Battle Report - Aragonese vs Komnenan Byzantine

[shall]

Game last night saw me facing an aragonese army and the boldest baddest and biggesst heavy knight charge I have yet experienced. Playign againt Dave Madigan his army was roughly

1 Field Commander, 2 x Troop Commanders; 4 x BGs each 4, Sup , HArm Knights, Lancer, Sworsdmen; 1 x Bg 6 Jinettes LH Ave Jav Lsp Unprot;1 x BG 8 a Amulghavars Sup MF, Off Sp; 1 x Bg each 6 poor militia Prot off sp; 1 x 8 LF Xbow; 1 x 6 LF Bw ;1 x 6LF Jav; 11 BGs in total

My Komnenans
1 x Inspried Commander _- the emperor himself; 2 x troops commanders; 2 x BG latnikon, aroured sup Knights lancer sowrdsmen; 2 x Byzantine cavalry Prot lancer swordsmen; 2 x Vadariot cavalry bow sword; 3 x BG each 4 LH bw Sw; 3 x BG each 6 x porr lf bow; 2 x BG each 4 Varangians, Harm, Heavy Weapon, 4 elite and 4 superior 14 BGs in total

Always refer from my left to right...

Terrain went down largely on the edges. We had a village and a plantation down on the left and on the right there was a plantation and two fields. Back on my base edge was a plantation and a big field splitting my deployment area in two. So eseentially open terriorty between two rough edges. Nice territory for a big knight charge. Dave set up exactly for this. No hesitation in putting all 4 BGs of armour plate in a single big battleline across the centre. On my left he had his LH and 2 LF BGs to contest the rough terrain. On my right his large LF BG was in the terrain and he had his 2 BGs of poor quality spears and amulghavars together working the open terrain next to them.

My deployment was more cautious. I put a block of latnikon, vadariot and byznatien cavalry on each side of the field splitting my deployment zone, but set back to give me some time. I put enough LH on my right to annoy the poor spears and a LH and LF BG on my left which would be a bit exposed given time to the greater quantites and quality in Dave's army. My most impoortant decision was to put the two BGs of varagians in the centre on the edge of the field area. I figured they are least might hold the big knights cahrge long enough for me to do something about the wings and support troops.

Dave early on hesitated to come and crush me with the knights. He advanced his spearmen on my right to secure the terrain there. On my right in response I ganged up a fair bit of firing at his poor spearmen and managed to DISR one of them. He in return failed to boslter them back for a few turnsm(rerollign 6s makes it hard) and it gave me some breathing space to redeploy my latnikon from the right over to the left so that I could face of the knights charge with my own knights and Varangians.

I had to break up this 16 wide block of knights somehow so on the left i spun off one BG of bow armed cavalry to chase Dave's LH away. This had 2 good effects. First it swung the balance of power on my left so that I was no longer under real threat. Second it made Dave nervous about his LH and camp and resulted in him holding back the left most BG of Knight to deal with the threat. This effectivelyaved the day for me as when the crunch came it was only 3 BGs of knight my line had to deal with. I don't think we couldhave held 4.

My prot lance armed cavalry got in on he end of the left hand BG and swung the numbers in my favour there - 5 BGs vs 3 Bgs. It was an almighty charge to hold. From left to right it read:
....H ArmKN............... ........Sup KN ......... .......Sup KN ................
Prot Cv .....Arm Kn............. ...........Arm Kn.... El Varangians Sup Varagians

The impact went well for me. I stacked the IC with the varangians to make sure they held the impact and thanfully they did so without any base losses. The middle was a draw but I lost a base. The left I won and Dav lost a base. On to the melee where Dave Harm was a problem for me. On the left I won due to extra dice. Middle we lost and went DISR. However the Varagians complete with general did the business and cut down a base of knights and put them DISR. These broke off in a poor looking state of affairs.

This tussle continued for a couple of bounds after which my middle Latnikon Bg had broken. Daves right hand Knight Bg had broken and his one on the left was in dire trouble at half strength. However all was not lost for him as his last BG of knight was coming up on the left to charge my prot cavalry - something I wasn't looking foward too. However I was causing trouble to the right of the central smash. My bowfire had FRAGged a poor spear BG and we broke it after a charge. My Sup varagians had moved off to help execute the second poor spearmen block who had successfully bounced my protected lancers. So on my right we were winning the struggle as long as the centre could hang in there. On my left the cavalry BG had dirven the Jinette light horse back dangerously close to the Aragonese camp so this was now looking a juicy target.

The last BG of aragonese knights charged in and made short work of my cavalry and both my latnikon BGs eventually went down to their more heavily armoured ancestors. The elite varagians continued to hold the centre and we took down 2 od the 4 enemy knights BGs, both poor spear BGs, a LF BG and the camp for 12 attrition points and the army. I had lost 6 AP toward my total of 14. A 26-6 to the komnenans but a close run thing.

Had Dave trusted to the power of the army and taken all 4 BGs into the charge together I am not sure my centre would have held long enough. Even as it is the aragonese had 4 or 5 goes to kill Alexis himself - who thatnkfully lived to fight another day with his Varagian Guard.

Si

[babyshark]

Simon:

Thanks for the report. It is always nice to have one's apetite whetted.

A few questions: 1) what do you think about the Varangians holding, and even defeating, the Kn? Did it seem like a freak result to you or a normal one? And, regardless of which it was, does the outcome seem reasonably historical to you?

2) After the kerfuffle we had recently in these fora about the Almughavars I am sure that we are all desperate to read about how they fared.

Marc

[rbodleyscott]

A few questions: 1) what do you think about the Varangians holding, and even defeating, the Kn? Did it seem like a freak result to you or a normal one? And, regardless of which it was, does the outcome seem reasonably historical to you?

Varangians fight the impact phase vs knights at a minus POA. If they lose they may get up to 3 minus modifiers on their cohesion test - (for 1 hit per 3 bases, at least 2 more hits received than inflicted, and losing impact combat vs lancers). If they survive that they are on equal POA in the melee.

So it is hairy but winnable.

I had a similar match up yesterday, with Galloglaich axemen (HF, Superior, Heavy Weapon) vs Knights. Three BGs of 8 galloglaich were charged by 2 BGs of 4 knights. In the impact phase 2 of the 3 galloglaich BGs were disrupted. In the melee one of them became fragmented, but (thanks to an overlap at each end of the line) the knights suffered enough hits to lose a base each. Thereafter the galloglaich slowly recovered, and by the time they were steady again and the knights broke off, both knight BGs were down to two bases. When combat was rejoined the knights were whittled down to autobreak levels.

So it was a bit "buttock clenching", but the galloglaich did eventually win, and probably on balance had the advantage overall due to weight of numbers. Simon's Varangians were in smaller BGs but one was Elite which probably helped. It is not a match-up I would choose, though, if there was an alternative.

[babyshark]

A few questions: 1) what do you think about the Varangians holding, and even defeating, the Kn? Did it seem like a freak result to you or a normal one? And, regardless of which it was, does the outcome seem reasonably historical to you?

Varangians fight the impact phase vs knights at a minus POA. If they lose they may get up to 3 minus modifiers on their cohesion test - (for 1 hit per 3 bases, at least 2 more hits received than inflicted, and losing impact combat vs lancers). If they survive that they are on equal POA in the melee.

So it is hairy but winnable.

Right. And as I re-read Simon's report, I notice that he attached an Inspired Commander (in the person of the Emperor) to the Varangians, which has to have helped enormously. All told, the interaction seems to have the right feel to it: Varangians in grave danger, but get through it--and even triumph--due in no small part to the personal presence of the Emperor. Without the Inspired Commander the fight might easily have gone the other way, and quickly. The player has to decide whether to commit the Inspired Commander to this fight or to some other part of the battlefield.

Now. What about those Almughavers?

Marc

[shall]

Yes exactly right on the Varangians. Fine troops but vulnerable to the initial impact. Likely to lose the first round and therefore essntial to not go DISR. The elites re-roll 1s and 2s so are likely to pass. The sup had the IC to get them a + to compensate. Given this both needed a 7 on natural dice with their re-rolls - so 70% likely to hold the line but if they fail all hell breaks loose. Hence me attaching the IC at that time - it really was important as my Armoured Latnikon were always going to struggle so the varangians had to win or hold to get the Knights into a melee round where their HW cut through. Thanfully they did so and the bet paid offin the melee round where they thumped the knights with 6 hits to 3.

The Amulghavars felt a bit too nervous to come out to play in this game. As Dave rightly pointed out there wasn't a huge amount in my army that they could overwhelm. That said I think I would have put them in between the poor spearmen as a batch of nice superior troops there would have made a mass skirmish attack less of a threat.

Speaking from other games with the amulghavars they are excellent. They can dominate most terrain and with offensive spear capabiltities they can actually pressure many things in the open too. The MF status puts them at risk vs HF if they lose and need to take cohesion tests but as they are superior there is a decent chance of keeping in a winning position and avoiding this. I also find lots of MF Dailami rather a nice troop type - sup arm Impact Foot Swordsmen.

More after the next game - ARAB CONQUEST next week.

Si

[davem]

Thanks for the game last week Simon. I think you summed up the game pretty well apart from mentioning my appalling dice. I say again my appalling dice!!

That aside I think we agree I should have rammed my Kn down your centre asap. Firstly because you would have struggled to resist them and secondly it would have prevented you moving your BG's where they were needed. I gave you time and space by being hesitant and when I did go in, didn't commit fully.

Those Heavy Knights are hard!!

I think a re-match could be interesting, I'll tweak my army somewhat in the light of experience

Dave M

[shall]

Thanks for the game last week Simon. I think you summed up the game pretty well apart from mentioning my appalling dice. I say again my appalling dice!!

That aside I think we agree I should have rammed my Kn down your centre asap. Firstly because you would have struggled to resist them and secondly it would have prevented you moving your BG's where they were needed. I gave you time and space by being hesitant and when I did go in, didn't commit fully.

Those Heavy Knights are hard!!

I think a re-match could be interesting, I'll tweak my army somewhat in the light of experience

Dave M

Not sure my heart rate can stand facing that again.

You did have very bad dice and I didn't mention that but what is interesting is that the way the game evolved openede you up to that risk whereas staying storng and frighting with the quality of the army quickly would probbaly have done for me evn with a bit of bad dice rolling.

I also hoped for a bit of terrain away from the dges to interfere with your 4 foot line of knights. This was wheer my dice went wrong. Then my mobility would jave been easier to exploit.

But go on we'll risk a rematch at some point

Si