Our second game at this year’s Two the Strongest doubles tournament was against Alex and Alex’s Macedonians and Thracians. As the right hand side of the table had a huge riverine terrain obstacle on it, I let Peter put his Lithuanians there with the aim that they held off the Thracians until I could beat the Macedonians.

We outscouted again (these Lithuanians do have some uses!) and I had a superb run of cards in my first turn allowing the Teutonics to get around the flank of the Macedonians in front of me.

Macedonian Alex, however, defended superbly against my flank attack, meaning that I couldn’t immediately roll up his line but, as Peter has proved many times in the past, once you get troops behind the enemy line, it’s incredibly difficult to rescue the situation, and Alex soon found himself at risk of losing his entire right flank.

Peter, meanwhile, was holding his own against the advancing Thracians, so I had no need to worry about that side of things and could concentrate on what I was doing.

And what was I doing? Well, by now I had disposed of the Macedonian right wing and could start focussing on the two phalanx in the centre.

The veteran Macedonian cavalry had died hard, however, so a little bit of reorganising was necessary, and there was that pesky unit of Companions out on the far wing, but normal service was soon resumed as I hammered Knights into the flanks of the unfortunate pikemen.

In the last picture, bottom right, you can see Peter’s spare Teutonics heading in from the right of the Macedonian line: he had by now disposed of the Thracians (speed bump, my backside, as they say: the Lithuanian light horse with bow and lance were proving as deadly as my veteran Knights in this tournament) and could send troops across to my side of the field to help finish the Maccy’s off. You can also see in the top left of the picture how I’ve neutralised the “pesky Companions” with a unit of Knights.

The Macedonians weren’t giving up, however: a retreat backwards took their flanks out of immediate danger as all our horse were still wary of charging a phalanx frontally, whether or not the pikemen were disordered.

But by now, despite these heroic attempts, it was only a matter of time before the Macedonians also lost their last coin and game was ours with a 38-8 victory.

Peter’s Report

Deployment and Plan

This was team mate Rob‘s and my second battle which turned out to be very different to the first and needed us to rip up Plan A within the first two turns!

We faced a Lysamachid successor army of pike, deep spears and companion cavalry and an allied Thracian army of wild rhomphai wielding javelin thugs with a light cavalry flank guard.

Plus there was a wide river (the river Larsen) on one far side that Rob wanted to avoid.

So we agreed that Rob would face the Lysamachids. He would use his heavy veteran knights command to take out the enemy Companions command then turn and flank charge the phalanx.

His other Knights command would draw the pike forwards into a position where his first veteran Knights and my command that I donated to Rob could get flank attacks. He would finish off his outnumbered enemies by turn three as per our playbook, and then whack into the flank of the Thracians that I was facing, just before my smaller army was overrun. That was the plan!

I would be the somewhat nervous speed bump facing a solid wall of hairy barbarians who, as javelin men with big choppers (2HCW) , could dash straight through any rough terrain without slowing down or difficult activations.

It Starts…

As agreed in our playbook, I sent my veteran Knights with three supporting light cavalry to Rob’s side of the battlefield to counter the Lysamachid deep spears.

I then deployed a screen of light cav to go forward and harass and slow down the hairies. On my far right I had one command of light cavalry on the far side of the river Larsen - designed to draw enemy to that side of the river - but frustratingly it only attracted one matching command of enemy light cavalry.

Rob’s Teutonics shot down his left flank and turned to threaten a deadly flank attack to the Companions. My donated command distracted the deep spears and opened up a gap for my lights to exploit. But my Teutonics couldn’t risk charging the deep spears frontally. So instead spotted a vulnerable unit of hairies and charged it, whilst my ligth cavalry swarm distracted nearby enemy units to discourage them from worrying my Knights.

Rob was facing gritty Companions on his far left, and his other knights were pinned by the phalanx. My donated command was distracting the enemy deep spear and had opened up a gap ready to be exploited. My knights had disordered a unit of hairIEs but then backed out to avoid the double risk of 2HCW hairy flank attacks.

On my far right, having failed to draw more enemies to waste their time on the far side of the river Larsen, I crossed most of them back over to the main battlefield which drew Alex’s mounted general and bodyguard after them. The single unit I left behind was cunningly protected from being charged by a curve in the river and before long I shot to death Alex’s remaining unit giving me complete freedom on that side of the river. I galloped alongside the river, over the ford and inflicted another flank charge with lance. Three chances to hit! But they were only lights , drew an Ace, Two and a Three and inflicted no damage! Hey ho!

On my side I had pulled most of my far right flank command back over the river drawing Alex's CinC with it and into a vulnerable position with two of my units ready to flank charge with lances and with his evade blocked . On the far side of the Larsen I was about to kill his inferior LC and then gallop up that side of the river, over the ford and into the flank of more hairIEs.

Meanwhile on the main battlefield the Thracian hairy hordes were steadily advancing towards me and threatening to pin me to my table edge. This is normally OK as it’s what speed bumps do, whilst waiting (literally!) for Rob’s cavalry to come over the hill and rescue the day.

…To Go Wrong

However when I looked over to see when Rob would be smashing into the Thracian flanks, I saw that he was stuck facing annoyingly resilient Companions and had Knights stuck in the ZOC of the pike block! No rescue was coming from there ! So it was time for plan B. For me to somehow beat the Thracians and me to then go over and help finish off the Lysamachids!

What Makes Two the Strongest Different To Other Tournament

At this critical stage something happened that I think reflects the whole ethos of TtS Tournaments. In my experience no one wants to win because they know the rules better. They want to win through better tactics and manoeuver and perhaps the odd lucky draw!

So my opponent Alex had galloped his light cavalry general and bodyguard across the river chasing after my “distraction command” but in doing so had exposed his flank - with his evade route blocked by a big unit of hairies.

So I charged into his flank with the first of two lance armed light cavalry. Three cards to hit!

He chose to evade his first unit which could just fit in front of the hairies. But his second unit with his general had no room left and so was due to be wiped out. However, Alex said he did not know that was how the rules worked and if he had done he would not have evaded. So straight away, we all agreed that was unfair to Alex and we went back in time (half a dozen cards drawn) and started again.

Plan B!

Anyway, by this stage my Teutonic knights had finished off the hairies that they had previously disordered. My swirling light archery had killed another unit and a lucky cannon shot from my camp all contributed enough hits, together with a dead general to rout the Thracians! This also left my final unactivated command on my left, to turn and flank charge the deep units facing Rob.

This was happening just as Rob finally killed the stubborn companions and within just one more turn the combined attacks brought us the final VMs needed to rout the Lysamachids as well!

Not at all as planned but a double victory never the less!

Alex’s hairies had killed four of my lights by throwing just four of their pesky pointy sticks (missiles can be deadly in TtS) but thanks to my lights’ ability to dance away from their big units we had avoided any melees and survived long enough to inflict enough hits before being pinned to our base line. A near run thing but with enough safety to not suffer from the “squirting” that @johnhilary has suffered from when using the very similarly brittle Pecheneg horde.