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.

Lakadaemonia Suffers—Oracles Blamed

Yeah, not a great showing at gaming today. Not at all. When the terrain is in your favour, you have good deployment, and (fairly) good tactics, you should have at least an even chance of winning.

In an ideal world, that's true.

Today, however, I was plagued by terrible rolling in both games, while my opponents (Rob & Mark) rolled ridiculously well. Rob couldn't fail a single test (and was rolling like a demon with the re-rolls), and Mark went on Kingslayer on my commanders. Not fun.

That said, the games were well played, and the clash of battle lines was epic (especially Mark's "I can fit 8 BG's of Armoured Offensive Spear in 600 pts" force).

Now some people say its only bad gamers that blame the dice, but that's simply untrue. There are days, weeks even, when you can't roll a 6 to save your life. And there are also days when you simply can't roll under a 5.

Also, why do I blame the dice?
Two examples. First, I rolled 12 dice against Mark's 14. I get 1 hit (on a 5+). He gets 11 (on 4+).
Same game. I have 11, against Mark's 12. I get 3 hits. Mark gets 8.

And that was the theme for most of the game honestly. Not the best day ever. But, there's more painting to be done, and more gaming eventually (next week we're all going to be on holiday).

I think may sack Delphi and steal all their luck first though…