1526 Mohacs: The Big Picture

The Hungarian Right Wing rose as a phoenix from the ashes of disaster to see the Ottoman Left Wing of Horse break and run to the rear, next stop Constantinople. Confidently my General crested a small rise which gave a precious glimpse of the whole field of battle.

He froze in horror to see that the success on the right wing was matched with a disaster to the Hungarian sister Wing of Horse on the left. There the Turkish Spahi had ably supported their Light Horse and consequently pounced on the Hungarian Lancer Knights who made break through advances

All hung on the centre of the battlefield where the Infantry were in deep contest. A fierce, chilling cry rung out from the Ottoman lines as the Elite Janissaries charged the Hungarian Pike and Shot. There was a brief moment of resistance before the Hungarian centre shattered and was streaming to the rear in chaos All had been fought for nought.

"Sire, sire What shall he do?" cried the General's retinue "Stay and learn Turkish or move to France and learn French" was his sarcastic reply as he turned his horse away in disgust. Well played the to Turks the day was wo by them fairly and squarely, I am sure they suffered as much under the DBR rules as did the Hungarians. No photographs are available (as of writing) as I was unable to make the final session but was emailed the chilling finale today.

DBR rant  #3: We really still don't know the rules
Post match analysis revealed that the stunning break-through Janissary (Fast Shot) charge was calculated wrongly. The 'calculators' had neglected to add in a bonus for being "Shot with a rear support of Shot fighting against (Fast) Shot" [yes I ask you how intelligible is that?] for the Hungarian defenders. This (+1) would have negated several circumstances where the (-1) for being Inferior and recalculating the melee scores after losing or being equalled in combat. Philosophically the Hungarian C-in-C reflected that it only speeded up the inevitable but boy how many years have the Redcar 'collective' being playing the various DBx sets of rules and 'we' still are very unsure if the tabletop outcomes are valid or even added up correctly. In tennis the call is for 'new balls please'! Life is too short to learn or understand these rule IMHO.

;) 

Naturally as a sucker for punishment I am facing a ECW campaign battle next week under DBR ... but should I? It's the Early Parliamentarian Horse versus the Royalist Knights pickle which makes the Hungarian versus Ottoman game look as simple as a game of snap? Perhaps I should take some migraine tablets and a pair of dark glasses along just in case.