It's a Game of Skill!!!
Wayne Watts and I enjoyed a highly entertaining game at the North Shore Wargames Club on Sunday, with my 1082 Sicilians invading against Wayne's Navarrese of a couple of centuries later.
The terrain provided a somewhat cluttered and complex battlefield and Wayne deployed first, with his left anchored on a long difficult hill jutting in from the side edge and occupied with a strong force of Ax(S). To their right was Wayne's main strike force of Kn(S) and Kn(O) with a strong English Ally of Bw(S) and Bd(S) next along, facing an orchard that had fallen in the centre of my deployment area. Finally, Wayne's right consisted of a command of Ax(S), Bw(O) crossbows and Psiloi who would look to exploit the various pieces of rough and difficult going on that flank.
Against this I formed my right around a large vineyard, garrisoning it with Saracen Reg Ax(S) and Irreg Ps(O). To the left of this were some deeply formed Italian Communal Sp(I) and then my main force of twelve Kn(O) in two ranks, extending across to the orchard, the Kn fronted by a single line of Saracen Irreg Bw(I). The orchard itself was thinly held by a few Ps(O) while my left consisted of some Saracen LH and Cv, plus some mercenary crossbowmen (Reg Bw(O)) and a couple of Italian Communal Knights (Reg Kn(I)).
The battle started with Wayne advancing steadily in the centre but more wary on the flanks as my use of the Delaying Battle stratagem signaled a likely flank march. This proved to be the case with the flank march announcing its arrival immediately on my left, causing some consternation among the lighter infantry of Wayne's right who split up and ran for whatever bad going they could find. However the composition of the flank march remained secret for quite some time as, despite having announced their arrival on Bound 1, successive 1's for pips meant they didn't get a chance to move on until Bound 4 and causing some mirth when it turned out to just be a General and four knights! Although, to be fair, once they linked up with the LH from my left wing command, the combined force proved a threat to Navarrese remaining in the open on that flank.
Up to this stage in the game my pips had been dreadful. Wayne was tracking our pip rolls and informed me I'd had six 1's from sixteen pip die rolls! While things did improve somewhat through the rest of the game, by then I'd been forced into a relatively defensive stance as Wayne pushed forward in the centre, the English archers wheeling to their left to establish an enfilade position on my knights while Wayne's own knights moved steadily on. To challenge the English archers, I was forced to send a couple of Psiloi from the orchard forwards to hopefully distract some of the deadly Bw(S). Which they did spectacularly, almost killing one Bw(S) in close combat (a recount was required to confirm their (S) grading did save them!). Meanwhile another file of Bw(S) was repeatedly driven back in a shooting exchange with a single Saracen Bw(I), while the last pair of English archers were ridden down by a Sicilian knight - so much for the mighty English Bw(S)!
However, events around the orchard were a sideshow as the main event was always going to be the clash of knights in the centre. My thin line of Saracen Bw(I) opened up as soon as the enemy came into range and immediately caused some dislocation in the Navarrese line who then charged to complete disaster. One knight impaled itself on the Communal spearmen and others were force to flee after losing to Saracen Bw(I), leaving a huge gap in Wayne's line that the Sicilians exploited to good effect, hard flanking and destroying more of the Navarrese knights until the command finally broke. Along with other casualties, this in turn caused all the remaining Navarrese commands to become disheartened and, while not quite at 50% losses, there wasn't much point in carrying on.
It really was a game of dice swings, with my early pips being diabolical but my shooting and close combat dice red hot. We didn't track the 5-1 and 6-1 dice splits but safe to say they were heavily in my favour! The complete failure of the Navarrese knights to break through a single rank on Bw(I) was bad enough but the inability of the English archers to deal with a couple of Ps(O) was just comical and taken by Wayne in very good spirit. If the roles had been reversed I'm not sure I'd have been quite as philosophical!
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| Early in the game with the Navarrese advancing against the stationary Sicilian centre |
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The Navarese knights are disrupted by Saracen shooting, while in the middle distance a couple of psiloi have emerged from the orchard to annoy the English archers.
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| The Navarrese knights charge and are repulsed all along the line! |
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| A second charge proves no better....... |
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| The final position, with the Navarrese knight command broken, disheartening the rest of the army. The indestructible Saracen Ps(O) can be seen in the centre foreground, still resisting the English Bw(S) |
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