it too confused to attack.
Instead, with the Irish destroyed, the Teutonic scum could choose where to attack and quickly destroyed my army.
Well played by my opponent and I was much too rash with my troops.
The next two games were played using the cavalry-lists - I had four Currours units (average knights) and one light horse unit (Hobilar) while my Teutonic enemy had brought three Brother Knight units (Auch, these are by far the best troops in the entire game and akin to Tiger Tanks) and two crappy infantry units to fill up the points.
This time the Teutonic Order may have overextended. trying to get the infantry to safety in the middle-where they would disrupt my movement- they were left in a position where I was just able to throw a unit of knights at them.
This naturally destroyed them but left me a wee bit exposed. Notice how I've cleverly decided to have my screening light horses
behind my knights. A position in which they are worse than useless!
The brother knights naturally made their two orders to charge and crushed my poor Yorkish nobility. However, and this was the turning point, they were a bit too eager and advanced into a new combat, being already somewhat damaged. The Yorkian cavalry took advantage of this and managed (barely) to detroy a single unit of Brother knights, causing the army to withdraw.
A slim victory to me - which might have been larger had the game
continued as (see above) the surviving cavalry could charge the brother
knights in the flank and push them into the forest.
The next cavalry game was played on the other diagonal, this time I felt much less confident. The Brother Knights have more dice than my average knights even when they do the charging. Not a nice prospect. I planned to screen (in a proper way, this time) with the light horses and attack the knights in the flanks.
Instead, it turned out that the Teutonic Order made a few tactical errors in an attempt to secure all flanks. These mistakes left the Brother Knights somewhat exposed, and with a bit of luck I managed to charge them with all my knights, even catching one unit in the flank.
Still, the casualties where high on both sides. The flanked Brother Knights even managed to win a round of combat against the flank-charging knights! At the end, however, I had the single surviving Brother Knight stand just where i wanted it (see above, the Brother Knight stand is the black one :-)).
Another slim victory to the Yorkian Heroes!
The last game was a three-way deal where my army of infantry was at the top of a triangle, with Teutonic scum on one side and a Yorkian Contender on the other (with the exact same army composition!).
This would-in theory- put each side a similar distance from each other and hence give no side a disadvantage.
My army once again deployed for battle - Irish on the left and a brigade of combined arms on each flank.
The game however quickly developed into one where the Teutnic Order sought to crush my left flank while the Yorkian enemy kept my right flank locked in position by confusing some and threatening other units. Must be said that my Yorkian opponent didn't get more than one order through on the first four turns...but his presence still meant I couldn't remove troops from that flank, and his intact deployment meant there were no gaps to exploit.
All seemed lost as the Teuntonic infantry destroyed my left flank and quickly rolled up the centre. However, as they went on they kept bleeding troops and finally I was able to send in some relief and with a bit of luck and the now-attacking Yorkian opponent also bleeding the Teutons, we finally rid the table of these abominations.
The two Yorkian armies then faced each other- mine heavily damaged, needing only to loose one more unit before I myself broke. However, it turned out my opponents Irish had failed to fall-back into a defendable position and I grabbed the opportunity. My troops attacked and destroyed the warbands while my Men-at-Arms on foot charged an exposed Longbow-unit on the other flank. With a bit of luck here and there the tables were turned and I managed to sneak out a win! Although a costly one: needing only to loose one more unit, I had three units with only a single stand left.
A very, very, slim Yorkian (goog-guys) win.
As always Warmaster proved to be a brilliant set of rules; simple, quick and one producing great games. We had fun in all games, even though I may have shouted a bit too much as I kept failing armour saves (those Men-at-Arms and their 4+ armour save...bah!).
We also had a once-in-a-million situation where a dice came to an abrupt halt on its corner:
Never seen that before!
Anyways, hope you enjoyed reading these quickly penned-down battle reports. 500-points armies really make for quick, fun games!
All the best,
Kasper
