Prester John Goes To Switzerland

I haven't been playing much HOTT this year, and I was in desperate need of something to play this afternoon. Since I'd just completed a spare element for my Prester John army after tidying up my painting table the other day and finding the half-painted figures, I thought I'd give the African King another outing. And in the same box are my DBA Early Swiss, so they were the most convenient opponent.

The Swiss defended with four spears (including their general), six warband, one rider and one shooter. Prester John's army was the usual mixed bag of two blades, two shooters, two warband, two knights, a behemoth (elephant) and Prester John himself as a hero general since I couldn't be arsed digging out a lurker for the extra AP if I made him a cleric.

Here are the armies at the start.

The Swiss had a nice defensive position between two areas of bad going, so stuck to that. Prester John advanced. However the Swiss did send out their mounted crossbows to harrass the flank of the advance. They ran into Prester John's tribal allies and were destroyed.

The tribal allies then charged into the woods on the Swiss left, attacking the crossbowmen and handgunners there. Meanwhile the armies were close enough to see the whites of each others eyes.

On the Swiss right their halberdiers were being shot at by Prester John's archers, so they charged. 

And that was a success for the Swiss, sweeping away some of the archers.

Prester John ordered his army to charge the Swiss center, made up of their pikemen.

This did not go well; the Swiss line held, and all of Prester John's knights were destroyed. This left their army looking rather sparse.

The Swiss were now overlapping Prester John's left, and the archers there were under a lot of pressure. 

The tribal allies were driving the Swiss missile troops back, however, and Prester John's blades were holding their own on that flank as well.

The Swiss missile troops were destroyed.

On the other flank the Swiss halberdiers attacked Prester John himself. A recoil here would be fatal.

But Prester John is made of stern stuff and destroyed the attackers. Since this was two ranks of troops it evened up the casualties somewhat.

The tribal warriors were advancing on the enemy stronghold.

Prester John fought on, surrounded.

His foes fell back!

The elephant now joined the fight and destroyed more halberdiers. Both armies were very close to breaking.

The warriors attacked the stronghold, but couldn't take it.

With both armies teetering on the brink the Swiss renewed their attack on the elephant, bringing it down and breaking Prester John's army.

The final score was 12-10 to the Swiss, so it was a close battle, especially since Prester John was attacking the enemy stronghold. And Prester John pretty much came back from nowhere to even up the battle.

Here's the position at the end.