First Run Out Using My Later Hungarians

Later Hungarians v Serbian Empire

Having finally completed my DBM Later Hungarian Army I wanted to give it a run out to see how it operated. John at Essex Warriors was kind enough to volunteer to fight me and after some discussion he agreed to use Serbian Empire. John was the clubs 2014 DBM Champion ironically using Later Hungarians, but the mid timeframe version using irregular generals.

Because I tend to have a different style of play to other people when using a typical competition army I elected to go with the 1491 AD DBM version and had four commands including the Szekler Irr LH sub-general.

My army was as follows:

C1 7 E/7 EE/3 D [25% = 2 EE] CinC

C2 24 E/20.5 EE.7 D [25% = 5.5 EE] Sub

C3 24 E/20.5 EE.7 D [25% = 5.5 EE] Sub

C4 7 E/7 EE/3 D [25% = 2 EE] Szekler Irr Sub

Army Total:

62 E/55 EE/27.5 B

I tried to get a version using four regular Kn generals but just could not make it work at 400 AP but I intend to give it some more thought in due course.

John created his Serbians using whatever figures he had available so I recognised lots of his Hungarians in the army. We are generally not too fussed about these issues at the club as it allows players to try out new armies.

His Serbian Army was as follows:

C1 22 E/21.5 EE/7.5 D [25% = 5.5 EE] CinC

C2 16 E/15.5 EE/5.5 D [25% = 4 EE] Irr Sub

C3 13 E/10 EE/3.5 D [25% - 2.5 EE] Irr Sub [Flank Marching]

C4 16 E/12.5 EE/4.5 D [25% = 3.5 EE] [Albanian Ally]

Army Total:

67 E/ 59.5 EE/30 B

After set up dicing I ended up defending with John invading in the Autumn with a weather difference score of 3 meaning there was Strong Winds blowing from the SW and the risk of Rain

As the table was split into 2/3^rd/1/3^rd I elected to position my entire army in the larger portion of the table to take advantage of the reduced front as none of the terrain John chose actually fell anywhere useful for my purposes. John elected to place his Serbian Knight commands at each end of the line and used his Albanian Ally to sweep forward on my right flank which I had only held with three Hungarian LH F.  Annoyingly for me my two infantry commands were left facing a few LH and their baggage.

After John made his first move I realised that there was a flank march coming and needed to push forward as fast as possible before they arrived. I threw my Szekler command forward supported by the CinC’s four LH which meant I heavily outnumbered his LH screen of six LH O. As I was moving the Szeklers forward I realised that for some reason John had left a 500p gap in his centre which allowed me to throw my CinC’s four LH forward through this game and move to threaten his baggage and the rear of his march blocking LH in front of my infantry.

Due to John having an irregular command structure this meant that I could PIP drain his commands whilst he attempted to counter my threat. By doing this he was forced to withdraw his LH screen from in front of his knights. My Szeklers were now heavily outnumbered but I threw in my LH and managed to hit a smaller group of his LH to his far right flank and dragged one over so it was in front of his knights. This time luck was with me and I killed the LH and took out a Kn S as a bonus.

This left my Szeklers about to face his knights which meant there was little chance of my lasting long, or so I thought. John threw in the knights and killed a LH S and recoiled two LH O. It was now my tern and I elected to break off my LH’s in an attempt to break up the knights a bit. I picked off another LH O and was attempting to pick of his knights and despite double overlapping a single knight as well as hitting it in the rear giving me a CF of 2F v 1S before the combat dice were rolled my luck ran out. I rolled a 1 and John the inevitable 6 which killed my LH F !

On the other flank his Albanian ally was slowing working its way through my flank guard as I withdrew my three isolated LH F to counter any attempt to advance through the RGo and sack my camp. It was at this time his much delayed flank march appeared as it slowly worked its way towards my baggage. 

My Szekler command had broken by this time making his flank marchers impetuous. I pushed forward my CinC’s LH and sacked his camp for 12 EE losses assuming I managed to break a command. For what seemed like forever his largest command was hovering on 1 EE loss to break whilst I managed to catch the flank of his flank marching Ps with a demoralised Szekler LH and took out two PS in a lucky combat win. My other flank LH F had by this time reached just past my own camp and managed to hit his auxilia in the flank and took out two of those meaning this command was only half and element away from breaking.

I had also lost the CinC’s command by this time so I even threw in my C2 command in a desperate attempt to take out the last element to break John’s CinC command and win the game. Sadly it was not to be as I lost the general. Because it was by this time so late John had already said he wanted to leave at the end of these last bound so I ended up losing 2-8 which because of the heavy losses John had also taken converted to a 8-24 loss using the BHGS scoring system.

All in all it was a brilliant game and it made me realise that I needed to slightly reorganise the army structure to make the CinC’s command a bit stronger.

Despite what John said I still think my army list has some merit and at 500 AP will be very difficult to beat with another 100 AP of troops added into the army.

I have deleted and reposted this blog but John commented as follows:

"You used your LH very well but fought the game with only the mounted half of your army. Still, with a little more luck, you would have broken my largest command and won the battle. Good game, very tense right up to the last move."