A Tamaricaceae of Tamils

A Headless Body Production

Venue: Wyndham Resort, née Lancaster Host
Event: Fall In, 15mm Open Theme, Round 1
Players: Phil Gardocki running Medieval Anglo-Irish, list 234
              Tom Welch running Tamil
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 200 points per side. 
Scale: 15mm 

The Friday 25mm Open didn't have enough players.  There was a second round with 2 of the remaining 3 players.  And I didn't record the third round as well.  So fast-forward to Saturday morning, with a much better attended 15mm Open.  

 

When I first started ADLG, I dusted off my favorite Warrior(tm) army, Anglo-Irish.  I had been blogging even then, though not as much with Ancients, but with Martian Front and Flames of War.  The Anglo-Irish army got dubbed, "The Swiss Army Knife Army" by Papa Walt.  Each command had some Galloglaich, some longbow, some heavy cavalry, some actual Irish, and some lights.  And apparently was being studied as to how did I make that work? 

 

And as we all learned how to play the game, it stopped working and was relegated to  trash heap of ADLG history.

 

Then V4 came out, and I hoped that the Anglo-Irish would become playable.  And the answer to that was no.  Instead of a solid line of Galloglaich, it is a bunch of swordsmen types.  So a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  2 Longbow swordsmen, but the rest are just longbow, with no stakes. 

 

And lots of Javelin-men.   So here goes.

 

The Forces:

The mEvil Anglo-Irish are lead by Larry, the Brilliant, his brother Darrell, the Competent, and his other brother Darrel, the Ordinary.
2 Heavy Cavalry, Impetuous  
4 Galloglaich      Heavy swordsmen 2HW  
2  Foot Knight, 1 Elite
5 Billmen, Heavy Swordsmen, Polearm
4 Longbow
2 English Longbow, Sword, Stakes
3 Kerns, Light Infantry, Javelin
Breakpoint of 22

The Tamils listed below are total guesswork from the pictures.
6 (!!) Elephants, elite
3 Medium Cavalry
6 Medium Sword, (Impact, Impetuous, Elite and/or plain vanilla)
4 Bowmen, possibly mediocre
1 Levy
6 Light Infantry
Breakpoint of 26, and that is with 96 points wrapped up in 16 point elephants.

Display Conventions: When you see a word bubble like "Ouch!" or "आउच!", this implies a disorder from missiles. Letters in parenthesis represent some value change 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.

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

Any inaccuracies and vagueness as to specific units is to be regarded as fog of war and should be considered as part of the fun.

The Board:

The mEvils win the initiative and elect to attack in the plains.

Deployment:

That is a lot of elephants...

And they are all Elite!

The Tamil flank is covered by plain vanilla horsemen with no specials.

Larry is deployed with a large force of heavy swordsmen, all with 2HW.

Darrell (c) has even more heavy swordsmen, while his brother Darrell is commanding 6 units of Longbow

 

Turn 1:

With a surplus of command points, Larry and Darrell double march across the field.

While Darrell advances to just cover the right flank.

The Tamils are not impressed, and approach to meet the advancing mEvils.

The Tamil flank left command splits in thrain*.  The elephant block bee lines for the corner of the mEvil center command.  The horse swings wide to try to get around the longbow.

An overview from above.

Turn 2:

Larry and Darrell's heavy foot launch a fake charge on the Tamil lights.  Rolling long would have put the Tamil elephants in combat on turn 2.  But they settled for stopping at charge reach.  Then the single skirmishing Kern advances for a gratuitous missile shot, and scores a hit.  That is a -1 shot on an Elite Elephant!

Darrell orders one of his Billmen to face off against the oncoming Elephant formation.  They are hoping that Darrell's supporting longbow will be a factor here.

Tantors are induced to charge!  They were hoping for a mass impact on the heavy swordsmen, but a boy and his dog stood in their way.

The dice shown are the actual die rolls.  The Tamil Bowmen charge in with their elephant, and suffer badly.  But their mission was successful, as their elephant wins with furious charge against the Galloglaich Clan Ramsay (green banner).

 

Meanwhile, the only skirmisher in Larry's command stops his opposing elephant and their support.  The elephant does win, but not by much.

On the center right, a single Billman stands before another pachyderm, and holds them fast.

Darrell's longbow loose arrows to some effect.

Turn 3:

Time for a break before getting into the main hack and slash.  Some pictures from around the con. 

Mission 1 is to get rid of the excess Halloween candy.

Another ADLG 15mm game.  The action is going strong.

Nice camp.

A mud hut village.

From the 25mm board.  I think it is Russ verses Mongols

Across the cloth barrier from us

Damn, I think I am playing the wrong game...

Larry's swordsmen advance, flanking the Tamil kings personal tusker.

And shouts encouraging words to the Kern and their dog for a successful rally.

On the right, Darrell's center longbow take up flanking positions to counter charge.

Behemoths 2 and 5 charge succesfully forward.  A Billmen is routed, but so too the elephant runners.

Darrell's command is flanked on both sides, but holding.

His brother Darrell has an unmitigated disaster.  The three, somewhat disordered, Medium Cavalry charge and destroy 3 longbow units, then pursue into another.

Turn 4:

The battle was well in hand until the collapse of the right flank.  The score is 11 of 22 for the mEvils.

To 10 of 26 for the Tamils

A Galloglaich flanks the Tamil king's bodyguard, which Rampages through their friendly knights.  On the right side of the picture, another elephant is charged by mEvil horse, whiled being flanked by Billmen.  It then Rampages through another mEvil horse.  

While routing enemy units is generally considered a good thing.  But by Rampaging through your own units, the score doesn't change.

Darrell's Billmen continue their bloody work.

But Darrell is down to his last unit.

The mEvil score is 16 of 22

To the Tamil's 17 of 26

By the river, the behemoths are now stripped of their supports.

With Other Brother Darrell's longbow command eliminated, Brother Darrell's swordsmen are about to be badly flanked.

Taking the score for the mEvils to 21 of 22

To the Tamil's score of 19 of 26.

To paraphrase the Greek king Pyrrhus,  "One more Rampage and we are undone!"

 

Turn 5:

Along the river, Galloglaich are now hunting Tamil Bowmen.  Due to their commander being in combat, and now distracted by being dead, they have not yet had orders to turn around.

Foot knights flank another juggernaut, which mercifully Rampaged to it's rear.  The Knights then pursue into another behemoth, but not in time to save the brave Kern and its small dog.  Elephant #5 is flanked by billmen.

The mEvil cavalry is loose!  And in charge reach of the Tamil Camp.  Elephant #6 is flanked by Clan O'Lyre.

The loss of the kerns was the final straw, taking the mEvils to their break point of 22.

What went wrong?

You could say luck.  But luck ran both ways.  On my left, I was very lucky on turn 2 with the initial charges.  On the right later, those dice reversed for the loss of the game.  On the right flank, all 6 units destroyed for 12 points.  And against enemy units that command was uniquely suited to win against.

On reflection that command was not formed properly.  I had the English longbow, with swords and stakes, on the inside of the block.  If they were on the edges, this game would have turned out differently.   The leftmost with sword would have defanged the Impetuous foot that charged it.  Setting the Impetuous up for a flank charge the next round.  On the right, stakes could have been put out, which would have saved 1 of the 3 bow that routed.  It would have been enough to win the game as in my turn, there was heavy sword attacking the rear of a LMI unit, and a raid on the camp and an elephant commander flanked and killed.  

We both had runs of bad luck, but the Tamils, with their larger army size, was better able to absorb it. 

All in all, with all the action going on, it was an extremely satisfying game.    

 

The final Tamil score is 22 of 26.

Chariot action on one of the Warrior(tm) boards.

A massive pike charge on the ADLG 25mm game.

A cool display for the Warrior group.

Mission accomplished.

 Earlier, the guy I shared a room with came up to me, "Hey, someone is giving away full sized candy bars, do you want one?"

 *Thrain, not a real word.