A Fraise of French

A Headless Body Production

Venue: Sheraton Music City Hotel
Event: Nashcon 2025
Theme: Open theme, round 4
Players: Phil running Seleucid, list 42
               Steve Roper, French Ordinance
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 15mm, 200 points per side.

Nashcon! The Miniature Mecca of the Mid-Southern states. Come for the games, stay for the Murder & True Crime Walking Ghost Tour!

 

This is the last fight of the day, or so I thought, a bit foreshadowing here. And I am lined up against Steve Roper. He a perennial opponent and Mexican themed food populist. 

 

The Forces:

Since Steve was kind enough to print me off a copy of his list, I would be remiss to not present it in its entirety. 
The French, est. 1465, are commanded by "Commander in Chief", self described as Brilliant. He is followed by a pair of sycophantic commanders charitably described as Ordinary. We will call them "Taco" and "Bell".
"Commander in Chief", the "Brilliant"
    A brace of Gendarmes, Heavy Knight, Impact, Elite
    Gascons, Light Infantry, Crossbow
    A trio of Ordinance Archers, Swordsmen, Longbow, Stakes
    Bidets, who were pulled from cleaning latrine duty, Light Infantry with sharpened plungers, Elite
    A pair of French Archers, Longbow, Mediocre
    Mounted Crossbowmen, Light Cavalry, Crossbow

"Taco", Ordinary and Included
    A brace of Gendarmes, Heavy Knight, Impact, Elite
    A brace of Gascons, Light Infantry, Crossbow
    Mounted Crossbowmen, Light Cavalry, Crossbow
"Bell", Ordinary
    A brace of Ordinance Archers, Swordsmen, Longbow, Stakes
    A pair of French Archers, Longbow, Mediocre
    More Bidets, also pulled from cleaning latrine duty, Light Infantry with sharpened plungers, Elite
    Voulgiers, Heavy Sword, Polearm
Breakpoint with a Fortified camp, 23

The Seleucids are commanded by Larricles, <Τεμπέλης>, a Brilliant. His brother Darricles <Τόλμη>, the Brilliant, and his other brother Darricles <Τόλμη>, the Ordinary.
Larricles, the Brilliant 
    Thrice Pikemen
    An Argyraspid Pikemen Elite
    A Cretans Light infantry bow Elite
    A Slinger Light infantry sling
    A Thureophoroi Medium spearmen
    A Scythed Chariot
Darricles, the Brilliant 
    Thrice Pikemen
    An Argyraspid Pikemen Elite
    A Cretans Light infantry bow Elite
    A Slinger Light infantry sling
    A Thureophoroi Medium spearmen
    A Scythed Chariot 
Darricles, the Ordinary
    A hambone of Cataphracts, 2 Elite
    The Tarentines, Light Cavalry, Javelin
Breakpoint of 19 

Display Conventions: When you see a jagged word bubble like "Ouch!" or "Putain!" or "¡Ωχ!",  this implies a disorder caused by missiles. Letters in parenthesis represent some up or downgrade for the specific unit. For commanders it is s for strategist, b for Brilliant, c for Competent and o for Ordinary, u for unreliable. For troops it is e for Elite, and m for Mediocre. Other abbreviations, Hvy Heavy, XB Crossbow, LB, Longbow, Jav Javelin, 2HW 2 Handed Weapons, B Bow, Kn Knight, HKn Heavy Knight, HC Heavy Cavalry, Md Medium, Sgt Sergeants, LC Light Cavalry, Chr Chariot, Cat Cataphract, Pa Pavise, LI, Light Infantry, HG Hand Gun, FKn Foot Knight, Hvy Spear, Heavy Spearmen.

Inappropriately capitalized words are used to highlight terms that are specific to the game. For example Brilliant, Competent and Ordinary have specific game values for the commanders.

Any ambiguity as to what was moved or who is being referred to is to be considered Fog of War and part of the fun. 

"XX" implies a unit killed in that location on that turn.

It's going to be a long weekend here in Nashville. 3 days, 5 games, with a fly in and out. Fortunately, the hotel is within sight of the airport, so that is just a quick hustle. 

Why Seleucids? My fancy is running towards Cataphracts of late, and they have a goodly number, supported by class 'A' Infantry in the form of Pikemen. My basic plan is to keep going forward. No matter what. My flanks protected by an ablative layers of Thureophoroi, and then Scythed Chariots. If favorable terrain shows up, so much the better.

Of course, Cataphracts lose to Knights, and do not handle stakes. But that is what the pike are for. We will see. But then, there are only about 7 knight armies at the tourney. And in the 4th round, I will have faced 3 of them.

Deployment

The Seleucids won the initiative roll and elected to attack in the Plains.

A well thought out small command. Two light foot to screen the knights, then later act as support. And a light horse to go for position.

A bunch of archers in a field in the center of the board. Where have I seen this before? Oh yes, about 3 hours ago.

On the French left is a mix of troops, knights, heavy infantry and archers.

Larricles looking across the field. If he can bring the knights to contact, this can go well for him.

Darricles's cataphracts are looking at a bow infested field. He is already setting up to go else where.

His brother's pike were planing on anchoring their flank on the hill, but there are way too many mediums for that to work.

Turn 1:

Larricles double marches, shifting left

Darricles double marches, shifting right.

Their brother double marches his cataphracts.

"Taco" shifts his knights closer to the center.

While the French archers invest the rough. Where have I seen this tactic before? About 3 hours ago...

The mass of French foot head towards the hill.

Turn 2:

OK change of plans. Larricles and

Darricles will change sides.

The French are not going to allow that. Their archers come out of the field to shooting range, preventing double marches.

"Bell" tries to surge forward, but has a shortage of command points.

Turn 3:

Larricles pulls his skirmishers in to cover his pike

Darricles vectors his horse in the gap. Which is where he started.

Darricles is trying to take advantage of his opponents lack of command points. "Bell" is Ordinary, and has 4 groups to Darricles's Brilliant and 3 groups.

"Taco"'s knights advance on the attack.

While "Bell" has all his command points, and advance up the hill.

Turn 4:

The phalanx pushes forward to challenge the knights

Darricles leads the other phalanx charging the knights, and is impaled on a well pennoned, and now bloody, lance.

Ignore the movement arrow above. "Taco" holds his knights just out of pike charge reach.

Bowmen rake the remains of Darricles's phalanx

The French archers largely clear the hill.

The Seleucid have 16 points towards their demoralization level of 19.

 

I'll give you the French count, as soon as there is one.

 

Turn 5: 

Larricles's phalanx goes nose to nose with the French knights.

The other phalanx is running on autopilot.

French archers trip on their way up the hill. Their score is now one!

The Seleucid score is now 17 of 19. The French have zero towards their demoralization level of, well, it doesn't really matter.

"Taco"'s knights hold their ground.

Between the missile disorder on the Seleucid right for one point, and a knight charge into a flank of a pike for another, and the surrounding and capture of disordered lights on the hill for the yet another, and that is the game.

 

And that gentlemen, is how you can pull off a near skunk.

What went wrong? 

I should have used my first moves to switch the Cataphract command with the left hand pike. The Pike can deal with the stakes, where as the cataphracts just stood there and took it.

The indecisiveness on the attack deprived the attacker of their main advantage. 

Again, over committing the right command. They should have just thrown out the lights and waited for a resolution on the left. 

And, the army is just built to fight one way. 12 elements going straight forward. Anything else gets into maneuver warfare, which this army design is unable to handle.

It's only around 6 o'clock now.

Lets see what else is happening elsewhere in the convention.

Giant mechs ready to defend the big apple.

An amazing cityscape

Looks like Warhammer 40k, but also Steam Punk.

If Egypt had been conquered by Orcs.

Back in the L' Art de la Guerre room after dinner. Apparently there is project to empty a few bottles.

About 4 fingers later...

A 6 player, 25mm, 300 point, L' Art de la Guerre game, is already in progress.

 

I was just peeking in the door, and got an invite to take the center command of an Arab army verses Crusaders.

I was invited to take the center left. Two light and 4 heavy horse, with bows.

 

I suspect I'm being scammed here. Out numbered about 3 to 1. 

 

Am I wearing a red shirt?

 

The crowd looks on...

Our right side commands have a more equitable battle going on. So my job is to just try to survive.

On my left is a similar sized command to mine.

Afterwards there was this:

I don't remember much after that.

I don't remember the players, I don't know the score*.
The whole team is yelling and I don't know what for.
Then suddenly everyone's looking at me

My mind has been wandering; what could it be?

A "no" prize for anyone catching the pop** culture reference to the lyrics above. 

*Actually I do remember, we won! Our right defeated the Crusader foot. The command to my left was run off the board, the camp looted. But I was able to take advantage of the Crusader knights impetuosity to flank and kill a couple of knights, losing only a single light horse.

**"pop culture" is not quite the right term here, my son referred to it as "archeological."