Third battle Report

[lanceflint]

Third Battle Report ??“ Hungarians v Turks

As witnessed by an ageing English mercenary travelling on a belated pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

I gained a good vantage point atop a steep hill at the rear and right flank of the Hungarian lines. Our camp was down below and protected by several thousand of the local peasantry who appeared keen to take to the field.

The plain below was devoid of any significant features, less a small patch of rough ground off towards our left that was centrally placed between the two hosts.

The Kings plan seem to be to drive through the infidels centre with the mass of his finely mounted knights, whilst supported on the left by Horse Archers, some densely formed and very well armed. The more open right flank was to be held by the infantry, a mix of well-appointed spearmen and a mass of fierce looking, bow armed levy.

The Sultan had decided to skirmish with the Nobles in the middle of his line, whilst refusing his left but pushing on with his right using two large bodies of very finely attired archers who moved around the field with the majesty of men well accustomed to the profession of arms.

The Christians moved off first, with the Royal banner clearly visible in the centre of the line as the knights tried to close with the Turkish Sipahi. The wings did their best to keep apace, although the line of foot soon lagged behind. It appeared that the Hungarians were keen to engage manfully with personal hand-to-hand combat, not least to avoid the rain of arrows that many had faced before.

So it was that the first general charge was quickly sounded by the King, but to my surprise the cowardly heathen refused to fight and their whole central division turned on their heels and fled. Hardly a victory at all!

But even as I ordered my page to fetch my horse the Turkish centre reformed with impressive ease and returned to sting the Knights with well aimed, albeit ineffectual archery. Indeed this performance was to be repeated several times without any contact being made by the Kings men, truly astonishing.

Meanwhile things were going poorly on the left with the enemy bowmen, renegade Christians of all people, worsting the Horse Archers sent to slow them down. Indeed although casualties were light, despite the expenditure of arrows, the lightly armed skirmishers quickly fell into disarray. More heavily armed cousins rode up to threaten the Turkish wing and slowed the enemy advance.

On our right one large block of Sipahi, maybe 1,000 strong, had found itself isolated and engaged by over 3,000 Hungarian levy who released a huge volley of arrows, but to no apparent effect! Oh for a few hundred stout Yeoman, they would empty some saddles!
Anyway the enemy stormed the line and quickly had all the Levy put to flight, things were looking bad with the centre pushing on into a void and both wings failing.
And then two small bodies of heathen cavalry suddenly appeared on our extreme left flank, could things get any worse?

Back to the right flank where some mercenary foot had placed themselves in the way of the victorious Sipahi. They took the full brunt of the pursuit and ably supported by small bodies of hand gunners inflicted losses that stung the Turk and sent them into confusion although the pursuit continued towards the camp.

Desperate measures were needed on the left and two well-mounted groups of Szeklers drew their sabres and charged headlong into the recently arrived Turkish cavalry. The cowardly Akinjis ran headlong in flight leaving a small but very fine array of elite nobles to meet the charge. Boldness carried the matter in our favour as a Turkish leader dishonourably ran from the melee as his bodyguard was shattered and fled at great speed. However half of the charge was shattered by archery from the renegade Christians lurking in the rough ground. The king had been forced to rally his skirmishing mounted archers and with the help of another brave noble they rallied the men to return to the fray. Indeed despite their early discomfort due to massed archery they now helped to transfix the powerful enemy foot soldiers to prevent them from intervening in the now crucial climax in the centre.

Two large divisions of Knights now charged home on the Turkish nobles who were forced to accept the combat rather than expose their baggage to plunder. A third division had been halted and driven into disarray by continued archery and having lost its order could not deliver effective support.

The thunderous charge hit home, a Turkish Sheikh was bowled over and his men split asunder. But this time the Turk fought with savage bravery despite the desperate situation that they faced, maybe the Heathen does have some code of conduct after all. Meanwhile the third Hungarian Division broke under fire from front and rear and the flight was sad to behold.

The damage had been done and with more Hungarians driving levy into the Turkish camp the day had been won!


And back to reality??¦??¦..
Our first game with lots of mounted troops and lots of bow, 800 AP per side.
Despite moving first with the knights led by a general it was still four hours of play, 10 turns each before they trapped the Sipahi on their baseline, and that with no delay what so ever, just a straight drive across the table. Too many points maybe as we have had this problem before?
The game had a good historical feel to it and the relationship between the troop types was reassuring.
Bowfire seemed to be crushing or near useless. A volley from 10 stands of foot bow at effective range failed to have any effect on 4 bases of sipahi, who duly charged and destroyed 12 bases of bow all on their own in quite short order. That the levy were destroyed was acceptable, that the sipahi took no loss at all was rather odd.
These sipahi,, then down to 3 bases disrupted, later charged 8 bases of mob and were then destroyed themselves!
My opponents comment that the game lacked a certain amount of sparkle I had to agree with, but maybe because we are taking things quite seriously and making every effort to get to grips with the rules.
I will submit a separate entry regarding rule questions/clarifications/ideas.

Lance.

[shall]

Thanks for the latest report Lance. Looking forward to the queries and ideas.

Si