Against John the American Sailor

We had a visitor today, John who is an American commerical sailor as well as a vivid Empire player of 10 years. As he asked for a game and I am the only one with a Fantasy Army today...so here goes

John

Arch Lector w SOM, rerollable armor
BSB w banner of Stubborn
1 mage w rod
1 warrior priest

2 x 6 pistoliers w champs holding repeater pistols
2 x 5 knights (outer)
30 Swordsmen with gunners and halberdiers as detachments
30 Spearmen with gunners and halberiders as detachments
25 Flaggelants
1 mortar
10 Crossbows
1 Cannon

Me
Lord on MAnticore
2 Mages
Chariot Master

20 spears
12 rxbmen w sheilds
11 rxb
5 D.Riders
10 corsairs w Champ

6 COk FC warbanner
2 x 5 shades
2 rbt

Deployment is something like this

xbow on hill cannon guns guns mortar
pistoliers knights flaggelants knights lord w spears hal hal BSB w swordsmen pistoliers

.........hills....................................................swamp

..................................................................forest

D.riders Cok rxbmen w shields spears
corsairs rxbmen w/o shield chariot rbt manticore rbt

I will not describe the battle in a chronological order as the game and be broken into parts. I will use the standard Left-Right-Center NArration

Left: D.riders walks out to the left of the hills, shoots him and cause minimum damage. My COK hides below the hill ready to charge as knights and flaggelants that appear. His pistoliers march up shoot my dark riders in the face, while his knights hide behind the hill also i countercharge only to realise pistols always stand and shoots. Dark Riders die a glorious death. I then move my corsairs hoping to charge him when he crosses to my deployment zone to kill my troops. His pistoliers came over and shot 2 knights OUCH!. My corsairs launch a sucidal charge at his pistoliers...fortunately he only killed 2 with his stand and shoot reaction. NO panic test. Both sides rolled badly but my corsairs won combat and chase his light cav down. (to be cont'd)

Right: rbt to the right shoots pistoliers, shades move up and shoots pistoliers. 2 pistoliers left. Manticore moves to the right hoping to flank his army. Spears move up to provide los to my rbts(who shot xbows and panic them). chariot moves up. he merely moves forward. cannon shoots chariot but rolled a 1, nearly destroy rbt. MY turn again. manticore flank charge his swordsmen while chariot charge in the front, due to detachemnt rules, the manticore got flanked by halberdiers both shades move up and shoot the mortar but only killed 1 crew. RBT only killed 1 pistolier. close combat, despite poor impact hits, my 2 super heroes killed many empire soldiers...manticore took 2 wounds though. then he told me he got stubborn banner...oh no!. BUT HE FAILED BREAK TEST TWICE DESPITE STUBBORN. in the end the swordsmen were run down by the chariot while the manticore continues to fight the halberdiers. Finally shades charge mortar and destroy it. it is just mopping up operations on the right now.

Center + rest of the story. His center knights and spears move forward slowly but surely. My mass 46 rxb fire killed 2 knights, while my spear position myself such that if he charge my superinfantrymen, I will flee and countercharge with spears. As a result he did not charge and merely move forward, knights to threaten the superinfantry, spears to threaten my spears. My superinfantrymen countercharge! killed 2 knights in close combat and run them down and then charge his guns in the far end nxt turn. At this point his left knights got desperate and climb up the hill. My Cok countercharge charged and due to his bad armor saves, killed 4 knights and run the unit down (his warrior priest did zero wounds). At his turn 5, after weathering some light shooting, his spears finally charge my spears, who quickly fled. in my turn 6, manticore and chariot do a rear charge on his spears but he failed terror! (lucky for him. coz if my spears rallied and my manti and chariot break his spears....he kena instant destroyed) anyway he simply flee pass my troops and rallied in his last turn.

His flaggelants have a boring story. jsut kena shot into bits and finally charge my rxbmen w/o shields. I can choose to flee but i decide to give him some sport (since i m winning and he a bit sianZ). He destroyed my unit.

Eventually he lost everything except Lord plus spears, 2 gunners and 4 flaggelants

I lost Darkriders, rxb, half points for manticore and Tesela. Other casualties are 2 cok, 1 spear, 1 rbt crew, 3 corsairs and 3 superinfantryman. I won with a massacre.

Things to note. Corsairs have their uses at the flanks! just take 10 with champ and 2 handbows will do!

His mistakes. His pistoliers should shoot my corsairs and not knights since the knights are not threatening him at the moment. I think he wants to thin my ranks beforehis knights cross the hillcrest and possibly he believe his stand and shoot can destroy my corsairs. Fortunately my gambit won.

His right pistoliers are too far and are exposed to my shooting...but it seems he has no choice as i deploy them later. MAybe he should not deploy the pistoliers so early.

His spears should shield his knights more and also he should charge my rbt instead of my spears. Anyway he said he forgot warmachines give a free overrun.

Why I win. Superb shooting rolls, Hatred helps in CC, cheesy super heroes, synergy and my opponent's bad luck. Honestly i think if i remove my master on chariot and manticore lord, my win ratios will no longer be as high. LEt's try to remove them eventually (especially the manticore) :)