Lusitania ADLG World Team Championships

Last Weekend I was in Lisbon playing in the ADLG Lusitania World Team championships. A fantastic turn out with 28 teams from all over the world including Australia, USA , Greece, Finland and even Yorkshire. For the second year running I was in the Foreign Legion team that was designated as a USA Team (I still need to brush up on my accent). I took my Medieval Scottish Army this time and had quite a decent result with 2 wins, 2 draws and only one loss finishing mid table in my period Medieval, although as a team we finished towards the bottom. Still, it was a very enjoyable tournament. The organisers were fantastic and an excellent venue in Lisbon's Navy Museum surrounded by loads of historical vessels and aircraft.

The Foreign Legion Team,  Mark(Captain) , me, Carl and Nicholas

Bird's-eye view of the tournament

My first game was against Jao from one of the Portuguese teams. He had a Tuareg camel army. Unfortunately I lost the initial dice off, so my Scots found themselves fighting in the desert.

My Highlanders were surrounded on the hill and slaughtered to a man with Mel Wallace being the last unit and man to go down with the dismounted Scottish and French Knights looking on. However their sacrifice meant that Jao's flank attack was held up saving my main army and ending in a draw.

Some of the other games being played, a nice touch was having all the flags hanging down of all the countries that were participating in the tournament.

                 A view from the other direction showing all the historical sailing and rowing vessels 

After a fantastic lunch that included cans of Superbock and Pasteis de Nata, my favourite Portuguese beer and pudding. I played against Mark from one of the English teams, he had a Spanish medieval Army. As a side note, the plane in the background is called the Lusitania and was the first plane to cross the South Atlantic.

Although there was no flank attack to contend with this time, Mark's pike units were properly trained unlike my Scottish rabble and he won most of the rounds of combat. This meant in the end I lost enough units for my army to break.

For our last game of the day we were on the bottom table, number 14. We were playing another Portuguese team and I was playing Rui with a Italian Medieval Army. For the first time in ages I actually managed to be successful dicing for a coast. So at least one of my flanks was secure. I was able to advance aggressively and even though it was a bloody battle with both of us losing many units, Rui's smaller army reached his break point faster and broke first.

With a couple of wins in the team we moved off the bottom table to the next table 13th. It was an early start in the morning with us having to be there at 8 and we were playing the Irish team first

I played Padraic with his Vlach and Moldavian army. These were mainly horse archers which would be very hard for my lumbering Pikemen to catch.

However my Longbows actually did there job for once and actually destroyed 3 or 4 of his units and Mel and his Highlanders chopping up his bowmen meant that he had lost enough points to break his army and I gained my second victory of the tournament. With two wins in the team we were sure we were rising up the tables to play one of the other English teams that were all languishing in the bottom half of the table.

So it was a surprise after another dinner of sandwiches and beer that we were told that we had sunk to the bottom table again and were playing the German Team (a repeat of our final game last year) . Although last year I was playing in the early period with my Chinantecas pike horde against my old adversary the excellent Bodo . I think the game against all my pikemen last year had scarred him enough that he had changed his period to late medieval. Not knowing I had changed as well . 

I'm not sure if the game last year had any influence on Bodo's choice of army for this year but he had a Swiss army with lots of trained and Elite pike which were going to be more than a match for my mediocre lot. Also I rolled a 1 for the second time in the day for Mel and his Highlanders who after being sacrificed in the first game on slaughter hill, seemed to be more reluctant to fight on the Sunday.

His pike made holes in my pike block line like Swiss cheese and my Knights had to fill the gaps. Once again my larger army break point saved me and I was able to hold out for a draw.

Super Bock for a euro?, go on then.

So after 5 games the results were in, and we couldn't even win the wooden spoon because we came second from bottom  well done to Greece who came first, Italy cane second and Spain 2 for coming third.

All the results from the tournament, 28 teams 112 players. With quite a few surprise final positions.

The individual results from the period I was in, at the end of the tournament I came 13th out of 28 players. I would like to thank our Team captain Mark for organising our team and just a pity his lovely colourful army had managed to stave off victories in any of his games. Also thanks to Nicholas and Carl for flying all the way over the pond to take part. I hope to see you all once again next year to improve our position. As the famous philosopher, Yazz, once said (many times) 'The only way is up'.