A Successful Day!!!

First, apologies to those expecting an earlier post...fact is I was too knackered to do anything Sunday evening or yesterday after work...

So anyway, Struggle For The North was bloody fantastic! Best day's wargaming EVER!!!! Not only was the event marvellously organised and played in the true WAB spirit by each and every one there, but I DIDN'T lose all my games!! BONUS!!!!

However, being the utter pilchard that I am, there are no pics, as I took my mate's camera...but not its battery...DOH!!!!!!

So, battle 1: The battle of Winwaed. My Welsh allied with Trev's Mercians against Northumbrians...2000pts of the buggers, with 2 (yes..2!!!) units of nasty Gedriht sitting on a huge hill in the middle of a floodplain. Every time we wanted to move we had to dice to see whether the mud squelched and slowed us down. So my cavalry proceeded to find the only dry ground on the table and whizz round to enemy flank....only to get 'squelched' just as they reached the perfect position...bugger!!!!! However, this forced the Northumbrians to detach a large part of their army to protect said flank, allowing the Mercians to punch through the centre. Result: close-run victory to the alliance, despite the loss of the Mercian Cyning in one of the most entertaining and drawn-out challenge combats I have ever seen.

Battle 2: The battle of Strathcarron: Against the Dalriada Irish. This was my worst WAB defeat EVER... I had gained the services of the bard Aneirin for this game and my opponent gained a unit of renegade Northern Welsh foot. His army was vast, spreading right across the table from the huge impassable river n the flank to the swamp on t'other flank. So I decided to deploy all my cavalry next to the river, and collapse the flank while attacking with foot in the centre. (This of course after a 'single combat' at the start of the game. Which Aneirin lost to the Irish King's Champion - he's a hard bugger!!) Perfect plan...the Irish comitatus obligingly failed a warband test and presented their front to my Teulu and the flank to a tiern-led mounted combrogi unit. Now we were cookin'... So, everybody charged and...errr....killed nobody...ones and twos everywhere..obviously the Irish king challenged my Rex and wounded him..then the bloody Irish killed enough chaps to win the combat and I even failed two flee tests needing to roll 8 or less (sob!!!). Result, Teulu and combrogi flee.. Ensuing panic causes other cavalry to flee into the impassable river and thence get destroyed...Meanwhile, all foot combrogi bounced with similar atrocious attack dice (the Irish player also had some 'Chaos lord' in each of his units rolling 3 attack dice on WS4 which didn't help any!!!) By the end of turn 4, every Welsh unit had either been chased and destroyed or had fled the table and I'd killed 4 Irish models!!! The Irish player had by this time apologised about 15 times for the manner of his victory...but he was such a nice guy and I was having such a great day that even this monumental defeat didn't dampen my spirits. However, The Dalriada Irish are now Northern Welsh enemy number one....which made game 3 interesting...

Battle 3: Degastan - The Welsh allied with...the bloody Irish (!!!!) against Northumbrian Saxons. Again, 2000pts with 2 nasty Gedriht units. This Irish player was Duncan Macfarlane from Wargames Illustrated magazine - with an Irish army that seemed to be made up of weird goblin and Sassanid figures(!!!!???) Anyway, same plan as with Winwaed, spoilt by my foot combrogi's propensity to fail panic tests and flee right left and centre! However, the cavalry did their job perfectly, tying up the entire flank while the Irish fought, killed (and died...ha!!!) in the centre and other flank. Result: Close-run victory to the alliance!!! Hoorah!!!!!

And so it was over.... The Northern Welsh came 3rd out of 6, which I thought was a real result! I won 'best painted army' which was a genuinely proud moment ( I won that lovely Gripping Beast 'Sutton Hoo helmet thingy' that is going to take pride of place in the new figure display cabinet when it eventually arrives.) and then we were off home...knackered, but absolutely buzzing.

I think that what really made it for me was the scenario-based approach (great scenarios) and everybody's attitude. I don't think I heard a rules query all day and nobody did anything other than have a whale of a time. I've already posted numerous 'thanks' posts elsewhere...

Lessons learned:

1. I REALLY like Welsh armies...the skirmishy bit is fantastic... I may be purchasing yet more cavalry models to allow me to field an almost entirely mounted Gododdin force (my fellow Northern Welsh-er, Rob Coulman, fielded that force and was more successful than me...) I am definitely going to paint a foot Tuelu and work out a 6th/7th West Welsh army list as well...

2. Slings!!! Get slingers... In fact, any javelin or sling armed models that you can!! I now have 9 slingers on the painting table to add to my British kingdoms force.

3. Characters: Foot combrogi (especially against Saxon Duguth) are at a major disadvantage without an Uchelwyr, as they are down on initiative and if they flee are down to LD5..the Uchelwyr has I4 and Ld7 so at least he can help the combat and can give them a chance slightly greater than a gnat's bollock of actually rallying if they flee.

Anyway, if I get a spare moment later this week, I'll post some pics of the West Wind cavalry figures that I painted for this event. Am also converting a foot version of my Welsh Lord model who will take up my painting time along with my slingers next week. Then it's time to paint a unit of Musketeer minis Saxon Gedriht (I'm painting those on a commission basis for someone else, but I'll post pics here as they get done.) They look as though they'll turn out superb...bloody marvellous models (well done Bill!)

Right, breakfast now...then off for another joyful day at work....