Manchester, 28th November

Northern Doubles

Due to other commitments, the last time I was able to get up to a Northern Doubles League event was back in at Wargames Bazaar ...

I enjoyed it a lot (2 games gives you a day's wargaming, and leaves you wanting more, rather than that 'too much of good thing' feeling some of the more drawn out competitions leave you with). Not over regulated either ... the printer wasn't working so we were using hand-written score sheets, and a certain amount of pointing teams to tables: all good stuff (computers are fantastic aids, but wargamers are people not robots ... so can sort most things out without being plugged-in) ...

There was home-cooked food, DIY coffee and seasonal mince-pies ... and I won't even dare to tell you the price of the Boddingtons round the corner (London it isn't, now move on ...)...

Despite all the coverage of Scotland's weather on the UK's national media, we just had a cold icy morning (no snow, but that's normal) and a long edgy drive up. Still, we weren't late, and we weren't last, and all was well.

We took my Sicilians.
(Enzo Hohenstauffen, King of Sardinia, commander of the Sicilian host)
There are some attractive handicapping systems that apply to the NDBML events (to limit the killer and swarm FoG armies ...) ... but you have to play a few rounds for that to apply - we had a free choice. As it happens, the Sicilians are in the middle (class 2).

This is a very attractive 7th edition army which got emasculated by DBM 3.1 (I had taken it to Melbourne for the World Championships in 2005, where it placed 13th in the hands of an under-rated player ... but that was prior to the changes).

FoG still over-rates the power of infantry, but the game is better balanced, and the feudal armies are back. Since Oath of Fealty came out, there has been much dusting repairing and re varnishing in the Regno.

The two games were both excellent and played in rollicking good spirit.
(15mm Imperial Romans from Lancashire Games)
The first game was out of period, against a very smart Imperial Roman swarm (19 BGs I think) Martin Routh & Andy Wallace which got its cavalry needlessly drawn in, and then chased back through their own lines causing mayhem as they went. Sorry about that.

Big Sicilian win.

Flying high into the afternoon, we got found out by Dave Ruddock & David Eltringham's Western Han (out of period and on the wrong side of the world ... but the crossbow foot with dancing cavalry mixes felt like a good opponent for us ....).
(Western Han)
The game went nip and tuck down to the last turn (when a couple of melees went against us) 13:7 to the current League leaders.

2 excellent games. Apologies to all for a lack of trophy photos ... the cold closed in, and we made a hasty retreat south. I will edit the results into the post when they are published.

The MAWS/NDBML page is here ... of course ...

Have a look at the 2011 dates. Well worth a Sunday outing.