Roving games officianado Mr Sid Ben recounts his tournament experiences from the glamorous environs of Weston Super Mare.

I went to the Crusader themed TTS tournament at The Bunker at Weston Super Mare today. All organised by Big Don, the day was a chance to compete in a rare themed tournament.
A heroic drive through storms to arrive in time. I only have one army which met the criteria for the Crusade tournament which was appropriately my El CID army. A collection of lance cavalry with extra javelin, ineptly supported by a handful of raw shieldwall and raw LI javelin with a couple of LC lurking in the flanks.

My first opener was Ayyubbud Egyptian played by Marc Nicholson. It was Marc’s first tournament so a big game for him.
I pushed hard on my left flank putting my best two mounted commands there with vet cavalry and the army standard, whilst the right intended to delay.

My centre of raw shieldwall meant to delay, but I got excited and attacked anyway.
My left flank drove through his lines turned and seized a camp for the win. My rubblish infantry even made good pressure, although my right collapsed and he seized my camp. So I got a 13 medal win and Marc had 8 of mine.
A good start, but will it continue?

My second game was against Steve Butlers Eastern Latins.
An interesting combo of knights with LC support. Infantry was spear, Crossbow, billmen and LI. Wonderful painting and a beautiful looking army.
A great start with my winning the scouting, as I did on every game. Steve only had 3 commands so I could see him place his fortified camp with infantry and both mounted commands to the right of that. I matched his infantry with mine and also loaded all my 3 mounted commands opposite his.
I advanced cautiously as his crossbow 3 box range made me nervous.
After the first turn, I thought f*** it and rushed all my left commands forward.
Steve was a little more subtle and switched a command of knights and lights behind his infantry from his right to his left. I took the decision to ignore that and push against his lone right flank command.
Steve did well with his left command taking out some infantry then pushing for my camp.
He then had awful acticvation slowing that attack, allowing me to overwhelm his right and the combination of flanking cavalry with outrageous shooting sneaked me the win, but Steve took about 9 coins of my 13. Another close game with a great opponent using a beautiful army, what more can you want?

My third and final game at The Bunker for the day was against Robert Avery Venetians.
Rob and his army are hardened veterans and winners of this year’s TTS at BRITCON.

The Venetians are an interesting combination of Spear or Bill and LI. The main striking force are knights supported by unusual LC who have crossbow for that 3 box range or lance to be an offensive lights unit. He had two camps which are fortified.

Robert Avery and I have played a few times over the last couple of years and I seem to be his personal kryptonite, when we play my cards are average but his are invariably pants. I was hoping this would play on his mind. I know, it’s a terrible thing to do to a lovely chap like Robert Avery.

As with very game I won the scouting, so I could match my commands where they would be most effective.
Rob deployed his two infantry commands in the centre and split the cavalry equally on the wings. His left looked more exposed, so I concentrated two commands against that flank. My right flank only had one cavalry command but it was my veteran cavalry so I thought I had a chance to take him on frontally.

My infantry might be raw but had extra bow so could impact him without getting too close. I also had a horde of raw LI to clog up the works.
My activations started well, I managed to rush my mounted troops in Robs grill. The Kryptonite was working and Robs right wing activated one unit before stopping.

The Venetian infantry ground forward and I was in no position to stop them but did delay them and pushed back the mounted wings.
On my left I took down Robs LC and the knight unit closest to the centre.The loss of that knight let me push cavalry through to hit his exposed crossbow unit who were very unhappy in tangling with lance armed cavalry. This exposed the spear next to the crossbow who were flanked and destroyed leaving a gap in the line.

The only good thing for Rob was the survival of his right knight unit, although it was disordered so reluctant to get involved. In the end Rob had a f*** it moment and charged them. Unusually for Rob it worked and they destroyed the Caballeros Villanos against them.
In the centre, Robs infantry were pushing my raw shieldwall back and I was pulling them back just to keep them in the game. But the success of this meant that they became isolated and exposed to my hordes of raw LI. Meanwhile my cavalry who had taken out his spear, went through the gap and took one of the camps.

On my right, my elite cabaleros Hidalgos rushed Robs knight command and were outrageously lucky, taking down one unit of knights and disordering the other. I followed up and had his knights pinned against the table edge with another LC pinned next to them. This unit just held on, which as it had the army standard kept Rob in the game. I could have pushed the LC off the table but held on until he would be down to his last coin. On the same flank I had supporting LC ready to hit some LI on a hill in the flank.
After I cleared out another unit, I pushed the LC off table for a win.
As always with Rob, a great game, full of chat and banter. Yet his cards hated him and I’m not joking when I say that. Maybe he was distracted as I spent the entire day trying to nag him into going for an Ancient Spanish army for his next project.

We thank Sid for his article and bow before his unchallenged prowess on the green field of dreams!