Manlii v Julii Game 10

Game 10 – Byzantine Era 5: Komnenan dynasty

Komnenan Byzantine (Gordon 90 pts) v Cilician Armenian (Alec 90 pts)

Minor defence 1100 CE (ADLG Reduced, 1-Mar-2023).

Battlefield Effects: None

The Plan (penned in advance of the battle)

So, as we tried a monster ‘Big Battle’ game last week, I opted for an ADLG Reduced Format game this time; it will be interesting to experience the contrast of a small game.

As it was a Minor defence we ended up with 90 point armies each, with me as the Cilician Armenians v Gordon as the Byzantines.

I will try a ‘sword and shield’ strategy this week.  ADLG Reduced Format only permits two commands, so I will have a strike (sword) command consisting of five impetuous knights led by a Brilliant commander, and a shield command consisting of three heavy spearmen plus a couple of skirmishing bow-armed infantry led by an ordinary commander.

The two roles are pretty obvious, one command to attack, the other to defend, cover the flank etc. The trick will be to get them in the right place which, as I am the attacker, should be easy enough as Gordon will be required to deploy a command first.

That’s the plan!

The Battle

I decided that, because my knights were impetuous and hard to command to do anything other than move forward, I wanted a battlefield that was open in the centre but closed down at the sides as much as possible, with that in mind I opted for Mountain terrain.

I went for a coastal flank and managed to get it, the battlefield ended up as follows:

Several pieces of close/ difficult terrain down one side and water down the other, I got what I wanted!

After deployment the battlefield looked like this:

To a large extent we mirrored each other, infantry along the water's edge and cavalry on the flank. Gordon had:

• a combined command with two Varangian Guard heavy swordsmen with armour and two handed cutting weapons (scary!), though thankfully not elite; and two Kavallarioi heavy cavalry Impact with his family representative rated as a brilliant commander.
• a cavalry command with two more Kavallarioi (including one elite) and two light horse armed with bow led by a competent commander.

So off we went, my plan a simple one - to advance in line as much as possible straight towards Gordon's army to shut down his chances of doing anything clever as much as possible. My one concern was that he could sneak his light horse around my flank and get to my camp - there wasn't going to be much I could do to stop it other than to get his commander as busy as possible as soon as possible.

After turn 1:

Then Gordon decided he would react by trying to flank my line and to keep me busy he advanced his light troops:

Luckily for me his initial volleys did no damage. 

Assessing the situation I decided that if I continued to advance with my infantry they would be able to keep Gordon's busy - so they wouldn't be able to interfere with the cavalry fight. That meant we each had two blocks of heavy cavalry/ knights. 

My right hand knight units could advance towards his cavalry in the centre and charge when able to, which would keep them occupied; so my left hand group of knights were free to try to deal with his mounted command attempting to flank me, which as they had the brilliant general with them they might just be able to manage - so I ordered them to charge the light horse and angled the charge towards his units attempting the flanking manoeuvre. He evaded:

On the right, in an early victory my skirmishers managed to wipe out one of Gordon's, and my infantry continued their advance. In the centre he pulled back his heavy cavalry. On my left Gordon pulled back his light horse and continued his flanking attempt keeping just out of charge reach of my knights, as below:

At this point I realised that, whilst my two right hand groups of units were up to the job, it was probably asking too much of my left hand group of three knights to cope with both his light horse and his flanking Kavallarioi.

Luckily he had left those Kavallarioi a little too close.....

I was able to move my left-most knight unit to be able to pin both his flanking cavalry in its zone of control and the other two knights went straight forward to pin one of his light horse. Elsewhere I continued my slow advance.

Gordon's shooting continued to avail him of no hits on me, but I managed to drive his remaining foot skirmisher off table when I charged it with my middle group of knights. On the right, suddenly realising the threat my light troops now posed to his camp, Gordon surprised me by turning his Varangians around and marched back towards it. I followed up in my turn with my spearmen.

I managed to drive another unit off table - a light horse which obligingly rolled high on its evade roll. Gordon did however manage to get the other one round my flank.

On my left Gordon gave up on any further attempts at flanking - he charged! Gordon threw his commander into the fight so I felt obliged to as well. The result - the first of several tied rolls.

On his turn he decided to turn his Varangians around and charge into my Armenian spearmen. He didn't have the command points or inclination to do anything else; my light infantry were getting dangerously close to Gordon's camp at this point but he didn't have the ability to intercept them. The fight on my left continued to get draws whilst one of the Varangians received a hit as below:

Next, on my turn I managed to do several things, I charged in to his central Kavallarioi, getting a skirmisher into overlap; the other skirmisher took out his camp; I advanced a spearmen unit forward ready to flank on its next turn and I charged a knight at his flanking light horse, which evaded but the knight rolled up and ended getting into contact with one of his two Kavallarioi on my left. Prior to combat it was 7-0 to me and we both needed 10 to break; I was hoping to finish him off in the next combat phase! 

Position before rolling combat dice:

It didn't quite work out as expected of course! Now I was thinking to myself that I had been quite lucky up to that point, taking no hits from Gordon's shooting and my CP rolls had been decent enough. So: On my left my one success was finally getting a hit on his end Kavallarioi unit (failing to kill the commander though) after which it all went his way - I took four hits, the Varangians showing what they could do with their axes. The position after rolling combat dice is below:

All of a sudden from 7-0 it was only 8-4 to me- and I had several disordered units; I didn't feel quite so confident.

I needn't have worried, in Gordon's turn things finally came good, I took out two of his Kavallarioi units and disordered two more, suddenly it was game over: 13 - 4 to me.

My thoughts 

My first ever Reduced format ADLG game. I found in a strange way it was very like playing MeG, I suppose because there were only ten manoeuvre elements a side which is about what you get in MeG. I enjoyed it immensely.

I think I was quite lucky as by the time my luck turned Gordon was already on the ropes; that said my plan was to limit the scope of his manoeuvrability by being aggressive which worked, so I feel I rode my luck well. It could easily have gone the other way if I hadn't been able to keep my impetuous knights in hand.

Gordon's comments

Pre-Game

Playing 100 points ADLG means that the compulsory troops will take a lot of our points.

The Armenians have quite a choice of troops. However, Alec chose 1100ad and knights are deadly so I imagine there will be a few of them. Some heavy infantry to protect the camp and some bowmen.

The Byzantines have broadly similar choices, but the cavalry are not as good in combat but are more manoeuvrable. I will take a couple of Varangian Guard and upgrade them, because it seems silly not too. Have to have a couple of lighter horse and I choose light rather than medium.

I don’t want to face his knights head on, so must try to break up any cavalry force of his. My command is better which should help. 1 brilliant and 1 competent general. 

The game

A secure water flank and minimal terrain on a rear corner suits me. I deploy my infantry and camp hard against the water flank, and Alec deploys his infantry opposite.

I put my cavalry immediately adjacent to the infantry, with light horse on the flank. Alec deploys 5 knights opposite them – this is not good. Let’s hope I can outmanoeuvre the knights.

He advances and I try to move around his open flank. That works, but even though I get two units against his one unit I am only rolling even with him. In three rounds of combat neither of us causes any damage to the other. Until another knight unit joins and my elite unit is destroyed.

The infantry slowly approach each other until I am forced to charge him. We do similar amounts of damage to each other.

Big mistake: I forgot that light infantry can pillage a camp. So, he pillages my camp once my light infantry are chased off or destroyed.

Finally, my two central cavalry units are engaged by his knights. They stand up for a short while but the factors win the day for the knights.

The small board meant that I lost a couple of light troops to evading off the board.

Basically, an utter disaster for me. 

Post-Game

I didn’t take enough advantage of the open board, and should have deployed my cavalry wing further to the right to give me more room for manoeuvre. The light horse could then have been a threat to his camp and his game might have changed to deal with that.

Even breaking up his knights as I did didn’t help because they are sufficiently better in combat to beat my cavalry unless I can get more of an advantage. Also, I let him advance far enough that it was less of a problem for him. Although, as I moved second I am not sure I could have prevented that, except by deploying light troops further forward. Where they would have been very vulnerable.

As he had 5 knights to my 4 cavalry getting a local numerical advantage was always going to be a challenge for me.

Result

Armenian victory - Minus two Prestige points to the Julii