Retrospective: Cold Wars WAB Doubles Tournament, 11 March 2011 (Game 2)

Opponent: Adam (Imperial Macedonians) and Duncan (Spartacus Romans).  Duncan is a tournament regular and true ambassador of the hobby, and had traveled to Cold Wars from England to participate in the events.  Adam is one of the more notorious members of the Warhammer Ancients scene, as you will see below.

Armies: (3000 pts)
IMPERIAL MACEDONIANS (Adam)

• General & BSB on horses with armor, not attached to units
• 4 units of 21 phalanx pikemen
• 1 unit of 11 companions (medium shock cavalry)

SPARTACUS ROMANS (Duncan)

• Special Character General Crassus, on horse and not attached to unit
• BSB and Lictor on foot, not attached to unit
• 4 units of 18 legionnaires (three are drilled/stubborn)
• 1 unit of 9 skirmishers
• 1 unit of 12 archers without command

Mission: Alternating deployment (2 units per side until all units set up), 12” in from long board edge, but also more than 12” from short board edges, and an unmodified roll-off afterwards to decide who takes first turn.

Terrain: A large hill and long arm of trees largely divides the table into two parts, one part significantly larger than the other.  Hills and trees ring the rest of the killing grounds.

Retrospective: Cold Wars WAB Singles Tournament, 12 March 2011 (Game 3)

Opponent: Duncan (Spartacus Romans).  Possibly the only plausibly historical match-up I had this tournament!  The Spartacus Roman list is an interesting one, and in hindsight, possibly one of the nastier Roman army lists out of the many that exist in the Ancients rules.  The key elements are dirt-cheap Legionnaires, led by what are effectively minor heroes in the Centurion upgrades – and those Spartacus-era Centurions are head-and-shoulders above the ones from other eras, too.

Army: (1750 pts)

• Special Character General Crassus, on horse and not attached to unit
• BSB and Lictor on foot, not attached to unit
• 2 units of 12 legionnaires (veteran/drilled/stubborn) with Centurion
• 1 unit of 21 legionnaires (drilled/stubborn) with Centurion
• 3 units of 18 conscript legionnaires with Centurion
• 2 unit of 9/10 archers without command

Mission: “Delayed Reserves”.  Both units must set aside a formed infantry or cavalry unit as a reserve, and note which short table edge they will enter (left/right) later in the game.  Alternating deployment 12” in from long table edge, and an unmodified roll-off to decide who takes first turn.  Flankers enter on 4+ on Turn 3, or 3+ on Turn 4, or 2+ on Turn 5, or do not enter at all and are considered lost.

Terrain: Low hills and trees surrounding an empty midfield.  The Romans (as a melee army) didn’t really need to worry about terrain in their deployment zone; my Nubians ended up being squeezed a little by some woods in my deployment zone.

Retrospective: Warmonger Charity WAB Tournament: 29 January 2011 (Results)

In all, I played three fine opponents that day, starting with Dave and his samurai list.  Now, it’s no secret that the official Samurai list in the “Armies of Antiquity” supplement is quite nasty, and I rather expected that Dave would hurt me quite badly.  That said, I was a bit surprised at how small his army was, and in particular how he had no cavalry to speak of.  I even (foolishly) allowed myself the hope that I might actually win this.

Beautiful models, apparently of the “Mountain” clan.

8-9 July 2010 Historicon Warhammer Ancients Tournaments (Classical Results)

Ancients Tournament, Classical Division

In a change of pace for me – I have played in the Chivalry division (1200-1500 AD) division for many years – I entered the Classical (400 AD and before) division with my Nubians.  In what was possibly one of the more…interesting…aspects of the tournament (and something that managed to very neatly suck out what enjoyment I’d had during the course of the three games I played), I realized later that the tournament organizer had not been joking when he told me I had intentionally been matched up against three armies with drilled infantry – the bane of an Elephant army list.  Out of 12 players (and 11 possible opponents), only four fielded drilled infantry.  I faced three of those four, twice being re-matched in later rounds to ensure I faced drilled infantry.  The tournament standings (and round-by-round results) that support this grim conclusion are all available online.  Ah, organizer shenanigans.  How exciting.

Despite this, I somehow managed to pull a draw in all three of my games, and finish a moderately respectable 5th out of 12 total players.  And by the end of the third game, I felt I had a fairly solid grasp of what I should be doing with my Nubians on the tabletop.