Cold Ash Clash 2nd November 2024

Next up, the Slayer…

The sum of elements removed by either party during all a player’s games.
No extra points for generals or double ranked elements, but hordes counted….
Ties were resolved based on who brought the weakest army according to the ranking algorithm…

1, Connor Truby, 41 elements
2, Denis Grey, 40 elements
3, Matthew Davison, 40 elements
4, Andrew Avery, 38 elements
5, Alan Davison, 36 elements
6, Tom Whitehead, 36 elements
7, Paul Hodson, 34 elements
8, Paddy Myers, 34 elements
9, Colin O'Shea, 34 elements
10, Tim Rogers, 34 elements
11, Ken Gordon, 33 elements
12, Pete Ellis, 33 elements
13, David Lawrence, 33 elements
14, Paul Murgatroyd, 32 elements
15, Mark Johnson, 32 elements
16, Martin Smith, 31 elements
17, Lindon Paxton, 31 elements
18, Adam Stone, 31 elements
19, Stephen Finn, 30 elements
20, Stephen Etheridge, 29 elements
21, Bill MacGillivray, 29 elements
22, Paul Clair, 29 elements

Six games at the well run and extremely challenging Cold Ash Clash yesterday.
Twenty two players attended, including two who had travelled all the way from Australia…Kudos!! Other distance drivers came from eg London, west Wales, the Welsh Marches and Yorkshire, so a great turnout to this excellent competition.

I took a difficult/poor army (as it’s used by other players for five games), in the form of Later Villanovan Italians 800-650 BC. The army finished third from bottom in the army performance table, which was a result in itself 🙂.

My games were as follows:-
1. Using Polybian Republican Romans to invade their ancestors, the Later Villanovan Italians, led by Paul C.. The Polybian hastati stormed and sacked the Villanovans’ city, and won the fight when the main lines engaged, killing the Villanovan general in the process. Win by 3g + city to 0.

2. My early Elamites, a cloud of skirmish foot, faced a fast-moving wall of Jewish Revolt infantry, led by Matthew D.. We extended left, swarming around and nibbled away at the Jewish right flank, bringing down a few elements, but our own right flank was overwhelmed before we could make it count. Loss, 1 (+ 2 x Hordes) to 4.

3. David L., all the way from Aus 🇦🇺, was my next opponent. He commanded Classical Indians, with a herd of elephants supported by chariots and cavalry, deploying in restrictive terrain. Facing these I formed up my allocated Later Swiss army out in the open, having predominantly pikemen, plus a few halberdiers and skirmishers in tow. As the armies engaged, the Indian left flank cavalry were challenged by the Swiss halberdiers (3Bd) who got lucky and overwhelmed them. The pike-block held the elephants and chariots in check, allowing the halberdiers to move onto the enemy left. The Indian commander’s luck was abysmal, and the Swiss achieved a decisive 4-0 win.

4. My next army was New Kingdom Egyptians (all the way from Australia), who unwisely attacked the Illyrian territory of Connor T.. As a few Illyrians advancing in the centre were held off by archery, a scrap rapidly developed on a small steep hill to the Egyptians’ right. The Pharaoh and some fast moving swordsmen moved to intervene, and all the fighting went their way, clearing the flank before falling on the Illyrian leader for a 5g-0 NKE win.

5. Now as leader of the Picts, I faced invading Camillan Romans under Consul Adam S. (🇦🇺). The Picts sent a landing force into dunes on the Roman flank, and these distracted and caused a few casualties before being intercepted by the Romans’ light troops. However, the Pictish skirmish force’s luck was phenomenal, and the Roman auxiliaries were thwarted for long enough for the main Pict spear-wall to engage their opponents. Poor activation dice hampered Adam’s response, and combat dice rolls were also very one sided, leading to an unexpected Pictish win (4-1).

6. Finally, I was obliged to lead the dodgy army I had supplied, the Later Villanovan Italians. My opponent was Tom W., who has frequently beaten me in previous encounters. Tom defended, deploying his tough and excellently painted Later Imperial Romans on an almost featureless terrain. My Villanovans decided to get stuck in, and advanced as quickly as possible to engage the LIR army before they could choose their targets among my generally weaker army. To my surprise the fierce Villanovan infantry punched a hole in the Late Roman legionary line, while holding off the enemy cataphracts against the odds, assisted by the Villanovan general and his cavalry bodyguard. A surprise 4-2 win resulted, very much against expectations.

It was (and always is…) a fun tournament, very well coordinated by Martin M. Achieving second place on the day was something of a shocker, and relied on some ludicrous luck (yes please, more of that….😁). Apologies to those on the receiving end of my flukiness.
Congrats to Lindon, tournament winner and to all those on the list of awards on the day. Fun and fortune, all mixed in together….

It was, indeed, all the above - Tarrington and now Cold Ash have always been my favourite DBA event of the year, regardless of win/lose/draw results - a challenging and fun day out. Diades does a brilliant job, which few could match.

Re the photos…it’s often my only way of recalling who I played and what (roughly) happened. Without pics, by lunchtime my brain turns to mush and I struggle to remember ANY details 😯….possibly a combination of age and a brain that’s wired to forget 😁.

A great day out and worth the couple of hours in the car.

My highlights were facing patrician Roman with elamites - but I suspect we all have bad memories of that army!. 6-1’ing the judean general with Bill’s mound builder Indian bows. Most embarrassing bit was playing David Lawrence when his knight line disappeared in one turn. 5 combats: he killed a my ps, then three of his kn went down and his general recoiled. The fact I’d also just killed a sp with my art just added insult to injury. He travelled all that way as well. I daren’t use the die he gave me in case all his dice roll that badly.

Still blushing about the best presented army award. - thanks.

Pics from the day can now be seen on either groups.io, DBAList

groups.io/g/DBAList/topics


Or this public facebook group post-

www.facebook.com/groups/763231947057568/permalink/8608877979159553/?


Please add some, if you can. 🙂👍🏼