Swiss In The Outback

Apologies for the lack of activity here recently. We've had a lot on the go, partially with rehearsals for our forthcoming burlesque debut, but mostly with us going away for a week to the annual 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' festival in Broken Hill on the far side of NSW. I'll be doing a post covering our return visit to the Mad Max Museum in the next couple of days, but firstly I thought I'd share some pictures of my gaming activity.

I took my Swiss DBA army on our road-trip, as well as the Ceidonians masquerading as Medieval Germans. I set up a game of DBA, with a Medieval German army facing the very earliest of the Late Swiss lists - so an action c1415.

The Swiss attacked, and inevitably the Germans went for an open field in order to maximise the effectiveness of their knights.

In fact there didn't really seem to be a compelling reason not to pile the knights straight in.

The results were mixed, but didn't favour the Swiss, who lost two blocks of blades in exchange for one element of German knights.

The Swiss fought back with a counter-charge.

But it was soon all over as the German knights pushed forward and rode the Swiss down. It was a quick game; it took me longer to get everything out of the car and set it up than it did to play.

Catherine fancied a game. Rather than spend a hot Friday afternoon teaching her DBA with armies that sometimes give a very one-sided game, we played HOTT, since she's familiar with that. We used the same armies - almost. The Ceidonians swapped a steam-tank into their army, whilst the Swiss substituted more blades and some mounted crossbowmen for the two DBA psiloi elements.

I took the Swiss, and defended.

The two armies advanced towards each other.

Swiss pikes met Ceidonian spears, whilst the tank drove back the Swiss halberdiers.

Catherine's knights prepared a charge up the hill into the main mass of Swiss infantry, who are less vulnerable in HOTT than they are in DBA.

The spears and pikes shoved back and forth, whilst the steam-tank pushed back the Swiss. Too far, in fact; the tank was surrounded and destroyed.

Catherine threw in the knights against a Swiss line somewhat disrupted by their attempts to destroy the tank.

The knights were repulsed, whilst Swiss blades turned the flank of the Ceidonian spear formations.

More knights fell, and the Swiss continued to roll up the Ceidonian line. The Swiss won a decisive victory: 12-0. It was too hot to play another game.

The Swiss had 4 x Spears (including the general), 7 x Blades and 1 x Rider. The Ceidonians had 4 x Knights (including the general), 4 x Spears, 1 x Shooter, 1 x Behemoth and 2 x Hordes.

Aside from DBA and HOTT, we spent several evenings in pubs in Silverton and Hay playing Fluxx, Love Letter and Exploding Kittens. But we always do that.