A Night of the Generals - twice

I've missed posts in April, so here's a quick update on a game we play every so often and in different periods.

We call it a 'Night of the Generals'.  The principle is players put together the worst army they can, going on the basis that they will not be playing with their own army on the night.  Players must then do the best with what they are given instead of relying on a carefully crafted army list. The game works best with at least 4 people playing.  In the past we've had 8 people playing some games. 

In April we played two games of this. The first was a 4 player game of the ADG ancient rules. Each of us chose a 200 point army.  I worked out a couple of medieval armies and ended up taking Wars of Roses to the club. As I recall I had 2 unreliable generals and each of the commands had 1 of each troop type so there was little chance of troops supporting each other.  And artillery and a fortified camp, just to use up points on basically useless stuff. 

On the night we make a random selection of who gets what army and where it starts on the table-top.  I ended up with an Indian army, with the 2 'good' commands each having an elite elephant, a poor cavalry, a bow and a spear unit.  Then everything else, some 20 plus units, were in a command where the general only had a 4U command span.  Hilarious. 

In the end, I think our side of the table won, but not by much. 

The second Night of the Generals game was a 4 player, 600 point Flames of War bash.  This time I took German pioneers as the core, with small 4 team plus a leader platoons and none of the added extras that engineers usually get.  I even wanted to take bridging half-tracks with no guns, but decided against it, opting instead for a battery of 2 artillery pieces, which in the game, have to re-roll any hits they score. 

What I got on the table was a small German force of the worst combination of armour the owner could find, and I ended up playing opposite a Russian infantry force with maximum platoon size of some 30 teams.  I think our side claimed victory on the night, but it was another hilarious game as players struggled to control poor combinations of troops.

Two great games.  If any of you ever have the opportunity to do something like this, please do. It's great fun.  Though, I will add, it's a fun game for like minded players and friends, not for rules-lawyer competition types.