Monday 26 March 2012

Challenge 2012

Last weekend I went to Ascot to play in the FoGR competition. A few of us from the Central London club took Friday off and made a long weekend of it. We rocked up around midday and decided to go grab a pint or three in the pub next door. The pub has a beer garden and the sun was shining, so, a long lunch and a few pints were had by all.

Later on got to have a practice game with Don and managed a big win, so, nice way to start the comp.

I brought my Later 30 Years war Catholic imperial Germans and was aiming for middle of the pack. The main focus of the army was the six battle groups or Kurrassiers, superior armoured horse.

Here is my army

C n C Field Commander
3 x Troop Commanders
6 x Kurassiers, Armoured, superior horse with impact and melee pistol
2 x medium artillery
3 x average unarmoured pike and shot
2 x kossaken, light horse with carbines
2 x dragoons units, each with four elements.

Total of 15 battle groups with an initiative of three.

The end result was that I placed third! I ended up with 80 points, one point behind 2nd. My first real trophy playing FoGR (then again, I never placed playing FoG:AM).

All the top seeds were at the comp and my only lose was to the top seed. It was a tight game with Alisadar forcing me to make a few minor mistakes and making the best of it.

The games

Game one, an agreed draw, 9-11 vs 17th century French.

Wouldn't you believe it, Don and I had a practice game the day before, so, guess who I drew for the first game?! Don had a different army to the practice game, so, something different. His army is a very heavily foot focused army and was a bit worried about all of my cav. The terrain fell on the side edges so he had nowhere to hide. After a couple of hours we agreeded a draw after I tried to break thru on one flank and got beaten off. We thought a draw was better than the two of us not committing as he couldn't risk coming out of his defensive position and his foot troops wouldn't go disrupted for me to risk another charge.

Game 2 , 22-3 vs 30 Years War protestant Germans

First big win of the comp. a civil war between the catholics and protestants. I sent one light horse on a flank march which thru my opponent off for a while. It thru his strong push on one flank into disarray and gave me time to break a few units of his cav with my artillery.

Game 3, 3-23 vs Later Imperial Austrian

And, my first big lose as I bobbed up to the top table and ran into Alisdar.

I don't know how he bet me, but I found myself being picked off one unit at a time. I did manage to break a few of his units and my flank march arrived on the turn I broke.

Game 4, 25-0 vs Later Sudanese.

First time I faced this type of army. It's very much a fogam army with lots of bow and spear foot. My cav was a lot stronger than his, so, I didn't need to worry about charging him. This gave me time to focus on breaking a few of his average cav units and disruppting his foot. In the impact phase, my cav were on a double plus vs the inf and it went down hill very quickly. The Sudanese were a lot bigger than my army (19 bgs) but in the end, quality trumped quantity.

Game 5, 24-1 vs Later Swedish.

So, the big game, playing for third. I ran into the ref, Kevin and his tough swedes.

Lucky for me, the terrain was almost all on the base lines which didn't leave the swedes anywhere to hid.

I kept one artillery battle group for deployment in the last phase and surprised his determined horse. I won the initiative, so, the swedes moved first. By the end of my first turn, one of his determined horse was fragmented, the dragoon attack on the other flank halted and it went down hill from there. I had on my left hand flank vs the determined horse four of my armoured horse and proceeded to break them soon afterwards. Soon afterwards, both dragoons had been broken and the Swedish foot found itself surrounded and the army broke shortly afterwards.

So, a great comp and my first podium placing. Now, can I do it again at Campaign in May....

2 comments:

Unknown said...

well done! Do you per chance know the TYW French army list Ben Jones used? I can't decide on a few options and I would like to know how he does it.

Iron Duke said...

Woot! Sounds like moving to London to play in the major league is really working for you!

When you come back to the colony it will be like Harry Kewell coming back to the Aussie A-League :)

You should blog the silverware as well.