Apologies for the poor photo quality - the photos were taken using a cellphone camera. These photos are from a recent game I had against a Viking army. Scale is 25mm.
First photo : massed Warband O at the charge - they are packed 4-5 deep in the middle with trailing 'wings' on each end of the line. The CNC is on a Chariot at the back of the Warband block (towards the top right of the block) - the CNC is from a different command and he uses PIPs from his own dice (if needed) to keep the Warband under control until they make it into combat. To the rear are some CavO Chariot reserves and some Psiloi hiding in a small forest. Notice the Warband General skulking around in his Chariot on his own at the rear on the left of the photo. He cannot be in contact with the Warband if I want to spend CNC PIPs on the Warband.
The Vikings couldn't get much terrain (they invaded and chose a Sea) so my opponent deployed all his troops in a corner. What you see are fast Blades at the front, with Blade O in support. My opponent realised the fast grading made no difference to the combats given I quick kill him in my bound anyway so he put the fast blades up the front, and released them in 'waves' onto the front of the Warband block. At the rear is an Irish Ally with various light troops.
An overview of the game can be seen in this next photo. The blue 'Sea' is in the foreground with 6 'longboats' (not depicted) with fast blades on board. You can see the low stone wall touching my rear edge with the Ligurian Auxilia S standing behind it. These troops spent the first 2 bounds marching across the back of the Warband to get onto this side of the table. They then inserted themselves into the gap between the wall and the rear of the Warband block to stave off the disembarking troops.
At the top of the photo is the Gallic fortified Baggage. To the left of the Warband block (on the right of the photo) are two commands comprised of Cavalry. The smaller command with the Chariot General at the rear (facing to the right) managed to march across in front of the Warband to avoid being squashed into the Sea. I left a single element of Cavalry (a globus?) by the Sea which turned a fast Blade which eventually spoiled the disembarking process.
All in all an interesting game with victory to the Gauls. The compressed frontage of the Gallic Warband limited their rate of losses and my opponent obliged by putting more and more Blades into the front of the Warband. My Cavalry linked up with the side of the Warband block and basically harassed his light troops. I had hoped to get all the Auxilia S into the fast Blades (-2 in my bound if I win the combat in my bound) but it never really happened what with the wall, Warband and fast Blades clogging the area - it ended up a bit of a mess in that corner; partly by design to not overly expose the flank of the Warband.
My opponent initially released his fast blades in waves which was very effective - we were killing eachother quite effectively in each counter-charge. Eventually my opponent lost control of his fast Blades and they all came in. I lost a few Warband but I then gave it back in lumps in my next bound killing 2 at a time, which was enough to break the command, tip the next two commands over (one had lost a number of Blade O at the other end of the Warband block and the Irish light troop losses were mounting up) which was enough to break the army.
I had forewarned my opponent about bringing Blades to a Warband fight but he wanted to see this for himself.
Andrew
