The Befuddled On Tour :: Stoke 2009

Last Sunday saw the Befuddled On Tour yet again.  This time to the delights of Stoke on a rainy summers morning.

Bill Skinner and the Stoke club had organised their second DBMM one day competition.  As well as DBMM there were Flames of War and Armati competitions running.  I should say at the outset that he and the Stoke Club deserve all possible praise for running a great day with a smashing venue, ample free parking, good food and a fun atmosphere.

The competition was restricted to armies from the first three DBMM army lists as Book 4 hasn’t been published yet.  This gave me a problem as I only have armies from Book 4!  After some research I decide to morph my Mongol Conquest army into a Central Asian Turk army for the day.  This allowed me field my favourite Khitan Lao allies and use lots of irregular LH (S) in a four command irregular army.

In the first game I played Jim Gibson’s Classical Indians.  A real first for me as I’d never faced elephants before. After three hours the game still wasn’t finished.  Jim won 15-10 based on the dead and dying.   In the second round Jim was drawn against another Central Asian Turk army and won 25-0 so perhaps 15-10 wasn’t so bad after all.



This was also the first time I’d not finished a competition game.  As such it gave rise to loads of “what ifs” as we were both very close to winning or losing outright.  I reckon one more bound would have done it one way or another. Jim needed 1 element to break my army and I need two halves to break his.  Next bound Jim would definitely have had his chance with his superior elephant general already in combat with my cavalry superior general (6-4 respectively, no quick kills) and it was his bound.  I had two LH (S) in combat with his baggage only needing one to break the army baggage command having killed two in the last bound.  The temporary 1 ME penalty would then have broken both his weakened commands and the army never mind the loss of the baggage MEs across his army.

My second games was against Graham Edwards and his Later Carthaginians.  This was also a first: massed expendables. In contrast to the first game this was a very quick game.  I broke Graham’s largest command of Cv (O) and LH (O) with Kn (F) and LH (S).  The temporary 2 ME penalty for a nearby broken command meant that he had lost more than 50% of his army at the end of the bound.



Talking to Graham after the game he had been wrong footed to be defending and deploying first.  Deploying second meant I declined to give his eight element of expendables an easy target.  This created time to attack both flanks.

I was pleased to with my score of 35 out of a possible 50 and my fifth place. The final table looks like this with Brian and myself the best placed of six MAWS players entered:



Brian receives his trophy for first place from DBMM organiser Bill Skinner:



Here’s a shot of Graham Hutchinson (Han Chinese), my regular opponent and doubles partner, playing John Saunders (Carolingian Frankish) in a game of mutually assured destruction. This game was amongst the last to finish in round two with both armies broken and John winning 13-12 but only because he was defending.



Finally, a bit like Kilroy, Bill Skinner is fast becoming regular feature on The Waving Flag. Have you noticed how often he appears in the tour photos; even when he’s not the main subject?