[Field of Glory] Santa's Tournament 2019 - Intro; Game 1 and 2

it's a draw, it's a draw, it's a draw

As I started writing the entry, this year's Santa Tournament in Berlin came to an end just a few hours ago.

Thus, and as the unofficial Field of Glory website in Germany is currently shut down and many old forums such as the tiny-soldiers dead, too, I decided to write some small reports on my battles and post the results here. Sadly I made that decision just after the first battle was over, and as there is no documentation of it, there won't be a report either. So you may or may not enjoy only 3 out of 4 of my struggles with dice, moral and alcohol.

The tournament's secret motto and running gag was "it's a draw, it's a draw, it's a draw!". We shall get to that later. Ferdi organized the tournament and provided some space to sleep in his Berlin home close to the venue for our guests from abroad. He limited the armies allowed to 400 BC to 600 AD, without any Asian or American Lists. Thus a load of  Pikes and Romans with some exotics were to be expected. I hence decided to play a strong line-up of Later Seleucid with 14 Battle-Groups (BG - which are units composed of the representative number of bases, for those new to Field of Glory). My army would be capable to fight Pikes as well as Romans, they  are good against any mounted armies and can cope with specialities like Indians or whatever my opponents might think off, too. The only thing it lacks is sufficient Medium Foot for tasks in terrain. That nearly broke my neck in one of my games, but decent dicing skills - as they always do - helped a lot.

This is the List in it's order of march:

1. LF Slingers, Poor, unprotected sling, 6 Bases 
2. LF Slingers, Poor, unprotected sling, 6 Bases 
3. Light Horse Javelin, Light Spear, Poor, 6 Bases
4. Heavy Foot Pikeman, Protected, Average, Drilled 8 Bases
5. Heavy Foot Pikeman, Protected, Average, Drilled 8 Bases
6. Heavy Foot Pikeman, Protected, Average, Drilled 8 Bases
7. Heavy Foot Pikeman, Protected, Average, Drilled 8 Bases
8. Heavy Foot Pikeman, Protected, Superior, Drilled 8 Bases
9. Heavy Foot Impact Foot - Skilled Swordsman , Armoured , Superior, Drilled 4 Bases
10. Heavy Foot Impact Foot - Skilled Swordsman , Armoured , Superior, Drilled 4 Bases
11. Elephants, Average, Undrilled, 2 Bases
12. Elephants, Average, Undrilled, 2 Bases
13. Cataphracts, Lancers-Swordsman, Heavily Armoured, Average, Drilled, 4 Bases
14. Cataphracts, Lancers-Swordsman, Heavily Armoured, Average, Drilled, 4 Bases

As commanders I took one Field-Commander to raise my pre-battle Initiative to +1, as well as 3 Troop-Commanders for the rest. I was able to field some of the pikes shown here in previous posts, yet still had to use some pikes of my very first attempts from my Graeco-Bactrian Army painted around 2010/2011.

Every Army is limited to 800 Army-Points. For the tournament, the so called "Swiss" or 25/0 system is used. This means, that each player starts with 10 points and, after the game is finishes, gives the % of his army lost to his opponent and vice versa. So if I manage to kill 60% of my opponent's army, I get 6 points from him, where he keeps the other 4. If he then is able to get 45% of my army, he gets 4.5 point from me. In such a situation, a final score of 8.5 (my opponent) to 11.5 is reached. It is possible to get 5 Bonus points if one manages to break the opponents army (=kill 50% of his Battle-Groups). This means, that a maximum victory without loosing any own units is a 25:0 game.

Hence the maximum amount of points one can possibly archive during a tournament of 4 games is 100.

First off all, the Line-Up, Nationalities [IOC-Code]  their Armies and their Number of Battlegroups. I shall provide the List of my opponents, maybe I can remember one or another from watching or because Players had played them before. If so, the List will be filled with links to download in the Armylist-Creator as an .xls .

It was great to see such an international field with 5 of 14 from other countries and 4 of 9 further German players not from Berlin. Against all the negative rumours, the Field of Glory scene in Germany still seems to be rather alive and well. So, here is the Line-Up:

Line-Up Santa Tournament

1. Karol [ SVK ] with 11 BG of Late Republican Roman
2. Frank[ GER ] with 13 BG of Later Successor 
3. Rob [AUS] with 12 BG of Later Carthaginian 
4. Ferdi [ GER ] with 15 BG of Classical Indian 
5. Dave [ GBR ] with 16 BG of Bosporan 
6. Phil [GBR] with 11 BG of Umayyad Arab
7. Bodo [ GER ] with 13 BG of Sassanid Persian
8. Richard [ GER] with 14 BG of Mid-Republican Roman 
9. Julian [ GER ] with 12 BG of Later Carthaginian 
10. Erik [ GER ] with 11 BG of Late Republican Roman
11. Paul  [ GBR ] with 12 BG of Early Achaemenid Persian 
12. Andreas [ GER ] with 12 BG Sassanid Persian 
13. Tim [ GER ] with 15 BG Late Republican Roman 
14. and Myself [ GER ] with 14 BG of Later Seleucid
    

It seems as if my guess about the composition of the field of players were quite consistent and fitting to my choice of army. Only my lack of medium-foot or other troops capable to fight somewhere else than in open terrain might be a disadvantage. But then, there still is the option of out-dicing the opponent.

The venue was the house of a local charitable organisation, which is set directly alongside to the Müggelsee, one of the may lakes around Berlin. I marked the approximate place for those interested as location in the entry. From the room in which all the games where concluded, we had this view:

Winter-view from the venue facing the Müggelsee

My first Game

As mentioned above, my first game against Richard is not documented, neither with drawings nor photos. Richard is a rather new player who went out and played Mid-Republican Romans.

Richards Romans

Consisted of 4 Troop-Commanders who lead:

1. Velites: Light Foot, Javelin-Light Spear, Average, Unprotected Drilled, 4 Bases
2. Velites: Light Foot, Javelin-Light Spear, Average, Unprotected Drilled, 4 Bases  
3. Velites: Light Foot, Javelin-Light Spear, Average, Unprotected Drilled, 4 Bases  
4. Velites: Light Foot, Javelin-Light Spear, Average, Unprotected Drilled, 4 Bases
   
   Average Legion
5. Hastati&Principes: Heavy Foot, Impact Foot Swordsman, Average, Armoured, Drilled 6 Bases 
6. Hastati&Principes: Heavy Foot, Impact Foot Swordsman, Average, Armoured, Drilled 6 Bases
7. Hastati&Principes: Heavy Foot, Impact Foot Swordsman, Average, Armoured, Drilled 4 Bases
8. Triarii: Heavy Foot, Offensive Spearman, Superior, Armoured, Drilled 4 Bases
   
   Superior Legion
9. Hastati&Principes: HF, Impact Foot-Skilled Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Drilled 6 Bases
10. Hastati&Principes: HF, Impact Foot-Skilled Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Drilled 6 Bases  
11. Hastati&Principes: HF, Impact Foot-Skilled Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Drilled 4 Bases
12. Scutarii: Medium Foot, Impact Foot-Swordsman, Average, Protected, Undrilled 4 Bases 
13. Elephants; Average, Undrilled, 2 Bases
14. Fortified Camp

All in all 791 Points.

I managed to play my skirmishers in such a fashion as to break up his battle line into smaller pieces and thus create overlaps against his units. All in all I do not remember that much of the game other then that our both dicing was beyond reasoning. Even though all in all average, we had subsequent turns in which one side had all the luck and the other just didn't.

Playing Richard was nice as always and ended with me breaking his army while loosing 9 attrition-points (= 4.5 units), thus resulting in a 18.6 to 6.4 in my favour. This result meant for me to now face a more experienced gamer, as I ended up place 4 after Round 1 was played.

So after the first round beeing played, the scoreboard read: 

Scoreboard after Round 1

 

Place	Player	Army	Points
1	Ferdi	Classical Indian	22,3
2	Paul	Early Achaemenid Persian	19,2
3	Dave	Bosporan	18,8
4	Sebastian	Later Seleucid	18,6
5	Phil	Umayyad Arab	17,7
6	Julian	Later Carthaginian	13,0
7	Rob	Later Carthaginian	10,2
8	Karol	Late Republican Roman	9,8
9	Andreas	Sassanid Persian	7,3
10	Erik	Late Republican Roman	7,0
11	Richard	Mid-Republican Roman	6,4
12	Tim	Late Republican Roman	6,2
13	Frank	Early Successor	5,8
14	Bodo	Sassanid Persian	2,7

Contrary to the first round, the next turns are not set historically but dependig on the score. The first player plays against the second, the third against the fourth and so on. This means that I was up against Dave from the UK with his bosporans.

 

My second Game

... was by all means not a draw.

I played against Dave from the UK, whom I had the pleasure of fighting earlier this year during the summer tournament in Yenifoca. So I was up for revenge. Dave fielded a hoard of Bosporan consisting of a shit-load of superior lancers cavalry as well as some light foot and light horseman. His List read as follows:

Dave's Bosporans

Consisted of 3 Troop-Commanders and one allied Troop Commander (Sarmartian) who lead:

1. Slingers: Light Foot, Sling, Poor, Unprotected Undrilled, 6 Bases
2. Slingers: Light Foot, Sling, Poor, Unprotected Undrilled, 6 Bases
3. Sindi Javelinman: Light Foot, Javelin-Light Spear, Poor, Unprotected Undrilled, 6 Bases 
4. Sindi Javelinman: Light Foot, Javelin-Light Spear, Poor, Unprotected Undrilled, 6 Bases
5. Sindi Javelinman: Light Foot, Javelin-Light Spear, Poor, Unprotected Undrilled, 6 Bases
6. Horse Archers: Light Horse, Bow Swordsman, Average, Unprotected , Undrilled, 4 Bases 
7. Horse Archers: Light Horse, Bow Swordsman, Average, Unprotected , Undrilled, 4 Bases
8. Horse Archers: Light Horse, Bow Swordsman, Average, Unprotected , Undrilled, 4 Bases
9. Horse Archers: Light Horse, Bow Swordsman, Average, Unprotected , Undrilled, 4 Bases
10. Lancers: Cavalry , Lancers-Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Undrilled 4 Bases
11. Lancers: Cavalry , Lancers-Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Undrilled 4 Bases
12. Lancers: Cavalry , Lancers-Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Undrilled 4 Bases
13. Lancers: Cavalry , Lancers-Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Undrilled 4 Bases
14. Lancers: Cavalry , Lancers-Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Undrilled 4 Bases
15. Lancers: Cavalry , Lancers-Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Undrilled 4 Bases
16. Sarmartian Lancers: Cavalry , Lancers-Swordsman, Superior, Armoured, Undrilled 4 Bases

All in all 798 Points.

After Dave (surprisingly - my dicing skills were not good enough to beat +2) won the initiative it was decided swiftly that the encounter would happen in the well known steppes of the Bosporan people, somewhere along the Krim peninsular. The barren, featureless lands were only interrupted by a single gentle hill in front of my left side of the table.

After setting up our armies, this is how the table looked like: 

Set-Up of the Game

A schematic view of the situation

After set-up, I unknowingly made a decision which would later on be in my favour and decided, that the pikes on the left side where fine by themselves and that the elephants would thus be needed on the right flank. I used one general to double move them in the direction of the hill and gained forwards traction with the other boys.

After all, the only point where my opponent had a good chance concerning troo-pquality, -amount and poa's was on my right. On the other hand, my designated Lancer-Cavalry-Killers were stationed there. If they'd survive impact on evens (both players need a 4 with 4 dice), where he'd have re-rolls on a 2, whereas I'd only re-roll 1's, if we both engage our generals. This was the picture after some turns: 

After some turns

Dave decided that his light horse between battle lines on the right would do more harm than good, and formed two column to get the unit closest to the table-edge behind his rear. Failing the Complex Move Test on the unit depicted in a column he chose to leave them behind the main line a bit. As he was unable to reform the next turn, too, I gained one shot on them - which missed due to the shooting unit being poor. 

This is a lesson I took from all my games: poor units are great to trigger shock-mounted and shock-foot. But for anything else, especially fighting,  they are absolutely worthless. I deliberately kept my Cataphracts (CT) a little behind the Agyraspides, in order to gain overlaps, as he would rather not charge my elephants. As he charged, the situation was as follows: 

First Charge

My LH evaded the cavalry, which rolled high enough to have an impact into the CT as well. During the subsequent Impact phase, in which all my CT and the inner 2 of his Lancers had Commanders in the front row to improve re-rolling my right CT lost a base and his  most center unit a cohesion and a base. It could have been way worse for me, and from now on, he would only hit on a 5 with most of his dices. 

After alignment

Despite being Average, the CT proved to be worth their money. After the close combat was resolved, the centre CT was down to Disrupted as well. Dave's left unit lost another base and had to break off from combat, due to fighting steady foot. In Dave's turn the center CT lost another cohesion. During my turn I decided to raise the heat and attacked the disrupted as well as the steady unit with my elephant, bringing my Agyraspides into a threatening flank-charge position for the other unit. 

This, honestly, was a risk, yet not one I took uncalculated. As the Cavalry would be on an evens in impact and on minus afterwards, the elephants would only have the advantage of having more dice (3 vs.2). But, my CT fighting his superior Units might need some flank-charge indicated support. After all, they are still only average. 

And the risk payed off. I managed to even kill another base from the lancers and disrupt them afterwards. Anyhow, during the turn I flank-charged, the right Cataphracts lost another base and were auto-broken thus - as they are just average. In the meantime his light horse on the other table-side were able to lay hands on my women and luggage stored not too safely in my camp anymore. 2 easy points for Dave.

Bad times ahead for all the women and children in there....

Yet on the side in fokus here, I ripped his other two units apart with the elephants, and as his Lancers broke through. The other CT managed to loose a cohesion-level on the way there, too. But now, my early decision to bring in the elephants from the other flank came to play. 

Hey There!

As Dave broke through during his turn and continued pursuing the rest of my Cataphracts during joint action, he had positioned himself perfectly in front of the loaded barrel, which were my Elephants. Depicted on the right is the situation before an additional pursuit-move was made by the lancers. 

So, I was able to bring my Elephants within charging (=interception) range and put my Light horse just in Front of him, so that he could not evade me by moving straight ahead. I knew he would'nt have to charge the LH (as his move could end up or be intercepted by Elephants), but he knew as well that the positioning of my LH left him no chance but to turn and face the incomming stampede.

Needless to say that the outcome was rather unpleasant for these lancers as well.

Malicious gossip would spread the word that I'd have had luck with my timing. Though I can't say I didn't, it is one thing to have good timing, but another to know how to use it for the most favourable outcome.

So to see what else happened during this time, let's have a look at the other side of the table, where my Pikeman were not only endagered by constant missle fire - which they didn't fear that much - but by reckless superior horseman as well. Watch your flanks was their maxim. 

To be continued.....