A little bit completely smash-ed — BattleCry day 2

So, yeah. Not a single win today. But some very fun games, especially against Kevin's Scotsmen (who are now owed one right phonging) and Rob's vikings, who are now owed two beatings. Against Steve's shooty chariots the dice just hated me. I have never seen so many 2's and 3's for cohesion tests in my life. From shooting!

So, pictures
Kevin's scotsmen, set up against my Spartans. Just look at all that medium foot in the open. As you can probably guess from the intro, didn't go so well for me.

 This is after the first impact phase. In total, 40 hits were inflicted spread across 8 battlegroups. Arms and legs and spleens and various other body parts went flying in all directions when our lines clashed.

Best combat round in the tournament (of any game played by anyone), hands down. There's nothing like two massive battlelines slamming home.

Melee, where Kevin's luck abandons him, but he manages to pass all his cohesion tests anyway.

Jammy Git.

Lower right, Perioikoi fleeing after—after—cutting down nearly half a unit of spearmen. Well done guys.

Not pictured: Spartans winning anything.

And splat go the scotsmen. Those two units on the left flank were the only points I managed to get off Kevin.

And here we have the set up against Rob's Vikings. Next time, Mr Wood, next time…

And a little picture of the battle in progress.

It was all going well until that unit in Rob's centre managed to make a CMT to turn, then flank charge the Spartans in the middle. Spartans who utterly failed to sweep before them the completely inferior Viking spearmen.

Also on the lower right, Thracians chewing through another unit. I begin to suspect this unit is special—after all, it's decimated 6 enemy BG's this tourney. And it's only Light Spear/Sword. And Average…

Last game set up, against Steve's Mittani. Lots of shooty chariots. All the terrain kind of vanished. It went bad from the get go, with me failing every cohesion test the entire game, bar two (once when the fragmented Phokians got charged, and once when the Thracians lost a combat).

Steve was a very gracious opponent, and his army looks amazing. Can't really say much else.











So the race for the coveted Wooden Spoon award was between me and Chris at the end of the day, but I wound up with it (dead last) due to Chris finally winning a game against Kevin's scotsmen in devastating style.

I can point out two reasons for that:
1) All these guys (except Chris) have played a lot more FoG than I ever have.
2) My dice rolls were, frankly, terrible, with the sole exception of the Thracians, and managing to kill Hannibal yesterday.

I claim a moral victory for being the only one to slay Hannibal. :P

A little bit smashed – Battlecry Day 1

So, Battlecry Day 1 was awesome. Despite me losing horribly. Twice. First up was Richard, with his Trojan War Greeks. Light Chariots,  Y U no stay and fight? Yeah, then he manoeuvres around and manages to rear charge some units. Bam. Done.

Game two was against Arthur's Lydian Greeks. Average start, not much in it. He gets a couple of points off my Thracians, and everything goes south when his dice fail to roll lower than a 4. Hmm… anyway, we both agreed that one was purely down to the dice. It really could have gone either way.

Game three was against Chris's Later Carthaginians. It went hilariously well. Starting with my Javelinmen charging his, then breaking them in a single turn. Then my Thracians messed up his cavalry. Chased his light horse off the board. Then got smashed by veteran African spearmen.

Then, the most crucial combat of the game, Chris commits Hannibal (Inspiring Commander 80 points, +2 to virtually every test known to man) to the front rank of a unit of Gallic Foot. All well and good, and the re-rolls helped them, until…

Yup, Hannibal's head now decorates my commander's tent. So half of Chris's army (it was blobbed up in refused flank) disrupts because of that. Next turn the Gallic Foot break, and some more tests, and everything that disrupted gets fragged. And that handed me the game.

I feel kinda bad for Chris, as he walked away from day 1 with no wins, and only managed to get a single point off my army.

Anyways, some pictures.

 The terrain vs Richard. Not too bad.

 Armies lined up. Painted armies, painted terrain. Just looks so much better. (insert Captain Obvious quote :P)

 Near the end. That's a unit of Spartans sandwiched between lots of chariots. Blargh.

 Terrain & armies set up vs Arthur. Not so bad. Except for all the terrain I'll have to slog through to get to him.

 And slog through it I did.

 I thought this was a portent of things to come. 7 hits off 8 dice. Unfortunately it was about my only good roll the whole game.

Lining up vs Chris on his awesome mat. Centre left, note the large blob of units. It's going to be important later.

 My javelinmen had successfully cut down his in close combat. Always funny seeing skirmishers fight.

 Remember that large blob being important?
Yeah, here's why. I killed Hannibal, the CinC of the army. This means everyone within 3" of the unit he was with has to take a test.

Three units in range. Two fail.

I break the central unit, provoking another flurry of tests. Look, more failures.

Yeah, I felt bad for Chris after seeing his army crumble like that, but when you blob up in refused flank, you either win, or everything suffers.

Finishing Touches

 Forest. Which, disappointingly looks more like a plantation due to the type of trees. Which is okay, 'cause the Plantation looks more like a forest anyway.

 Village. Those Baueda buildings painted up really nice. They're kept in place with magnets.

View from the other side of the village.












And now that's everything. Pumped for the tourney tomorrow. It's gonna be epic. I'm probably gonna get smashed. Let's see what happens.

Terrain

So, now I've got my terrain to show off. Just a couple of finishing touches before the end of the day tomorrow and everything's set.

 Plantation. I love woodland scenics stuff, even if it is fragile and fiddly at the best of times. The end result is always worthwhile.

 Hills. Gentle or Steep as you please. The badly dyed static grass doesn't look quite that bad in person. I was in a hurry, and didn't think to stock up on "savannah" static grass.

What's done is done. I can live with it.

 Vineyards & Gully. Woodland scenics. Mininatur tufts. More badly dyed static grass.

 Fields. Fences. Not really a lot to say. Carpet tile, just over the minimum size. Popsicle stick fences. Done.

 Forest. You may not an abject lack of foliage. That will be corrected tomorrow.

Houses, for the village. Need ink-lining on the stones, washes on the wood, then varnish and done.

And when all that's complete, it will be the first complete army (and terrain set) I have managed to do in three years.

Three.

Years.

God I'm lazy sometimes.

It is done!

Thracians, left side.

Thracians, right side.

Spartan cavalry, outriders

Spartan cavalry with Enomotarchos

And now I shall begin the "invocation of the completed army".

For the Sun!
Commanders, in all their glory.
A camp, a home to protect.

For the Wind!
Our allied javelinmen will darken the skies with javelins.
Our allied Hoplites, from the oracle at Delphi.

For the Rain!

Blood shall rain upon the Earth where our cavalry pass.
Our companions from Thrace will see their glory.

For the Thunder!
Our host of mighty hoplites.
The enemies of Sparta beware.

For the Storm!
Let all who face our army tremble at the sight!

Should any enemy tell us to lay down our weapons, we have for him but one answer:
Molon Labe!
Come and take them!

Not long now…

So, only did a little bit of painting today. I fear I'm getting complacent, with a week left, and only being the barest hint shy of a completed army.

Basically it's just the weapon handles for the Thracians, and manes, tails, and some dappling for the cavalry's horses. Cav still needs washing, then flesh highlights. Thracians need flesh highlights. Both need drybrushing for their bases, then varnish, and then basing tufts.

A right Phonging

So, maybe it wasn't quite that one sided. In fact, it was very close, coming down to a single point. It was a nail-biting finish (literally) for Kevin, whose scotsmen I was facing. Scotsmen, with two dirty great blocks of 12 bases of impact foot, who, it must be said, swept all before them.

As did the actual Spartans, for that matter. Anyway, on with the pictures.

 So, the battlefield. Somehow, much to Kevin's dismay, practically all of the terrain winds up in my half of the table. Inconvenient places in my half of the table.

But I'd rather take than let his medium foot take advantage of it at this point. And Kevin has a lot of medium foot.

 And that's the armies. The plan was basically to break his centre and hope my flank could hold against that dirty great mob of Galwegians. It went horribly wrong, and horribly right somehow.

 Kevin has first turn. His entire army, barring the light horse (who seem to not like the look of the actual cavalry placed against them) advances with double moves, full speed ahead.

 My response is to close the gap. A fast game's a good game, right?

Anyway, right flank moves up. Cavalry falls into column in order to slip past the Galwegians. We will learn that in the end this is completely futile.

 So, the phonging begins here. Impact Foot against my Perioikoi. Superior Impact Foot. With a general. Hmph, just like Romans.

And just like Romans they manage to Disrupt my unit on the charge. And kill a base.

And thus the phonging continues. Galwegians are impact foot too. Against my poor, unsuspecting Thracians. Again, somebody dies, and they fall to disrupted.

 The inevitable happens in the melee phase. Perioikoi lose another base and Frag.

And the same thing happens to the Thracians. I can tell in short order Kevin's going to have taken 4 points off my army.

 So, we counterattack. Everything attempts to get stuck in.

 Although Kevin's light horse aren't too keen on getting stuck into by pointy sticks.

First impact, the "Iron" Perioikoi unit manages to disrupt and kill a base in the first scotch unit.

 So, interesting little situation here. The blackcloaks lose impact by 2 hits to 1, falling to disrupted. The goldcloaks win, with 6 hits to 2.

So Kevin fails the cohesion test (not unexpected), and a base automatically dies due to suffering 6 hits. Then he has to roll anything but a 1 to save.

…of course he rolled a 1.

 In the ensuing melee phase those scotsmen broke. (Doubling down, in fact). So now I'm on 2 to Kevin's soon to be 4.

 Then my Perioikoi broke.

 Then the Thracians broke. (And popped, due to being so damaged).

So, that's 4/9 points to Kevin.

 The blackcloaks decide being disrupted is no obstacle to victory, knocking another unit of scotsmen down to fragged. And they kill someone too boot.








And the "Iron" Perioikoi follow suit, forcing their opponents down to fragged as well. It's actually a ridiculously even fight now. Well, sort of.

I now have 4/7 points from Kevin's army, and he's got 4/9 from mine.

And then these guys pursue, catch the fleeing scotch, kill their general, slaughter them to a man, and wind up stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Remember when I mentioned Gone Horribly Right?

Yeah, this is pretty much the definition of it. The goldcloak spartans simply steamrolled completely through and enemy unit, pursued a total of 9", and placed themselves wonderfully out of position.

 As normally happens in my batreps, things start to get a bit messy as I forget to take pictures and get involved with the climax of the game.

Here is where Kevin's last unit of scotsmen obligingly broke for the blackcloak spartans. The other unit broke before the might of the "Iron" perioikoi shortly afterwards.

 The Galwegians are getting scarily close to my javelinmen. And my camp. It's the round up of this that will net Kevin another 4 points, and push me dangerously close to breaking.

Kevin's already there, having lost 3 units to breaks, so I have 6/7 points from his army at this moment, and he still only has 4/9 from my army.

 Some drastic and frantic manoeuvering begins. By which I mean everything gets in the way of everything else.

Some manoeuvering by yours truly. The only thing that really matters is the iron perioikoi on the left flank.

 As we can see, The Galwegians hit the camp, having forced the javelinmen to flee the field. Despite this netting Kevin 4 more points (so he now has 8/9 points from my army), I find this hilarious in hindsight.

Why?

Because nobody spends less than 3 turns looting my camp. I don't know exactly why. Maybe its the stamina of the spartan woman hidden within the tent.

 Anyway, more ineffectual manoeuvering. This is FoG. If you are actually manoeuvering, then something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

 The dirty great block of galwegians charges my spartan cav and phokian hoplites. They manage to kill a base of cav in the impact phase.

They do nothing against the Phokians, who, obligingly, do nothing back—except make some rude gestures.

The melee phase is the crunch point. Three hits against the cav, and if they fail the death roll, they auto-break.

So, for a change, they decide they want to live, but run away, falling to disrupted before breaking off. (that skull was actually meant to be on the impact phase picture above.)

 So, impact phase. The "Iron" Perioikoi go for gold, slamming into the impact in the field there. They manage to disrupt them.

Here we see them locked in epic battle. Well, sort of. With a little luck (and an amazingly bad roll on Kevin's part), the scotsmen drop to fragged.

That's now 7/7 points taken from Kevin's army. But, he could still claim a draw if he can frag my Phokian hoplites.

My Phokian hoplites who are having none of that nonsense, despite being outnumbered nearly 2:1, they hold fast. The melee phase is over, and the final score stands at Sparta 7/7, Scotland 8/9.

A win, by a single point. But a win is a win in FoG. It was a damn close battle though, and that's the kind I love.

There is a second battle to go up later, against Glenn's seleucids… and while in the end it was close, it started very, very badly for me.

Stay tuned for more.