MeG - Ice and Fire 2023 - Peaked Too Soon
Mortem Et Gloriam (MeG) first tournament of 2023 at Battlefield Hobbies, called 'Fire & Ice' where armies can be taken from Middle East, Asia, Africa or America's (so excluding European armies).
So still a wide variety of armies can be selected over the whole 3000BCE - 1550CE timeframe.
Last year I took my Tuareg Africa all Camel army, this year I decided to take an All Cavalry army from the Later Nikephorian Byzantine list (circa 1059CE), this was my 3rd outing with the army over the past 12 months with varying success and failure.
Here is what I took:
After having tried using a force with 9 TUGs and 3 Command, finding the 4 base TUGs invariable being destroyed every game after taking a few hits. I decided to only take the Kataphraktoi in a unit of 4, the rest in 6's.
This squeezed my points as I still wanted to use a Legendary CinC, so decided to not only go with a 7 TUG army but only have 2 Generals (9 cards)!
Having settled on this being my entry, then listened to the last MeG Podcast where their was a discussion on why we don't see that many 7 TUG armies at tournaments.
Hm, could their be a very good reason why that is so?
Let's see how I managed to win the 'Peaked too Soon' award at the Tournament...
Game 1 - Keith Spedding with Sui
Mixed army of Infantry, crossbows and Cataphract cavalry - looked like a very strong list with 12 TUGs.
First roll of the game my Legendary General rolls a Strategic Intercept, then I win terrain and go for Plains and manage to keep it down to 'Featureless' but a coastal flank.
Keith got to place a single piece of Rocky Ground that I promptly removed on a 6!
Picture after deployment
After seeing some of his Infantry go down, realised his Cataphracts would be on my left flank so lined up my Superior cavalry to hit that end.
Some Skilled Horse Archers, 1 Superior Cataphract and 2 Average Cataphracts - that should give me 4 out of 6 TUGs to break him.
So off I steam sweeping off to the left flank, leaving my Kataphractoi to hold up the rest of the Sui force.
Keith goes into reverse, but can't delay my charge too long.
Skilled Horse Archers are destroyed as the rest of my attack is lined up. There is a sneaky Skilled Crossbowmen unit looking to shoot me up from behind, so angle up one of my Charging Lancers to have go at them.
Bang, the fight is on, with a lovely flank charge on the Superior Cataphracts, smash and the they are gone, into follow-on charge, bang goes another on and then multiple KaB tests take out the rest (including a dead General).
By now I had lost my Kataphractoi and Keith was bringing over support, so I need some quick re-organising to stop showing my rear.
Game resulted in my forces fighting three combats, of which two of my units were a wound from breaking (Superior Tagmata and Average Normans) - we ended up with mutual destruction of Norman Knights and Horse Archers getting me the Triumph over the Sui (Keith just short on getting his final unit of Cataphracts into the combat)
Win 15-6 to the Later Nikephorian Byzantines - great game and close with me 1 TUG away from breaking.
Game 2 - Robert Hutton with Chola Empire
Indians with 13 TUGS (need to kill 7 units) of which 3 were TUGs of Elephants (one was Superior), my army doesn't like Elephants (last tournament I became horse meat from an Elephant charge)
Again I managed to get a Strategic Intercept and won the Terrain choice and went for Coastal.
Rob managed to pull the terrain up into 'Normal' but I kept it away from being a secure flank. With three pieces of Rocky Ground that I managed to push to corners of the table.
Rob managed to out-scout me even on 2 cards being Red (he had managed to get PBS cards of 3 Reds, 3 Yellow, 1 Green and 1 White) vs my 2 Yellows.
So I decided to start my army on my base line dead centre waiting to see where the dreaded Elephants would appear.
Good news for me, I think a mistake from Rob as all the Elephants were on his Left Flank.
Lovely army and very wide, guess I'm going left again as far away as I can from the Elephants.
Things got very busy very quickly as I double moved over to hit the Infantry as hard as I could.
So unfortunately no photo's till the end of the game.
My Cavalry has managed to smash through 4 units of Swordsmen, 2 units of Archers and finally a unit of Superior Spearmen (centre of photo) but lost the Average Normans to the Elephants (someone had to slow down the Elephants and the surprisingly last 5 combats!) and two units of Thematic Cavalry from a flank charge of the Spearmen.
Must admit I nearly lost the game in the final combats as I had a unit of 2 Kataphractoi fighting the Archers first being hit on a Black dice - luckily Rob rolled a blank which I did first before my Superior Normans won against against the Spearmen - I could have lost 10-15!
Win 15-6 to the Later Nikephorian Byzantines - always a pleasure to play Rob, one day his Elephants will get me.
So by the end of the first day I was on 30pts - looking good, best that I had ever done in MeG tournaments (I've normally lost one of these games by now)
Game 3 - Robin Spence with Mongol Conquest
Now this is a bit of a grudge match, the last two times we have played his army choice had all the bonuses and should smash my army (example being his Normans vs my Bretons, he was up on all the combats but all his dice came up blank while I would roll wounds or worse Skulls).
In this game he is up 9 vs 7 TUGs, had loads of Skilled Shooters and a number of Superior but 4 base Cavalry.
Game started with Robin winning the Attacker\Defender roll and selecting to be Defender so that we would fight in the Plains which I managed to make have a secure coastal line but no other scenery.
Robin out-scouted me, so I decided no point messing about and started placing my force as far forward next to the coast 2 bases deep, realised by the time I placed the Kataphractoi 1 base deep that Robin would still be able to outflank my line.
So as Attacker I went as fast as I could towards his lines, by second turn we were charging.
I took some wounds due to the Skilled Bow and got to some of the Horse archers after they skirmished.
Then reset and go again, after catching some of the Mongols I had broke through his lines and rushing one of my Tagmata cavalry into the Mongol Camp and taken down both average Horse Archers and one of the Mongol units, 4 TUGs down.
Unfortunately by this time I had lost both my Thematic Cavalry and the Kataphractoi being charged in the rear.
It finally came down two combats between with my Average Normans vs Superior Mongols and my Superior Normans vs another Superior Mongol unit - both combats went to Robin as all I could roll was blanks and 'S' results in melee combat.
Robin finally has his revenge.
Lost 8 v 15 for the Later Nikephorian Byzantines
Game 4 - Pete Entwistle with his Qin
Final game, managed to be the Attacker again and got the Coastal terrain but Pete managed to move the terrain level up to 'Normal'. I did manage to move two pieces of scenery into corners but the central Corn Field stayed put.
I was out-scout by the Qin, so started putting my cavalry down on the opposite side from the coastline, then watched Pete place 5 TUGs of Infantry mixed Polearm & Crossbows opposite - not looking good for me.
My first turn, I drew some really bad cards for both Generals, I decided it might be best to try moving to my left. Pete surprised me by advancing his whole line double time towards me, suddenly looked like I was not going to be able to run away and regroup on the left.
So I bit the bullet and advanced into the wall of Chinese.
First round of shooting from the crossbows managed to roll numerous white dice and get more wounds than blanks on his shooting, not a good start, then in the charge and melee phase Pete's dice were hot, rolling wounds everywhere while I could only roll blanks.
Soon I lost a TUG of Average Thematic, then KaB on next Thematic unit breaks them, then the Average Normans break on a KaB and even the Superior Normans and Tagmata fall to the multiple KaB tests.
Suddenly, I have 5 TUGs broken and game over!!!
Lost 0 v 15 for the Later Nikephorian Byzantines
Leaves me on 38pts at the end of the tournament, how low the great have fallen.
Did win me the 'Peaked to Soon' award.
Still a great Tournament, great venue, well organised and four wonderful opponents.
Let's see what the Later Nikephorian Byzantines can do at TOIL Early Medieval Age in March this year?
