Up in Los Angeles we get to play at Orc Con in February...

Here  are some pictures:

My Imperial Macedonian army from the AtG supplement sizes up some
Imperial Romans in the dimly lit room..

The eight foot wide tables makes for some precarious maneuvering!

Oracles vs. Standards.....Alfred Anderson gets to play the AtG lists he helped develop....
the constricted terrain hampered both our efforts to acheive a decisive victory!

The climax of the game as neither phalanx would yield..."The battle of 5+'s" raged on
as pesky Thracians (looking oddly Germanic) surround my right wing, and shoot apart the right wing phalanx.

Shocking paperazzi photos showing Allen Curtis actually playing in a game..
it's in a Peter Pig Sudan scenario! Well the Sudan is close to Numidia.... :)

Here's my cheesy Imperial army list for this event.

The Orccon convention was attended by ionly eight players this year and again ably run by Alex Webster. The miniature gaming area was in a smaller area than before and we were crowded into a dimly lit corner. Three of the gamers present were from San Diego, Rich Norton, Robert (sorry I don't have your last name at hand) , three (The Anderson clan) from Northern California. Two LA Gamers showed up, Tim with a Byzantine army and Mark (a novice) with EIR. The armies were Three EIR, two AtG Macedonian- one Imperial (mine) and one Rise of Macedon army. The aforementioned Byzantines (AoA) and one Norman SW army. All strong tournament lists.

My first game (of three) was against Mark and his EIR. He was very new to the game. He stood his ground and waited for me to develop the game... Soon enough on the eight by eight tables I was climbing on to the middle to push my pikes. On his left his auxiliaries bounced my cavalry wedge after he held on a 5+ the first round. On his right he peeled off his heavy legions to cover my light cavalry. This allowed me a three phalanx on two cohort advantage against his regulars. Weight of numbers prevailed and he was pushed back. His heavy cohort tried to get back into the action by countermarching behind the main line of battle..But when the front collapsed these were pinned in flank by the pursuit..Game ended with me gaining a large win as the only unit I had lost was 75 points of Thracians.

The next game was against Aric Anderson's Vikings. This game centered around his hirdmen rolling over my right flank, while I pinned his
general's unit with my companions. His wolfboys charged a phalanx and were run down since only two models made it into contact. In the center this gave me a 2:1 phalanx on his bondi, who were hit in front and flankand only held together by the Godi. A unit of hirdsmen to the left was pushed off by the Hypaspists formed as Silver shields with pikes. I concentrated attacks on the Godi and he died leaving his bondi to run off and get run down. The end of the game saw his general's unit intervene and hit a weakened phalanx, which barely held with a re-roll. My Companions got pinned by skirmishers and I couldn't break them. Finally I reduced the Viking army to its 25% break point and the game ended. This can be high cost armies' "Achilles' heel" as Aric still had half his points on the table, but less that a quarter of models.

The final game was the Alex on Alex game between me an Alfred Anderson. This immediately brought into question the who sets up first question. (I had not forced anybody to set up first as I felt this is rule that really shouldn't be enforced in a tournament, and Mark would not have learned anything unless we had gone through a normal deployment interaction). In this case Alfred did not declare to re-roll his oracles, so we deployed in alternation- and agreed that our wily  'super-genius' skills had cancelled each other's out!

The tough part of this game is that we fighting on a table where theterrain channeled the action. Two very large woods funneled things in
the center. Neither one of us was able to bring our forces to bear.. His cavalry managed to knock out my Thracians, My cavalry tried to hunt down his Thracians on the opposite flank-- but these escaped by sneaking onto a reverse slope.

In the center my goal was to pin two of his phalanx's with my light cavalry and skirmishers, while my center created a lopsided match of three units of mine on two of his... The first part went well up until Oracles drove off my light cavalry (which calls into question the decision that skirmishers may not use standards or musicians, but Greeks and Macedonians can use oracles.. This was one of the major factors in this game). My center advanced but got jammed up as my hypaspists did not have a millimeter to spare while wheeling, and got stuck behind some regulars. Any attempt to pounce while his attack was still developing was wrecked because I had stupidly deployed in 6x4 phalanxes.... If I had deployed as 5 x 4+ I would have emerged into the gap and maybe had gotten the match up between my WS4 hypaspists and his WS3 regulars.. That could have been decisive... Instead we got embroiled in a regular vs. regular phalanx directly in the center.. Plugging up both of our armies maneuvering.

"The battle of 5+'s" raged as my standards beat his unit then oracles threw it back in my face.. This was a long grind as one or two models at a time fell. Directly to their left both side's hypaspists clashed... Creating another "battle of 5+'s". The decisive factor here was his
hypaspists were armed with light armor and large shields, against my pikemen with light armor and shields. The action was also swinging back and forth, but Alfred's troops gained numerous 4+ saves (in one combat saving three out of three)... My high leadership and ASB re-rolls kept this action going and going.... Eventually my flanks caved in and Alfred's Thracians were gutting my right wing phalanx which could not move. In the center my phalanx managed a save which kept it at 16 models which saved the game. By the deadline the game was still at this point.. No broken main units, both cavalry forces wandering uselessly around the rear areas, and the energizer bunny phalanxes locked in mortal 5+ combat. Alfred was down to his last oracle though! I had lost 308 points of cavalry and skirmishers, and that decided the issue as I hadn't knocked out any of Alfred's units. Definitely a chess match, and proof yet again that the best defense against pikes, is more pikes!

Alfred won the game and the Tournament. Congrats to all who attended, and thanks to Alex Webster of Webster Enterprises for running the event.
JeffJ