Thursday 2 June 2011

An Andalusian Interlude (bought to you by the colour Yellow)

As a change from the relentless grimness of my AoA coverage here's a game I played last week against my chum John. I used my Almoravids and he bought forth his trusty Andalusians.
Under first edition WAB I regularly beat John's army, however the changes brought by WAB 2 mean they're a far tougher proposition for me and he's probably won more of our battles than me since we purchased the new rules. This is obviously because WAB 2 has made Andalusians all bent and broken and not because I'm a hopeless old conservative who can't adapt his tactics.

I apologise in advance for the yellowness of the following pictures. I did fiddle with the white balance but the combination of a yellowish gaming surface and the "energy saving" light source means it looks like we're playing on a sea of custard.

 The Andalusians assemble


 Ibn Coldir has stiffened his Almoravid ranks with some Christian sell-swords

 The Almoravids advance (on the geese)

 Tribal skirmishers are over excited on the right flank

 Ha-ha, they'll be meat and drink to charging knights!

Ibn Coldir's allied Andalusian bowmen find employ as an effective speed-bump


 Honk, honk,can't catch us!

 Slingers, slinging

 The Andalusians appear to be reversing...

 Still hanging in there...


 Yep, they're definitely getting further away...


 Berber horsemen prove their worth on the left flank

 In we go, flower of Christian knighthood!

 Oh.

 Bugger

 Everybody Flee!!!


 Go down fighting, men

Well, that could have gone better. I got impatient and charged the knights in against an undamaged unit of spearmen, and inevitably lost which caused panic all round and saw just about everything flee never to return. I struggled with the manoeuvrability of the Andalusians and let John dictate the battle. If I'd held back with charging for another turn or so my other cavalry unit were around the flanks and I could have unleashed all kinds of mayhem.
However it was a very jolly (and not nearly as yellow as it appears) game, as always.
(I would say roll on the next game, but we played again on Tuesday this week and I lost that too)

5 comments:

  1. Great pictures and nice report. Hopefully your luck will turn.

    Christopher

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  2. Thanksfor the kind thoughts Christopher, however luck has nothig to do with it, I'm just not very good at playing games of Toy Soldiers.
    :)

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  3. BTW,Christopher, whatever happened to your El Cid army?

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  4. Beautiful photos and figures and I'm quite partial to custard too!

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  5. Come on! everyone loves custard.
    Fantastic figures and great report and one liners. Brings some life to the games.

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