To The Strongest : First Attempt

As we have the writer, Simon Miller, coming to our club on 19th, we thought we ought to have some idea of these rules before he arrives !

As neither of us had Ancient Romans or suchlike, we used our Medieval/Renaissance armies instead. Fortunately, Simon has army lists for these or similar on his blog  www.bigredbat.blogspot.co.uk

We set up as below

and this is the view from the other end of the battlefield

Each side had a nice chunky artillery piece !

The small black dice represent available ammo

Everything is driven by drawing playing cards - here my cavalry have drawn good cards to advance on the right, encouraged by their general or lord

Big blocks of infantry dominate the centre on both sides

My knights got into action and expected to easily defeat the enemy spearmen - but no, that didn't happen with my next card blowing it !

His knights crash forwards against mine, right of centre looking at it from his side of the field

Here's a better view - the blue die shows they have lances to use 

Mine never will, as they lost two rounds of melee and were removed !

Undeterred, I sent forwards another unit of knights against his hand gunners

But another bad card drawn saw that idea thwarted and he was able to withdraw unmolested. 

Here's a close up before the hand gunners withdrew

Now I've got a major problem as his victorious knights are behind my lines and being supported by a further unit of knights

I'd just brought my reserve Landschnekt pikemen forwards and now they were threatened on their flank and to add insult to injury, my remaining knights were beaten by his infantry in the centre - I threw the towel in, disgusted !

Oh by the way, our two big guns exchanged fire throughout the battle without any success

So, my first run in with "To The Strongest" was not a resounding success, mostly due to some of the worst card drawing in the annals of history.

We think we were playing correctly but no doubt Simon can put us right on 19th if not !