I took my Albanians to the NDBL league in Derby on a one day event with two rounds. I have had the Medieval Albanians since 2008 and they rarely get out of the box . Interested to see how they would do in competition. There is probably a good reason nobody else has ever used them in a competition. The comp was 450 pts. The CinC skanderberg CvO had a large Bw contingent with ArtS/I, 4 reg KnO, 4 BdO and more PsO. I chose two almost identical large skirmishing cmds termed green and blue with LhO, AxO, PsS/O an extra BwI and a few LhI. the latter will use as O in future. So the cmds looked smthg like 38.5, 30, 30.
My plan was to use 2 Rgo hills as large as poss for 1FE and place them near my base edge to protect the BwI or on a flank to ambush. I also took smaller Dgo and Rgo for the same and to break up flank marches. Ideally the CinC would deploy in middle with Kn behind Bw and irr Bd on flanks of Bw with Art. Placed the two Subs on each flank ready to skirmish and get behind and around the enemy with the LH. As i was defending i would get two ambushes and planned to use Bw, Ax and PsS for this and to contest terrain.
First game vs Keith Nathan's 100 year war English
Keiths army was an extreme army of Henry V 1415 to 1422. Mainly of BwS supported by BdS as dismounted KnI a few art and i think around 7 PsS as kerns and bretons. It was smaller then mine but completly regular as opposed to my 3 irr cmds.
I defended, facing west weather was strong wind SW and risk of rain. During play the avg pip dice cancelled out any negative effects they might have on the armies. Keith deployed a sea on my left flank half of which covered 600 paces in narrowing the frontage to his advantage. I diced for terrain and the two Rgo hills landed on right flank and close to Keiths edge in line. remaining small terrain near my base edge and left flank. Unless Keith had an unlikly flank march it would make little difference. It was going to be difficult for the Lh to skirmish with the terrain as it was. I deployed one Lh cmd on left flank another in column off centre and CinC on right. I left a gap for the ArtS to fire and deployed 8 BwI in ambush on the hill the Ax and Ps were deployed on the same hill. Keith deployed his army minus the PsS in a diagonal line from Sea to basline leaving no flank to exploit, Bd behind the Bw. His kerns and Bretons made a line in the second hill near his basline protecting the baggage.
Keiths regular movement pips were good enough and he quickly moved his three commands from a diagonal line into three smaller groups leaving very little gaps. Initally my pips were not good my green cmd in centre were too late to get near his baggage before it was covered by Bw and they faced a barrage of bw fire. The Ax on the hills made contact with the PsS and they also faced shooting from Bw. Blue cmd had no outflanking option and fought the english as they moved towards my basline. The Hills i placed were working in Keiths favour hemming in the Lh. The same was happening in the middle and combats were usually 5-3, 5-2 in the English favour. The Lh had little choice but to fight head on as they would have no option but to get shot at. I did get to spring my ambush but it was too little too late and the BwI caused nothing more than pushbacks, My ArtS caused several casualties on the English and the 9% casualties the English suffered in the game was mainly from Both Art. The few flanks the Lh got bounced off the Bw/Bd supported by Bd/Bw supporting each other and vice versa. My BwI lost the shooting exchange predictably. I forget all the details or which cmd broke first but the Lh took most of the casualties and the game finished 0-25 to Keith.
Should always deploy minimum terrain when you have the best skirmish capabilities, particulary Lh. Might have been a bit better if the Bd had been deployed in one group instead of splitting them at each end of my line. The Albanians don't have much of an answer to the 100YWE. Despite the result i enjoyed the game and like using this army even when it loses. It has possibilities and its fun trying to make it work with the combination of troops it has. Considered using it as a mass Bw army, a swarm of up to 56 Lh. In the end chose a balance using all the options in the list.
Next game was against Tim Kohlers later Polish
To my second game of the tournament with Tim Kohler I invaded in autumn weather made no difference and battle started at 0500. Tim deployed a river from his baseline to his left flank and stationed a Gentle hill and his baggage behind it. Another Gh fell near the centre. My rough hill was on my left flank and the other on Tims baseline playing no part in the game. Tim had two cmds a Kn,Cv in centre and his CinC with BwX/BdX. Tim deployed his BwX behind the river mith his muderous rustics BdX near the hill. His large Kn,Cv command took up position near the centre on the gentle hill. I could not deploy Bw on my rough hill because it was too close to the edge so only Ps deployed there. I did use it for an ambush with 8 Bw. Skanderberg deployed in the centre with the the two Lh cmds on his right. Green CMd would cross the river and Blue would sweep along side Rv and attack on the left. Tim had extra cmd dice and I wasn't sure if both were for hidden cmds, flank marches or his baggage.
I attacked first and Skanderberg move his cmd forwards toward the centre hill, except the ArtS which had a clear line. You have to carefully deploy these so you don't have to move them because they can't shoot for three turns if they do. Sometimes it does not hurt to do so if they have nothing to shoot at for 3+ turns. Green and Blue cmds moved slowly at first due to crap pips. During play Tim's centre cmd of Kn/Cv were hit by Bw, Art, Lh and Kn moving through my Bw, bad luck was shared on combat dice. My column of Lh trying to cross the river were slowed down but its Ps, Ax made it across quicker and faced combats from the BdX, eventually Tims Centre cmd broke and was later shattered. his BwX took hits from Art and his CinC had to make a U-turn to help the rustics on the hill and protect his baggage. Finally i found out there was nothing behind the hill and two Ps made a run toward his baggage. This left the worry that he had a flank march on his left or my right?
To my dismay it came on the right and the Lh cmd attempting to cross the river had to face alot of rampant Knights and cavalry, luckily they were out of range and didn't have to flee. It got very messy and i lost every combat but to Tims frustration very few kills. But lots of fleeing recoils, repulsed elements - I had to make my sub general flee. If they could hold the Flank marchers I could focus more on his other command then i would have a clear win. On the hill the The poles were starting to get the upper hand but my two Ps had already hit the bagage and were slowly destroying it, these were later joined by a Lh from from Blue and Knights from my CinC were rushing toward the river to join in. Skanderberg had done his job and spent the game behind the ArtS and at one point came close to combat with a Knight before its cmd was broken. His cmd could do no more. Green however was broken by the Flank attack and to make things worse Tims second flank march came on my left, thankfully only a dozen or so Lh. My baggage was doomed to a fight and i had to think about moving Blue back toward my baseline. My 8 bw in ambush were not going to be used so moved them toward the baggage if only not to waste them. Time was called next turn and I had a knight one turn from his baggage! The result was a 13-12 to Albanians.
The game showed how quickly Lh can get around enemy troops when they have space and (O) have the same abilities as (S) except on modifiers but can make up for grading on numbers and should be able to swarm enemy troops better. I think it might have been better if i split the Bw between differnt commands. Again the Rg Hill served more of a hindrence pushing three commands over to my right flank forcing me to use columns and if my command pips had been worse i would have had more trouble. On numbers they can handle Knight armies. This time my Art was lucky and took out several knights and had a really good weekend.
Like to thank both Keith and Tim for two stonking games
