Just to show I do get the occasional game in....
This was a 450 pt game between me & a relative newcomer at our club (newcomer to DBMM - not to the Club - sorry John!
- he's been mostly a DBR player for the last couple of years & has only had 4 or 5 DBMM games recently, so you can't read too much into the result!
the game was played with 25mm figures on an 8'x6' table (2400x1800 for all you Imperially challenged types!)
My army was 5 commands - all troops are regular except for the 2 Rus javelinmen Ax(S) elements:
CinC as Cv(S), 2 DBE Kn(X)/(I), 5 Cv(S), 3 DBE Bw(X)/(O)
Sub-G as Cv(S), 5 Cv(S), 3 DBE Bw(X)/(O)
Sub-G as Cv(S), 5 Cv(S), 2 Irr Ax(S), 1 Ps(S), 1 Ps(O)
Sub-G as Cv(S), 4 Lh(S)
8 Bg(O) with 8 TF for camp
As you can see this is a small army in terms of elements, but it gets to 83.5 ME thanks to the baggage and all the 2 ME mounted troops. It is very mobile, and all the infantry and LH are expendable!
My opponent was using Early Russians - an army with loads of Cv(O) and Sp(O) - he had (IIRC):
1 command of 12 Sp(O) with supporting Ps & 3 Cv incl general
2 commands each of about 13 Cv & 4 or 5 Lh(F)
Polish ally - 4 Kn(F), 6 Bw(O), 6 Sp(I) and 4 Ps
I invaded Russia, and terrain was a river cutting off my right/rear table corner, a very large BUA on his left baseline (as I looked at it), and a very large wood about equi-distant from the centre on his right and almost on his baseline - there was a 3-4 element wide gap between it and his table edge which became rather important....
I got to set-up and move first......
A fairly simple deployment - the 2 commands with Bw setup opposite the gap between the BUA and wood, the 3rd Cav command with the Ax & Ps set up behind the river on my right, and the Lh command was flank marching on my right.
He had placed his army between the wood and BUA - the spearmen were next to the BUA, which also contained a lot of light infantry, the Poles were next to them and extended the line to the wood - in which their few light infantry were placed. A cavalry command was behind the Poles and setup to sweep around the wood, and hte 2nd cavalry command was nowhere to be seen......yoiks!
I determined to attack the Polish archers and Kn with my infantry as the Russian spearmen would be too immobile to intervene easily. My first PIP dice were OK - except my flank march rolled a 6 - arriving on T2 with the possibility of doing so up to 400p along his base edge from that flank!!
So my 1st move was to angle the archers towards the Poles, send cavalry forward to screen the spearmen, and around the wood to reinforce the Lh that would be arriving there soon - my light infantry also came forward over the river towards the wood to tie up his light infantry in there so they wouldn't interfere with the Cav fight that was going to happen.
Lo and behold, however, God (or gold?) is a Byzantine...and the Poles proved unreliable! this meant my own light infantry would have a free hand in the wood for a while. The Russian cavalry behind the wood were short of PIPs, but kept out of the danger zone so my flank amrch arriving wouldn't force them to flee.
T2 saw a change of plan - I no longer wanted to shoot at the Poles!! So my bowmen angled towards the spearmen, with the cavalry from those 2 commands hanging back protecting flank and rear. The Lh arrived and moved forwards, and the cavalry sweep around the wood continued.
From there the battle split into a couple of seperate actions - the bowmen got in range of the spearmen (but not of the Poles) and after a couple of bounds had killed one and disordered the line somewhat. Faced with being unable to reply my oppnent chose to attack, closing quickly with the bowmen and starting a shoving match.
But having already lost 1 element before close combat started, and being outflanked by cavalry it was generally a losing proposition. They did kill 1 DBE...but it was replaced with a Klibanarioi element which was worse!! Slowly the overlaps and the Kn ground down the Russians.
Behind the wood was a bit of a massacre - on a limited frontage my 6 Cv(S) simply slammed into the 13 or so Cv(O) opposite and started killing them. Numbers could not help him as the gap was only 3 elements wide and I had my light infantry in the woods giving overlaps and flanking. Factors were low (max 3:3, often 3:2) so when I won in my turn the -1 on him for me being superior was often enough to kill him.
After a few turns of this the Russian flank march arrived on the other side - however having rolled a 6 to get here it promptly rolled 2 1's for PIP's and ground to a halt - a half-dozen elements of Cv(S) from the 2 Bw commands turned and wheeled to face them and immediately started inflicting casualties....but here he did have room, and when he roled better PIPs the tables were turned somewhat and I lost a couple of Cav.
Then the Poles finally responded to threats and entreties from the CinC (the 2nd time he spent 3 PIPs to encourage them) and joined the fray (rolled 5 PIPs)
But it was too little too late - the Russian spearmen were on their last legs - a couple more elements killed saw them break. The cavalry behind the wood saw their infantry fleeing and decided that was too much for them (ie the -2 for a broken friendly command broke them) and it was game over.
I had a few strokes of luck in this game - the Poles being unreliable and the enemy flank march taking a while to arrive (and then getting only 1 PIP for 2 turns), but I'm happy to take them when they arrive!
