Las Navas De Tolosa 1212 AD, beta testers needed

Hoplite1963 · Post by **Hoplite1963** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:44 pm

My scenario for the battle of Las Navas De Tolosa 1212 AD is now available fror open beta testing over on my website. Here is the link to this
http://snapupwargames.weebly.com/
It can be downloaded from a link in today blog post, which also covers the new Glossary page on the site giving details of unit and leader names in various languages for giving orders of battle an authentic feel.

Enjoy, and thanks in advance for any feedback.

Regards
Ian

stockwellpete · Post by **stockwellpete** » Sun Jan 22, 2012 8:08 am

I have downloaded this now, Ian. It looks very nice. I shall report back in due course.

stockwellpete · Post by **stockwellpete** » Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:34 pm

I am playing a game now - one thing to check is the six Mujahid infantry units in the centre. They are facing sideways instead of facing to the front - and I did manage to get a rear attack on the end one of these units on my first turn and that was before my opponent had even had his first turn. Perhaps this is an error?

stockwellpete · Post by **stockwellpete** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 11:19 am

First result - Christians 40/71 beat Almohades 93/92. We have swapped sides and will be starting the second game shortly.

Hoplite1963 · Post by **Hoplite1963** » Fri Jan 27, 2012 8:14 pm

Thanks for that I will implament the next set of revisions next weekend and publish the revised version on the website. From my own playtesting I think that the Christians may be slightly to week.

Please keep up the feedback.

Regards
Ian

stockwellpete · Post by **stockwellpete** » Wed Feb 01, 2012 7:43 pm

Hello Ian. The result of the second game was a draw - Christians 59/71 v Almohades 78/92. We only actually had 9 turns each as the game stopped at the start of turn 10, so maybe you might want to increase the turn numbers to 11 so that each player has ten full turns. The battle is fairly well-balanced, the Christians seemed to be favourites, but not by much.

I have just one historical query. The 5 "elite" Abid Al Makhzan infantry units are immobile. I understand from the little I know about the battle that these represent the "chained slaves" that were defending the Almohade leader. The 5 units total 5,000 men in your battle. Were there that many in real life? I just don't know the answer myself.

Overall, a very enjoyable scenario that people should try out as a paired game.

Hoplite1963 · Post by **Hoplite1963** » Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:10 pm

Hi
Many thanks. I am going to finalise the game and post it on my website this weekend. I will increase the number of game turns to 11 as you suggest, and have already corrected the facing of the Mujahid infantry units in the centre.

As a result of my own playtesting I have also increased the strength of the Christian cavalry somewhat by adding 3 more units of Caballeros Villanos,

On the numbers of the Abid Al Makhzan (Black Guard) infantry units present at the battle the figure of 5000 is actually scaled down from some of the accounts which speak of up to 30,000 being present.

Sorting out troop numbers for battles of the Reconquista poses additional problems to those usually encountered for medieval battles. In addition to the usual tendency to inflate numbers and the discrepancies between winners and losers (to magnify victories and excuse defeats) the armies sometimes were quite a lot larger than was usually the case in Western Europe or the Middle East. Also all accounts agree that the armies on both sides were large and that the Almohades mustered the larger army with figures of 460,000 men including over 100,000 cavalry and 30,000 Black Guards being quoted in some sources.

In the end I decided to keep by figures quite close to the estimates put forward by Ian Heath in “Armies Of Feudal Europe 1066 – 1300 AD, (2nd Edition) published by the Wargames Research Group in 1989.

Many thanks
Ian