"Derby" AAR 4: Ooh, they've brought a large wooden horse for us....

Sorry for making you wait for this one. Today's post is the fourth and final AAR from "Derby".

My opponent was Bob Medcraft from the Oxford Team. I've met him before at Campaign and he's a great guy, so I knew it would make up for my horrible experience in the morning game.

Bob was fielding a Later Mycenaean or Trojan army, and had opted (unsurprisingly) for the "Achaians in the Trojan War" option. This was his army list:

Inspired Commander (Agamemnon)
3 x Troop Commander (Nestor, Achilles and one of the other boys from the gang)
1 x 6 Myrmidons (MF, Superior, Undrilled, Armoured, Impact Foot/Swordsmen)
2 x 8 Nestor's Spearmen (HF, Average, Drilled, Protected, Defensive Spear)
2 x 4 Light Chariot (Superior, Undrilled, Light Spear)
1 x 8 Spearmen (MF, Average, Undrilled, Protected, Offensive Spear)
2 x 6 Spearmen (MF, Average, Undrilled, Armoured, Offensive Spear)
2 x 6 Javelinmen (LF, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Javelin, Light Spear)
2 x 6 Bowmen (LF, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Bow)
1 x 6 Slingers (LF, Average, Undrilled, Unprotected, Sling)

Bob won initiative and opted for Hilly terrain. We ended up with 3 steep hills, a piece of impassable terrain (a lake), 2 pieces of broken ground and an area of brush. Much of it ended up in Bob's half of the table, including 2 steep hills in what should have been an ideal position for him to take advantage of.

Advancing on my right flank. I decided to commit both my skirmisher units to this attack, to try to deny Bob the hill on this wing whilst screening my 4 average units as they advanced.

My block of superior troops in the centre, advancing slowly towards the fight between the hills against Bob's best troops. Meanwhile, I've sent 2 of my average units forward on the left flank to try to take that hill.

 

Clash of the not-very-Titans. We've each managed to disrupt one unit at impact.

Moving into the gap. Bob had pointed out something I'd been doing wrong in my earlier games, that chariots can't be combined with medium or heavy foot to form a battle line for movement. That is why the right hand unit is slightly behind the rest.

"We'll hold here whilst those sluggards catch up"

On the left flank, one unit disrupted by enemy skirmishers. They'll be seen off soon enough and my gallant swordsmen will charge over the hill into his spearmen.

On the right flank, I'm winning the skirmisher melee with one of his units already broken. However, I do appear to have a swordsmen unit about to be menaced by some chariots in the open. Gulp!

My chariots and one unit of superior armoured swordsmen rashly charged in against Nestor's spearmen whilst the sluggards were once again, errr, sluggardly and didn't join in.

Back to the left flank - skirmishers chased off and enemy spearmen contacted. I seem to be winning here....

That's half of Nestor's boys broken, very conveniently bursting through his chariots as they routed. My other superior armoured swordsmen with my chariots should make short work of the other unit.

Those skirmishers have held on very well against mine, but are now fragmented and one base away from breaking automatically. My average swordsmen who had been providing some support on the flank have decided they can leave the javelinmen to it.

And they've gone! Unfortunately my swordsmen were charged by some of his spearmen and double-dropped to fragmented in the impact phase.

The other lot of Nestor's spearmen have broken, with my heavy chariots pursuing into contact with the light chariots.

My right-most swordsmen have decided to try to force Bob's chariots back off their edge of the table.

Oh, damn! I bet that this is where things start to go wrong for me.

Oh crap, they'd routed through their rear support, disrupting them.

Yup, the rot is setting in....

The rot is definitely setting in....

Back to my left flank - the right flank is turning into a horror story. One enemy unit broken, one fragmented.

"The horror, the horror...."

Errr, didn't I have 3 superior foot units and some chariots here? How come I've only got two foot units in the centre now? Well, the answer is astonishingly simple really - my dice were terrible, Bob's were bloody superb and my chariots and a superior foot unit were wiped out.

Not much left of Bob's right wing though.

The two fragmented units on my right wing dropped to broken in the next melee phase, which meant I'd lost 6 battle groups (half my army) giving Bob the win. However, I'd also broken 6 of his battle groups, but as he had started with 13 I hadn't quite managed to rout him as well. The final score was 16-9 to Bob.

It was a fantastic final game and I was oh-so-close to winning massively, only to be let down by awful dice rolls in the last two turns.