Monthly Meeting & AGM Saturday 2 May 2003
after action reports
Well a splendid turnout (even bigger than last year) and a great time was had by all, with a variety of successful competitions. But first, the annual team photo:
and the traditional curry buffet:
The minutes of the AGM are to be found here.
And onto the competitions:
Warmaster
A competition of 5 rounds with victory to the player with the most points at the end of the day.
And the winner is . . . Pollux Poon, whose report appears below:
My Dark Elves first battle was against Philip's Empire
Army. This was Philip’s very
first battle with his Warmaster army.
(I had a very lucky start) I started the battle first and all of my
units obeyed my orders. I saw
Philip's steam tank and cannon put close together without the support of
any other units. I got my
harpies ready to charge them if his units were not well supported by other
units in the next turn. On
Philip's turn 1, he had figured my plan already but he decided to move his
cavalry units first. When he
tried to issue his first order, he rolled an 11.
All command halted. In
turn 2, my harpies killed the cannon and steam tank unit.
On my left wing, my cold one units prepared to charge Philip’s
pistollers and knights and eventually destroyed them.
His army retreated due to the heavy causalities. I lost half a unit
of cold one and harpies.
My second battle was against Tom's Lizardman.
Sorry, I can't remember too clearly how I won this battle!
My third battle was against Simon's Lizardman again.
In this battle my army suffered the heaviest casualties.
All three cold one units were destroyed by Simon's cold one with
T-Rex. My army looked hopeless to win.
Very luckily, the arrow of Dark Elves shot the cold-one with the
T-Rex unit being driven into my harpies and destroyed.
My War-hydra killed another cold one.
I won less than 100 points after 6 turns of battle.
My fourth battle was against Chu Sir's Chose army. We
took high precautions against each other and nothing happen for 4 turns. Before
this battle, Chu Sir was leading in total victory points and I was second.
Therefore, he was hoping he could keep our game as a draw result.
On turn five, he made a mistake by moving his units of 3 chariot
and 1 knight within 60cm of my cold-one charge range. I
used the combine effect of cold-one and harpies to destroy them all.
My last battle is against Simon Au's Orcs and Goblins.
This army is not an easy army to fight if they put themselves in
defensive position. Since
Simon's usual style is charging the enemy whenever possible, I didn't need
to move my units too close to his main force to prevent a counter charge. Due
to the low Ld, his attacking force could not get into attack position at
the same time. I could
therefore take down all his units charging my army one by one.
Finally, I won all my battles and got a total of 1800
victory points out of these 5 games. I
enjoy the day very much. To be
the champion of the day made it even better.
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And the runner-up was . . . Albert Leung, whose report is as follows:
I started off the game quite late and my first battle
was against Terence the Thunder Beast. Terence is a veteran player and I
didn't expect an easy battle. Terence
was using High Elf and I was using Tomb King.
Terence’s army was well balanced, spearmen backing up archers,
cavalry, chariots, eagles and blot throwers.
My army composition was very similar, skeleton backing up archers,
cavalry, chariots, carrion birds and bone throwers.
However, as the Tomb King’s troops are inexpensive I could have
one Tomb King and one Liche Priest and two very important magic items -
Ring of Power to cast a spell automatically and Orb of Majesty to re-roll
a leadership check once during the game with ldr 8.
Terence's troops were outnumbered as he had only one general and 10
troops to my 14 troops. However,
the High Elves had the better leadership and a better troop profile so I
thought I could not win the war by a frontal assault.
So my strategy was very simple, I traded troops one by one with
Terence and tried to outflank him with my cavalry reserve.
As the battle developed, I placed most of my infantry
on top of a hill on my right flank with two of my cavalry reserves.
Actually, the right flank was looked after by my Liche Priest who
only managed to give an order to the infantry brigade once to move to the
hill and subsequently failed all other leadership tests for the remainder
of the game. On the left flank
I exchanged blows with Terence. First
he destroyed my bone thrower with his eagles and counter charged my left
wing cavalry and chariot reserves. Next
I pushed my remaining infantry forward and used them as bait.
It was a war of attrition and I think I finally understand the
maths behind it. The Tomb King
has the upper hand even if I trade 2 units for 1 High Elf unit. Near
the end of the battle when we were both at the limit of retreat, Terence
took the risk of charging my fortified infantry on the right flank with
three chariot units. If it had
been open ground I would probably have lost the defense. However,
chariots lose charge bonus for an up hill charge (not on open terrain) and
it required a 5 or 6 to hit me as I was in a fortified position. Due
to Terence’s bad die rolls, the chariots lost the fight and retreated.
That was close as both my archer units had only one stand remaining. If
they had lost and the chariots had overran into my infantry units I would
have lost the battle. As the
morale was high the Tomb King decided to break the High Elf. The
Carrion birds were ordered to charge the blow throwers and destroy them no
matter the loss. A cavalry
unit was asked to charge the flank of Elf cavalry, who had run in too deep
into my territory, and destroyed them. The over running cavalry charged
into the retreating chariots and destroyed just enough units to break the
High Elf. It was a most
interesting battle and it very close, as I could only get 80 points from
Terence as we had both suffered heavy losses.
The next battle was against Simon Au 's Orcs and
Goblins. The battle was short
and painful for Simon as he made a careless mistake during his deployment.
Simon's army was also quite well balanced. He
also had two heroes to compensate for the low leadership. I
understand the biggest disadvantage for Orcs and Goblins is their low
leadership so I would not let my troops commit too soon so that they could
counter charge with initiative. The
mistake I mentioned earlier was the placement of a rock lobber on his
right flank. The rock lobber
was placed bit behind the main battle line.
He even let me go first . . . the
rock lobber positioning was just like waving a "Charge ME!"
banner at me. I promptly
ordered my carrion with two orders to charge the rock lobber for one easy
unit count. Adding insult to
injury, my birds overran into an Orc and Goblin unit and destroyed two
more infantry units. As I
expected, with my single unit deep in enemy territory, leadership was
further lowered and it failed with just a unit of chariots moving forward.
The Tomb King took this chance and moved my army forward in an
aggressive stance. My archers
shot the remaining Orc and Goblin units and put them into confusion as
they were grouped too close together. My
cavalry promptly charged into the disarrayed Orcs and got two more units. I
still needed one more unit to make the number. Simon's
lone chariot unit charged my home back birds for revenge but gave an
inviting flank for my reserve cavalry units. I
still had three units readied to charge so it was almost suicide. I
finished with the wolf chariot unit and the Orcs and Globins broke. I
think it was a good lesson in learning how to place your war machines
(Herbert's cannon battery is always guarded by two spearmen units side by
side). And flyers are very very useful in Warmaster. Too
bad if your list doesn't have one . . .
I won the battle with just the loss of half my carrion
bird units. However, I also
picked on Simon's weakest units (I left the trolls, black orcs and boar
boyz untouched, he, he . . .) so the difference was only 300 points.
The last battle was against Philip's Empire army.
Philip's army has reliable cannons and solid cavalry troops. He
deployed his cavalry units on the right flank, steam tank and cannon in
the middle, guarded by a unit of crossbowmen and 4 units of infantry
supporting each other on the left. My
deployment was nearly the same. If
it works why change it. I was
getting greedy as I knew I had to maximize my points if I was to get a
place in the competition. So
my target was Philip's expensive cavalry. Philip's
cavalry consisted of two pistollers and two knights with different armour.
My plan was to use my archers to send the enemy back with to
confuse and break their battleline. However,
Philip placed his troops too well so that there was no space for my
cavalry's flank charge. I
tried a frontal assault and also failed as my command failed. On the right
flank my archers were having a shooting contest with the crossbowmen. Since
I am in defended position my losses could be sustained. My
plan to capture the enemy cavalry units failed as turn after turn went by.
At that time
I guess if I had had to face other veteran generals like Lawrence,
I hope to challenge my arch enemy Pollux some time later . . . "I am the Dragon, before me you tremble."
Battle
Cry
This year's board competition was a round-robin using 4 copies of Avalon Hill's excellent game of the American Civil War. A hard fought series of rounds saw Paul Harrison carrying off the prize for the day. His version of the event appears below.
Somehow
I won 7 of 7 games in the Battlecry competition and Andrzej kindly
presented me with a copy of the game as my prize. It
was a bit of a fluke as in many of the games I came so close to loosing.
The actual games themselves are all a bit of a blur, alternating between
the blues and the greys and four different scenarios, took its toll on my
brain cells, I do not think it was the alcohol. So
I cannot provide individual battle reports, but for many games I thought I
would not make it.
The
game is very simple and playable, though my first game with Deiter we did
not get some things completely right. Each
Infantry unit is represented by 4 figs, cavalry by 3 and artillery are
fragile by only being 2, one piece in each unit is a flag bearer, and
generals are just a flag bearer.
The
board is a hex system and terrain is hexed and used to place on the board
to create any one of several scenarios. The board is divided into two
wings and the centre
Movement
and shooting can be incredibly infuriating and there is an aspect of luck
as it depends on cards drawn. Typically
you only have 4 cards (this is scenario dependent) and if you do not have
an action card for a zone and your opponent is having an onslaught there,
you are in trouble. For
example last night I lost, for the first time ever, against my wife’s 8
year old daughter, who also loves the game (I’m doing my bit to address
the sex imbalance in the club, she likes painting figure’s too). I
was the grey’s recreating Pickett’s charge at
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DBM
Unfortunately, the report seems to have been mislaid, however, the knockout was as successful as ever with the trophy going to Peter Hunt and last year's winner, Philippe Buchle being placed second.
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Painting Competition
A good variety of entries this year with the winner in the historical category being Herbert Wong and in the fantasy/science fiction category prize going to Michael Withington. A very high standard of painting indeed - well done both and better luck next year to the other entrants!
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Warhammer 40K
A friendly game - no competition this year - a few photos of which appear below.
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