Well, tonight my Sub-Roman British took on John?s Dublin Vikings. The Britannia Prima version of the SRBs has intrigued me since the June draft of Book 2 has been out, so I thought I?d give it a try. My list was as follows:
Command 1 (23/6/8)
Brilliant C-in-C as Reg Kn (F)
1 Reg Kn (X)
2 Reg Kn (F)
1 Reg LH (O)
1 Irr LH (O)
4 Reg Bd (O)
2 Reg Ps (O)
4 Irr Sp (I)
2 Irr Bg (F)
Command 2 (26/7/9)
Ally as Irr Cv (O)
4 Irr Cv (O)
2 Irr LH (O)
18 Irr Sp (I)
6 Irr Ps (O)
2 Irr Bg (F)
Command 3 (26/7/9)
Ally as Irr Cv (O)
6 Irr Cv (O)
2 Irr LH (O)
18 Irr Sp (I)
2 Irr Ps (O)
2 Irr Bg (F)
Stratagems: Exaggerated Army Size, Change Deployment, Concealed Command
I invaded in summer, and weather and time of day played no part in the game. Knowing that John had to take a Sea, and wanting to minimise his chance of placing terrain, I chose to deploy a large wood, and nominated my own table edge for the invader?s terrain placement dice. As it was, the Sea went down on my right, my large forest on my left, just my side of the centre line, and there was a small forest straddling the centre line next to the Sea.
At this point, given that John?s army was Dublin Viking, I began to suspect he had an Irish ally, and I assumed it would be on his right. After a bit of dithering, I decided to place command 2 on the left, command 1 in the centre and command 3 on the right. John placed his Irish as I expected, and added two large commands of Viking Bd between the Irish and the little wood. The Bd were mostly (O) in the front rank, with another rank and a half of (I) behind them. The C-in-C?s command also had an element of berserks. The Irish were Ax (S) in the front rank with two ranks of Ax (O) behind, plus a group of Ps (S) facing the large forest. He had no baggage.
I hoped to use my Cv and Ps against the Irish. Some Sp faced the Ax (S), while most, in three ranks, were facing the Bd. In the C-in-C?s command the Sp were in one rank, but I used the Exaggerating Numbers stratagem to make them look like three ranks as well. The mounted stayed in reserve.
John rolled a fourth PIP dice, getting a 6 straight away to reveal a naval flank march. The rest of his troops advanced steadily, with excellent PIP dice. In fact, he advanced so far that he uncovered my Exaggerating Numbers stratagem immediately. My own PIP dice were a little more modest, and my advance was a little slower. In the centre I moved Arthur and his Kn (F) to a point behind the single rank of Sp. And because I had only three commands, I was able to roll a 4th PIP dice.
In my second turn, I rolled a 6 on my 4th PIP dice, showing that sham up too. But my other PIP dice were good enough that I was able to move short and let John take the initiative of moving into charge range. He did so, and in my next bound I charged in across the line.
The results were more spectacular than I could?ve expected. I killed one element from John?s left wing and four elements from his C-in-C?s command. Three of my four kills were by the single-ranked Sp, including the Wb (S) berserks and two Bd (O). However, on my right, the 2 Ps facing the small wood found 4 Ax in it. John?s flank march rowed up to the shore and disgorged 8 Bd (F). I turned my right wing Cv to face them, harbouring brief hopes that I might get lucky with a Cv charge against a Bd (F) general.
But the main fighting between the woods was brutal. The Sp gave almost as good as they got, although holes began to appear in the lines. Arthur and his Kn (F) charged into the Bd when the single-ranked Sp died, and the Big Guy used his two Combat Brilliant Strokes to good effect. Unfortunately I just missed the chance of deploying Arthur against the Viking C-in-C. As the casualties mounted, John?s C-in-C?s command teetered for a couple of bounds 1 ME short of disheartening, during which time a counter-attack against a Kn (F) pushed Arthur?s command to disheartened. Then the Irish Ps got hammered by mine, and a couple of Ax (S) died in combat, leaving them disheartened. Then the Viking centre became disheartened, followed by my right wing, thanks to a huge number of dead Sp and a couple of Cv killed by the flank marching Bd (F) ? four commands disheartened.
And then it all happened. With the Ax (S) dead, my Sp had an easier time killing the Irish Ax (O), and accumulated just enough casualties to break them. This added 2 ME losses to the Viking centre, which broke, and that in turn added 2 ME to the losses of the Viking left, which also broke. My right wing was 0.5 ME from breaking, and if it had gone, it would have added 2 ME losses to my centre, which also would have been just enough to break them, and thus the army. So victory to me by the narrowest possible margin. The score I calculated as 19-6 to me, with my 2 disheartened commands and 26% losses.
I have to say my combat dice were quite good. I scored at least four or five 6-1s my way, and a lot fewer against me, and many of my bad combat dice were where the factors and QK were already against me. But by contrast my PIP dice were pretty poor ? I think Arthur scored more than 3 PIPs only once, and I was sorely tempted a couple of times to use a Brilliant Stroke to double them. I?m glad I resisted the temptation. John?s PIP dice were excellent early on, but he rolled poorly for PIPs later in the game, and his combat dice weren?t the best.
I?m going to sound like a proverbial broken record, but once again the Irr Sp (I) have performed well. This time they were up against nearly their own number of Bd (O) and (I), and killed nearly two-thirds as many Bd as the Bd killed Sp, and therefore coming out ahead in the ME count. They did even better against the Ax (S), killing more than they lost.
All in all, a most excellent game, and my thanks to John for the fun we had. Had the result gone the other way, I could hardly have complained. In fact, mutual demoralisation would probably have been the fairest result.
