I was commanding the barbarians at the far end of the table. I did not see what was happening on the near side in much detail, and will depend on Wolfgang's report for that. At the start of the battle I transferred 2 Fire Elementals to Wolfgang, figuring they would do a good job holding one of the large rock objectives on that side.

My plan for the Barbarians was to use them to cover the advance of the giants. A couple of cavalry units would try to take out the archers and cannon on the far hill, and the rest would just occupy and hopefully paralyze the arab and elf infantry. This plan worked fairly well, though the barbarians took enormous casualties achieving it.

The cavalry moved up over the course of several turns, one unit engaging the water elementals while the second swept around to attack the Arab archers. The archers broke, allowing the cavalry unit to pursue into the cannon and medieval infantry unit guarding it. The elite cavalry swept to the outside of the forest, seeking cover from the longbowmen in the forest and hit the flank and rear of the Eunuchs. The Eunuchs were enchanted with the flight spell though, and they and the oriental dragon fought along that treeline for several turns.

Meanwhile, the giants slowly advance behind them. The water wizards of the Medievals took a tremendous toll on their advance, with a half dozen water spirits being summoned to harass them. Clever maneuver by the Medievals and Elves resulted in the engagement occurring almost on top of the water spirits, greatly increasing the Giant casualties.

In the air, The fire and oriental dragons feinted and danced with the lesser wyverns, until the dragons headed towards the barbarian cavalry and the wyverns attacked the arab archers in the center. The Wyverns broke the first unit, and pursue them into the arab spears behind them. The Fire dragon became the target of the Barbarian archers and horse archers, who inflicted near fatal injuries the first time the dragon ventured out from the "good" lines. The dragon retreated and was healed, but again was nearly brought down by attacks from various archer units.

Many of the goblins moved to help support the other barbarians on the near flank as the game progressed, as units which ventured cross the center were decimated by longbow, bow and cannon fire. They still managed to grab a few center board objectives, but took hard losses doing so. The "good" infantry also seemed timid about crossing the center board, though this may have simply been to get us to commit our forces to the killing field.

By this time, the advance of the flying eunuchs had decimated the cavalry unit that had broken the arab archers, and the water elementals had repulsed the other light cavalry unit. A very nasty fight was shaping up between the elite cavalry vs the other Eunuch unit and oriental dragon. This dragon had been given enchanted armor, which made it almost impervious to the elite cavalry attacks. Fortunately, the second elite cavalry unit came up to assist along with a unit of giants, eventually killing the dragon and breaking the Eunuchs. This elite cavalry unit then moved to ride down some of the medieval infantry units the giants had broken.

The second wave of giants, equipped with rollers, then hit the disorganized elf and medieval infantry units, inflicting significant casualties and finally pushing the battle line beyond the range of the water spirits. With their right flank in shambles and left flank in extreme peril, the good side surrendered at this point.

Here's what happened over on my side:

Seeing 2 Heavy Elven Cav and 3 large Arab cav units, along with a substantial amount of carpet riders heading for the forest, I decided to throw my entire force that away, hoping to at least whittle them down some, the Barbarians not being a good army against cavalry, or fast, highly skilled units like the carpet people.

3 Javelin units and a two weapon unit advanced toward the forest, while the bowmen headed for the difficult terrain.

The other archer unit had taken up residence towards the center of the board to help protect the goblin cannons and center hill, while my large unit was held in reserve to lend its considerable bulk to whoever needed it most.

The carpet riders were on the two weapon unit like - well, like fast things on something really slow- and pretty much annihilated them with fiery breath, superior skill, evasion, etc, pp.

Unfortunately for them, they had in turn been surrounded by the wolf riders, who together with the few remaining Barbarians forced them to flee back towards their caves.

The wolf riders, despite taking only minor casualties, also fled, but recovered quickly to rejoin the fray.

Meanwhile, the Elven cav finally decided to charge the barbarian javelins, and blows were traded, with surprisingly low barbarian and equally surprisingly high elf casualties. (Justin rolled some really sucky armor saves.) It was just enough to make both elf units take break tests, which they both failed! That was probably what turned the tide on my side, but there was still a lot of Arab cavalry, who wasted no time launching themselves against the barbarian positions amid the trees.

In the meantime, however, Goblin warlord Micah had decided that the barbs needed some help and sent a troll unit our way, who crashed into the Arabs at about the same time one of their cav units broke and galloped down a javelin unit.

The elven cav had, of course, rallied, but inexplicably, only one of the two units returned to the forest to help out their arab buddies, while the other one crashed into the rear of the barbarian scouts, who had made mincemeat out of a bunch of elven archers and were in the process of dismantling a medieval cannon and its crew.

So on the far side you had cannon crew, scouts, leftover archers and elven cav in quite the knot, just outside the forest was a full strength troll unit and a few barbarian stragglers getting ready to put paid to an arab cav outfit, inside the forest itself was another arab cav plus the second elven cav squeezing a shrinking barbarian outfit, while on our side of the forest, a skirmished arab cav unit was a) in short range of a full strength barbarian archer unit and b) about to make the acquaintance of my main unit, with 2 great heroes, two heroes, a wizard, and 27 chaps with 2 flaming weapons each and fiery breath.

It was at this point that the 'good' side surrendered.

I set up poorly. I dispersed my forces, especially my infantry. I was in the mindset for unit objectives, not terrain ones, and therefore tried to protect my most valuable units (pikes and sunblades) when they should have been on the front lines. I positioned my archers well, and they performed well throughout the game. Hamilton set up a good right flank for the Good, but Guy's forces looked strung out. As the Evil had hordes to call upon, their setup was simply a matter of fitting all of their troops on the board.

Game

As I remember, we (the Good) did well in the beginning. Hamilton's water wizard was invaluable with the water spirits, but his fire dragon sucked. My Oriental Dragon held up nicely against the Barbarian Cav. I sacrificed my Air Elementals to rout the Wyverns, for better or worse. Like I said, archers performed well, especially against the Goblins in the center. Many a Goblin unit broke from Elven longbow fire. I was very disappointed with the left flank. I charged 2 units of 11 Med Cav with Champ into 2 units of 22 Barb pike with 2 heroes. I was outclassed by points, and I rolled terribly for both combat and morale. Both Elf units broke after failing to even cause a test to the Barbs. Then Wolfgang inserted his Scout at just the right time and place, neutralizing the cannon and Elf bow on that side, spelling disaster for the left flank. Not much combat occurred in the center that I remember, just lots of bowfire. On the right, we started off well, driving away the Barbarian elite cav and inflicting substantial wounds on the Giants, but when the Giant line hit the Good line, we could not hold, mostly due
to the fact that our best infantry, my Pike + Lord + Wizard units, were too far away to help the humans, who put up a brave fight, but lost. The right flank crumbled and the forces of good were in a shambles.

Conclusions:

I doomed our right from the beginning by timid placement of my powerful units. Our left would have been successful had I rolled better. Oh, the lessons defeat does teach...