OT2017 Round 4

Game 1
Ken W Goth 3
Greg O Roman 7
Missile fire kicked off the battle in the center, Goth HC was degraded and charged into the Romans, were eliminated, followed by a Goth Warrior charge in the center which was stopped and warriors died along with their leader to seal the Roman victory.

Game 2
Ken W ROman 3
Greg O Goth 7

Goth Heavy cav charge in the center follwed by a Roman counter charge from their right, the Roman cav was cut off and killed, then the Romans eliminated the Goth heavy cav but the Roman Light cav was caught and destroyed for the Goth victory.

Game 1 Gonzo (Goth) 7 banners 31 blocks taken, Craniumgroup 0 banners and 12 blocks taken
Luck really one sided here and ugly. Double banner range strike on LC. A couple of 4 hit rolls. Ended with one pt Goth W with leader killing 2 units.

Game 2 Gonzo (Roman) 7 banners 31 blocks taken, Cranium group 5 banners and 20 blocks taken
Much closer game with swirling cavalry and lots of dead horses.

Game 1:
Romans: christhibault - 3 Banners (14 blocks killed)
Goths: ezpickins - 7 Banners (35 blocks killed)



The first match was beset by terrible Roman dice rolling only made worse by stellar leadership by the Goths. There was little need for strategy as the Goths simply surrounded the Romans and decimated them.

Game 2:

Romans: ezpickins - 5 Banners (31 blocks killed)
Goths: christhibault - 7 Banners (43 blocks killed)



This match started out with Mounted charges by both sides with counter-attack plays to continue the fight leading to early kills on both sides. The Goth heavy cav managed to fend off the early Roman cav attacks coming out better from the exchange. The Goths and Romans then managed to form solid lines and traded ranged fire on the flanks until the Goth Warriors double-timed into the Roman lines for the final engagement. An opportune first strike by the Romans nearly broke the Goths to give the Romans a victory, but Fortuna withheld her favor from the Roman dice yet again, giving the Goths the victory. The ground was soaked with the blood from both sides in the end.

Jeff (EZPickins) was a worthy opponent and a pleasure to play against.

Thanks,
Chris

I'm going to extend the deadline out to July 12, primarily because I will be offline between July 5-12.
Since I can't produce the new round until I return, I may as well increase the deadline.
No harm in finishing your games earlier though!

Stonewall vs Armada01

Stonewall vs Armada01
Naisus Game 1
Stonewall (Goths) 7
Armada01 (Romans) 5

Both games saw the initial missile fire against the Goth heavy cav do little damage. The Goth warriors Doubled Timed around the cav and pushed back the Roman light cav in the center. Missile fire reduced all warriors to 3 or 2 blocks, but they attacked again against pinned units and destroyed 2 light cav and an aux. The Roman heavy inf surged forward and destroyed all 3 warriors. Then 2 Goth heavy cav in the center destroyed a heavy inf and severely damaged the second, but lost a heavy inf. A Roman cav attack on the right failed to destroy a heavy cav, but lost a med cav. Then the Goths pulled all 3 remaining heavy cav into the center and hit the center with a Mounted Charge. Though they lost a heavy cav, they destroyed the 2nd heavy inf and a full-strength aux, for a 7-5 win.



Naissus Game 2
Sonewall (Romans) 7
Armada (Goths) 5

The Goth lights moved forward to protect the heavy cav. Accurate missile fire weakened many units on both sides, then the Roman inf Doubled Timed forward in the center and destroyed a warrior and an aux. The Goth responded by sending 2 heavy cav with a leader forward on the right side of the board and the exact same thing on the left side of the board. On the left side of the board they destroyed an aux and a med cav, and got behind the inf line, threatening 2 1-block units on the back edge of the board. On the right they killed a med cav. The Romans responded with 4 units on the right but 1 did all the killing. The Roman leader Aurelian on a heavy cav killed both Goth heavy cav. The Goth heavy cav on the left then killed 1 weak unit on the edge, but an attack on a full strength aux resulted in a retreat which left the 2nd cav unable to engage. The Roman leader Claudius with a heavy inf trapped and killed a heavy cav and amazingly killed the 2nd heavy cav even though it tried to evade. A Goth warrior rushed forward and hit a full strength heavy inf, causing it to evaporate. The game ended with the Roman Aurelian and a heavy cav finishing off a damaged aux on the right side of the board for a 7-5 win.

Both games were very close and hard fought, and it was a pleasure to play with Tony Armada. We both had very good dice rolls, but the dice favored me a bit more, tipping both games to me.

Joe (Stonewall)

Mark McG vs Tomek

Games 1
Tomek (Goths) : 7 banners
Mark McG (Roman): 4

Game started off with a fusillade of LC missile fire over 2 turns, 16 dice in total. The Goth Heavy cavalry emerged without a scratch. Right there I realised the game wasn't going the Roman way. Roman started with 3 Line Commands (of 5 cards) which is a very mixed blessing with a force of 50% cavalry.

Goths pushed down their right flank, and then in the centre, and whilst a Roman cavalry charge restored some dignity to the defeat, the Romans where only starting to pickup any momentum towards the end, when the game was already lost.


Game 2
Mark McG (Goths): 7 banners
Tomek (Roman): 1 banner

Roman LC fled at first move, and thence it was some careful sparing between the missile troops with the Goths getting 2 banners from a few opportunities. A long Roman like advanced using Line Command, which gave the Goths the awaited opportunity to go straight up the centre, and the Warriors went straight through, with Romans falling back is disarray.

The Goth warriors then cleared away the centre, losing a Warrior unit in the fighting, but was pretty much over after the initial penetration.

Naissus Game 1
plainscape (Goths): 5 banners
stormwalker (Roman): 7 banners

The first game began very slowly with plenty of range fire, which resulted in two dead Goth HCs. This gave both sides an opportunity to regroup and consolidate their forces. As a result complete madness, to quote Todd, ensued. The battle was very bloody. It ended like all good battles with a Roman cavalry charge.



Naissus Game 2
stormwalker (Goths): 6 banners
plainscape (Romans): 7 banners

The second game began with range fire and a far too brave Goth cavalry charge. This battle was equally bloody, although, it involved far smaller forces. Similarly, to the first game, a well-positioned cavalry units secured the victory for the Romans.



Todd, thank you for two very exciting games!

Naissus Game 1

BrentS (Goths): 6 Banner
Carthage (Romans): 7 Banner



Naissus Game 2

Carthage (Goths): 7 Banner
BrentS (Romans): 3 Banner

Naissus Game 2

cavie (Goths): 1 Banner
giulio (Romans): 7 Banner

After some initial maneuvering the game starts with Goth heavy cavs against Roman light, who are trying their best to fire from afar and avoid contact. This costs the Goths their first unit, fallen under archery fire, while a cornered Roman light cav survives undamaged an attack of a Goth heavy cav. A sequence of attack by Goths then follows, using cavs and warriors, coming from all directions. Romans manage to successfully evade or are just saved by the poor dice rolls of the Goths. The latter, however, are not so lucky and Roman attacks are effective. After a few rounds the score is 5-0 for the Romans. Then I become impatient and decide to attack with the cavs the Goths second line. This gives me the 6th medal but also cost me one unit. The following skirmishes and random arrows on the Roman right flank set the final score.

I think this game, more than everything else, was decided by a series of very bad rolls by Dan, bad to such an extent that they spoiled a bit the fun for both.

Naissus Game 1
MichalK (Goths): 7 Banners
Paul (Roman): 0 Banners

Very bloody game for Romans. Despite their courage and constant attack they break on Barbarian wall, and then were counter-attacked which ended in decimation.

Naissus Game 2
MichalK (Romans) 7 banners
Paul (Goths) 1 banners

Much more balanced and close game then result shows. Enough to say that I finished with 5 one-block units ! Imagine how many banners that potentially means. Barbarians attacked in center from the start, pushed me back, and only one of counter attack managed to stop them. That gave me breathing moment to change game tempo, and with MC on my right I hit units without leader. That was decisive and despite very heavy losses, Imperil prevailed.

Thanks to Paul for being so flexible with game scheduling! Can't wait for round 5!

Thanks Giulio. I wasn't aware of that option and it looks like it works. It will take some getting used to, though. The text box, map and player hand are all separate components. I'm not sure how that will go in a logfile (I'll test before my next match) but it looks like a workaround until it eventually gets fixed. Thanks, as always, for your Vassal wisdom .

Brent.

@Brent: I don't know if it will give you some benefit, probably not, but I'd try to change the "use combined application windows" preference in the module.

Naissus Game 1

g1ul10 (Goths): 7 Banners
cavie (Roman): 3 Banners

Initial archery fire not particularly effective for the Romans. Ghauls attack Roman left flank exchanging one unit for one unit. Then they attack on the center section, this time with more success, obtaining two points but losing two in the subsequent Roman cavalry counterattack. Then Ghaul light troops eliminate one cavalry unit. The attack by the remaining Roman medium cav is ineffective. At this point Ghauls restart their offensive on the Roman left flank, eliminating two units. The Roman player has no good cards on that side and try to save the situation re-positioning light troops. In so doing, one light cav remains exposed and get eliminated the next round.

I had a relatively good hand of card in this game and nice dice rolls. I think Dan was limited by a poor hand of cards, apart the initial darken the sky, that however performed under par.

Sorry to ask this here, guys, because it's not directly relevant to this tournament (but it's affecting my matches, apologies to my opponents).

Is anyone on a Mac having trouble with the Ancients module? I was starting to run into difficulty on my old Air, which I though might be an issue with its age, but we've just bought a new iMac (very nice with latest Vassal engine, OS and Java updated, and if anything it's even worse.......scenarios failing to open, cards drawing to the board instead of my hand box and inability to play cards out of my hand box to the board. I can still resort to discarding cards from my hand to the discard pile in lieu of dragging them to the board, which I've done in my last few games, but the issue with drawing cards to the board instead of my hand is unplayable. I know that Java is playing catchup with the new Mac OS but I don't seem to be having the same problem in other games' Vassal modules, just Ancients. Have any other Mac users encountered this?

Thanks guys.

Brent.

Edit: A search of the Vassal support forums reveals that this has been encountered by other Mac users, although they don't specify which modules they were using. Th problem of trying to drag drawn cards to your hand and having them go to the board instead seems to be the main complaint. No response from the developers in those threads.

Slight correction to one of the situations you encountered guys (after MC by Goths):

The attacking unit may not occupy the defender’s original hex, regardless of the result of the attacking unit’s die roll on the evading unit. Even if the evading unit is eliminated by the attacking unit’s die roll, the attacking unit may not enter the hex.

Naissus Game 2

toganalper (Goths): 6 Banners
Mantra (Roman): 7 Banners
Nassıus Game 1

toganalper (Romans) 7 banners
Mantra (Goths) 2 banners

Romans started repelling the Hc attack of the Goths from the center. Then continued to destroy their leader and the HC on the left flank.
The Romans moved all their cav to the right flank, and grouped on the center and left with a good line of foot soldiers. The goths attacked the Romans on the Roman left flank where they got denied. and lost more troops. Once the Romans pushed the flank attack back they pushed forward trapping the Goth warriors between their secondary line and the heavy roman troops. The LC of the Romans were just strong enough to get the last block of the last warrior group on a CC assault next to the leader. Lucky Game for me.))

see other message

Naissus Game 2

toganalper (Goths): 6 Banners
Mantra (Roman): 7 Banners

The Romans drew a mit full of left and right cards, so the Romans had limited options. The Goths drew first blood against a MC. The Goths, seeing the Romans pushing on the flanks (and soundly beating them back), committed into the center. It looked promising for a few rounds, but the Romans were finally able to hand manage some center cards and soundly push the Goth warriors into the Roman Banner bin. Things were looking up for the Romans, but then card paralysis struck again and the Roman's couldn't bring the fight to the Goths where they needed it. The Goths HC, in quick succession, hit the badly mauled Romans on their left flank and crawled back into the game at 6 Banners apiece. Roman pushed back with a HI leader lead attack and bagged the last banner. It was a hard fought battle.

Naissus Game 2
Mike Stanley (scipio1zama) as Romans vs Forrest Speck (PCScipio42) as Goths

I won game 2 as the Romans, 7-5. This time the Romans did not have any Light Units cards, and the Goth HC were able to slip off to right with minimum damage. He also killed one of my LC by retreating it off the board after a great double-flag ranged fire attack. However, I did draw a Mounted Charge, and soon launched one on both flanks. On my left, I managed to knock off two of his HC at the cost of two of my LC (and later extricate my MC & Leader from a bad situation.) On my right, by contrast, my charge accomplished little and both my HC and MC got their noses bloodied, each losing a block. (My own fault – I had earlier detached Aurelian from the HC.) The Goths then attacked with their three center Warrior units, but only managed to eliminate 2 Aux, at the eventual cost of all three Warriors, thanks to my Clash of Shields card. (First time I’ve really had success with that card.) The score now stood at 5-5. That third warrior the Goths lost had a leader, who evaded to the Goth’s right flank. That put both of his leaders over there, so I used a line command to move my 6 foot units and 2 leaders toward the Goth left flank. My next play, a Double Time, brought my HI w/leader next to his Aux, and I scored 4 hits. This was followed by a bonus Close Combat against a full-strength Warrior – 4 hits again, and the Romans had won a hard-fought battle. The Mounted Charge Card, used properly, is a real boon for either side.

Naissus Game 1
Mike Stanley (scipio1zama) as Goths vs Forrest Speck (PCScipio42) as Romans

I won the first game as the Goths 7-4. The Romans started with 2 Light Units cards and damaged both of my heavy cav. My attempt to rally them got me absolutely nothing. He double timed in the center with his Aux & HI and 2 leaders against my warriors, but the warriors each received timely retreats and were safe back amongst the laagers. I drew a Cavalry Charge and a couple of turns later used it to good end, taking out a MC & a HC, and a HI at the cost of 2 HC. Continued fighting on my right and center cost me a warrior and another HC and cost him an Aux. But my HC on my left kept working, taking out a LC and a MC. The final blow saw my lights use ranged fire to take out his 1-block HI for the win. I cannot complain about my dice.