Mortem Et Gloriam (MeG) - Ancients historical tournament themed - Footsloggers
Latest tournament experience for me in the world of MeG (Mortem Et Gloriam).
Themed event called 'Footsloggers' where the army could only include 'Infantry' or 'Artillery' troop types.
After deliberating over which army to take (had considered Aztec, Spartacus Slave Revolt or HYW English), I decided to take the Later Swiss army as it had never touched the table top since I bought it fours years ago on eBay.
Bold choice for me as I'm more use to playing cavalry heavy armies with a good size of TUGs, this was totally the opposite - only 5 TUGs (very low break point on 3 compared to the more usual 5 or 6) with three big professional Pike units, 2 full size Halberdier units, 2 skirmishing crossbowmen and 1 of of Handgunners.
Led by a Talented General with another Talented and Competent sub-generals.
Turns out Steve was attending the event with his Swiss army which had some interesting differences to take note of.
First game - faced Medieval Free Company, which managed to get the battlefield set on the coast with a couple of Vineyards protecting his flanks. I messed up my deployment as opponent deployed everything in this valley with two units of light artillery.
After a few turns of re-organising my troops - glad of my drilled professional troops and my opponent not leaving his deployment zone, I was soon facing the right direction and surged forwards (surprising how fast 'Fleet of Foot' Swiss are!).
The fighting was brutal with my right flank Pikes & Halberdiers breaking the line and causing multiple casualties in the backline.
Lost 1 unit of Halberdiers but managed to kill the 5 TUGs before getting to his camp.
Win 15-2
Second game - faced Later Swiss, now to see how a Swiss army should be used
Managed to keep a nice open area in front of the army bordered by Forests, even out-scouted opponent by 80%, though didn't really help much as the army was deployed nice and compact in the open area.
I mistakenly placed two of my skirmishers in front of the Pike to get some shooting off (didn't work), realised that Steve's army was wider than mine and that he could move slightly to get better combat match ups.
Two interesting developments:
1 - Steve had placed his Handgunners in between two Pike blocks, this allowed him to fire into unengaged file of my Pike causing additional wounds each turn.
2 - Mis-calculated that when he moved forward and shifted his 4 wide Halberdiers could not fit past a Forest - caused the unit to take longer in getting into the fight, this did then enable them to move round my flank and hit me hard for the win.
I also found that my pike were suffering more in the melee phase as his were Protected and mine Unprotected which put him 1 up on combat factors.
Managed to take down a Pike and Halberdier unit for some points before my camp was sacked.
Loss 4-15
Game 3 - facing Later Franks, lots of Devastating charge warbands from one side of the table to the other, Swiss as always outnumbered. So managed to get a coast to protect one flank, while Forested Hills and Woods covered the far side.
Decided to only take on one part of the line next to the coast line, being the attacker I went first and 'Fleet of Foot' right up into the enemy lines. Kind of surprised Jeremy as this blocked his ability to move round my flank as he could not double move. I was also helped with this as Jeremy had pulled about 2/3rds of his command discs as Black & White which really did not enable him to do anything clever with Tribal troops (at this point I really was enjoying the flexibility of Drilled troops)
Next turn I moved up so that we would get only the charges that I wanted to happen, then it was crunch time, we were mostly on green v green dice in the charge phase - where Jeremy wanted S for Shatter while I would get Shove - unfortunately neither of us managed to roll any and handed out a few wounds each - pretty unimpressive display.
Then it all started to unravel in the melee phase as I was up across the board, with Shove's making it worse - the barbarians started loosing bases everywhere.
A few more melee phases later and the first Frank unit fled, the pursuit into the next warband went horrible bad for Jeremy and resulted in a dead general and another unit destroyed.
We then had a cascade of KAB tests on surround units where I managed to roll so many Skulls making wounded unit now become broken causing even more tests with another dead General....
By the time we had run out of KAB test to roll five units had fled the battlefield and broken the Frank army.
Win 15-2 (had lost a Halberdier unit
Forgot to take a photo - so this is after my opening moves - whoosh Double move of nearly my whole army
Game Four - facing Southern Mapuche which I had never seen before, turns out opponent could fit 17 TUGs into the list (no skirmishers) making his breakpoint 9 vs my 3!!! but then he had nothing above Average and over half the army was unprotected.
Turns out for once I was going to be attacked in my Mountains, which ended up having a secure flank, while a number of Tall fields covered other areas.
I was not sure what to do so deployed centrally and waited to see how the mass of enemy would do?
Initial short move across the mountain on the right flank while a double move on the left flank and hold in the centre - now I see what his plan is - I spring into action and send the Pike blocks 'fleet of foot' straight up the centre to see if I can smash through before his 'Tribal' troops can turn and face me.
All starts good as the Pike smash through two units of Archers, then start eating into the Long Spearmen behind.
Unfortunately at this point, even being up on all the melee fights I can't seem to roll any damage while Roger on White\Black dice keeps rolling a wound.
I only break through with one Pike unit but Roger runs short and leaves my Pike being charged in the rear, meanwhile the other Pike unit has also been charged in the rear, even turning round to face the enemy - the chipping off of wounds on 'Whites' continues and they both break - finally the third Pike block is flanked charged and looses the last would and breaks - hard fight and did manage to take down 5 enemy TUGs with two more one wound from breaking.
Loss 10-15 (still a good score)
Great weekend - 2 wins and 2 losses but more crucially 44 victory points, turns out I made joint 6th place out of 17 players.
I'll definitely consider using the Swiss again.
 - Ancients historical tournament themed - Footsloggers&layout=none&ref=https://philippowell.zenfolio.com/blog/2022/5/mortem-et-gloriam-meg---ancients-historical-tournament-themed---footsloggers)