Time 4 me to nerd it up with pics. Cuz' I get a kick out of my digital camera and it gives me a hardon to nerdrage. It's a lot of high res pictures though and some of them are pretty blurry.

www.planetzebes.net/fog/indians.JPG


First practice game on Friday my dad kicked my ass pretty handily and I forgot to take pictures till the end of it. He was playing 100 years war English.

www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice1a.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice1b.JPG

First pic you can see the center where my elephants and melee foot are breaking through his longbow and going into his men at arms. Second pic you can see how my flanks are evaporating. I deployed badly.

Second practice game we took lots of pictures and used fancy terrain to pretty it up a bit, but we had to get to the hotel so we didn't have time to finish the game. Unfortunate, cuz' I didn't screw up my deployment that time!

www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2a.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2b.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2c.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2d.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2e.JPG

You can see how our foot lines are pretty much matched up evenly, but I've forced him to one side of the table while my chariots can run around his flank. Rest of the pics are how the maneuvering progressed. Unfortunately we never got into close combat.

www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2f.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2g.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2h.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2i.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2j.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2k.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2l.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/practice2m.JPG


Then on to the tournament!

First game was against Dale, good friend of mine. He was playing Neo Assyrians, which is a pretty tough army. I tricked him on the deployment though by putting my chariots in the center of my line. He put all his anti-chariot troops on the open flank and then tried to redeploy mid game, couldn't quite get there and I managed to hit his chariots in the flank with elephants while they were redeploying in column, forcing them to rout through his foot and rout them. It got really ugly. UNFORTUNATELY I forgot to take pictures till the end of the game.

www.planetzebes.net/fog/game1.JPG

A little blurry but you can see on the bottom I've got elephants on his flank, and my chariots are rolling over his anti-foot troops in the middle.


Game 2 I was playing against Dan Hazelwood, who is one of the best players in the world. Aleksei might remember he was the guy who was SUPPOSED to go to Lisbon last year but couldn't afford it, so that fourth guy who didn't go drinking with us and was kinda lame went instead. Dan was playing the early Chinese list that the Terracota army is made from, I forget what it's called exactly.

He tricked me into leaving my far right flank open and he massed troops there and tried to rush around me while skirmishing my left flank. However, I had a hill on my right flank which helped quite a bit, and he made the mistake of moving his troops in the center up too far too fast. I managed to get elephants into his chariots, busted them up, and won the game before he could overrun my right flank.

www.planetzebes.net/fog/game2a.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/game2b.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/game2c.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/game2d.JPG

Pictures are a little blurry, but in pic 2 you can see my elephants in his chariots while the far right edge of the hill is looking bad. Luckily my Cav on the hill managed to hold long enough for me to break him. Fourth pic you can see my neat and tidy left flank at the end of the game having run all the way across the board and still not quite there yet :/

So at this point, out of 20 people, I was in the #1 spot.

Game 3 was against the guy who won the tournament, he was actually not a very good player, but man could he roll dice. It was pretty unexpected. I was rolling horrible this game, I had four elephant units spontaneously combust, but I outplayed him like hell so even though he broke my army I got 12/13 of his units and came out with a lot of points anyway. He was playing Catalan Company.

Terrain went really well for me, I had an open left flank and a right flank with two big rough terrain pieces and a lake between them. I rushed forward on the left with my foot and screened the right with my chariots, and forced his knights to charge my chariots through the rough terrain. Unfortunately my elephants ALL decided to die on impact with his foot, but shit happens. It took him so long to get his Knights through my chariot screen though that by the time he broke my army I was in his baggage and his foot was mostly dead.

I've got pics of the beginning of the game and the end, but sort of forgot to take pictures in the middle.

www.planetzebes.net/fog/game3a.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/game3b.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/game3c.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/game3d.JPG

After this game I was in the #2 spot, and had to do better than the Catalan guy in the fourth game to win.

Fourth game was against Dave Lauerman, who is the guy who taught me how to do tactical strategy. Back in the day we used to do practice games every week. I have never beaten Dave, ever. Only this time the army matchup was good for me (he was playing Later Hungarian), I deployed right, and I should have won the game. He tried to screen both flanks and punch through my Chariots in the center, which was a gamble because if he didn't win big very quickly, I would slam onto both of his flanks with bow and elephants.

Well suddenly I decided I could only roll ones, and he evaporated my Chariots, my Elephants were totalled by Poor Spearmen, and my archers couldn't shoot the broadside of a barn. It was really really lame. I only managed to get one of his units.

www.planetzebes.net/fog/game4a.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/game4b.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/game4c.JPG

First two pics you can see how things are more or less going according to plan, and then suddenly a giant gaping hole in the middle.

I got my ass handed to me by that so badly that I ended up in 4th place. Robert with the Catalans got 1st, Dave got 2nd, Dan Hazelwood got 3rd.

Was fun though!

Also, here are pictures from other games. Dale and my Dad are in a couple of them.

www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames1.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames2.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames3.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames4.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames5.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames6.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames7.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames8.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames9.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames10.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames11.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames12.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames13.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames14.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames15.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames16.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames17.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames18.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames19.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames20.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames21.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames22.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames23.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames24.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames25.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames26.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames27.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames28.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames29.JPG
www.planetzebes.net/fog/othergames30.JPG

END KETARA NERDRAGE bye plz