Game 36 – Byzantine Era 6: Late (fractured) Empire
Empire of Nicaea (Gordon 158 points) v 2nd Bulgarian Empire (Alec 160 points)
Minor Defence 1230 CE (ADLG Std, 17-Jan-2024).
Battlefield Effects: None
The Plan (penned in advance of the battle)This is a Byzantine Minor defence
against the 2nd Bulgarian Empire in 1230 CE; so one Prestige Point
available to the Julii for a Byzantine victory or draw but two at risk for a
Byzantine loss. Gordon is 1 Prestige Point up in the era to date so as there
are two at risk for losing as the Byzantines and he was prepared to bid down to
158 points to be the Byzantines I let him take it at that point. If I can win
the game I can change his plus one Prestige Point to a minus one.
As it is Byzantine era 6, under the campaign rules the invader can choose which part of the empire to attack, so I chose to invade the Empire of Nicaea in 1230 CE. In this era the Byzantine army can have copious numbers of knight units so I figured I would match him by
having a Latin Empire ally in the hope that he would be expecting a traditional
Bulgarian horse archer army.
The plan will be a simple one –
I’ll have one command of light horse which can guard any open flank, then line
my knights up against his and charge to victory!
That’s the plan!
The
Battle
Gordon deployed an infantry command on his right, a command of three mounted knights and four light horse in his centre and a command of three Byzantine heavy cavalry and three light horse on his left; all commanded by competent commanders if I recall correctly. Picture as below.
It seems Gordon had as many light horse bow as my army!
The action
My turn one - I advance the light horse on my right to get them out of the rough terrain and also figuring, as I outnumber Gordon's light cavalry on that flank, I'll out shoot them - and immediately suffer the first shooting casualties! ! I also advance the two light horse in my central command, partly to see if I can tease Gordon into reacting and secondly to support the right wing.
Additionally, my hidden allied command proves to be reliable. The position at the end of my turn is as below:
Gordon's turn one - He pulls back his left wing but takes the bait and charges into contact in the centre with four of his light horse against two of mine. As my heavy cavalry were close behind, and could advance in my turn to support, I decided to risk it and stand rather than evade.
Luckily for me the gamble worked, my units came off better in the two combats, disordering one of his light horse despite Gordon's having a support advantage for no loss to themselves. Gordon misremembered the rules and thought light horse get a bonus for being two units deep in melee combat which is not the case.
The position at the end of Gordon's first turn is shown below:
My turn two - Figuring that there was nothing further to be gained by keeping my Latin Empire allied knights in ambush any longer I reveal them from ambush in the plantation to my left rear, placing and advancing the knights out of the bad terrain. My goal is to get the knights across to the right to face his (as per my plan), and move the two heavy spearmen of my central command over to the left behind them to face Gordon's foot to act as a flank guard for as long as they can survive. The restricted space is making it difficult to reorganise the troops to be where I wanted them though, I possibly had already left it too late.
Calculating that Gordon's light horse are too far ahead of his line of heavy cavalry/knights to be an imminent threat I move one of the Bulgar noble heavy cavalry up to support my light horse. In both the ongoing light horse melees I continue to get lucky, destroying both of Gordon's units, thereby immediately disordering the ones behind too - not good news for Gordon.
The position at the end of my second turn is as below:
Gordon's turn two - he advances his infantry again on my left and throws in the rest of his light horse on my extreme right. His options were to either pull back and reform the line, which would give his infantry time to advance into a position where it could start having an impact on the battle, or attack with the cavalry wing. Gordon chose the second option but oddly only with the remaining light horse leaving his heavier mounted troops too far back to assist.
The melee results in him losing two more and suffering a disorder on another! He now has only three light horse left, two of which are disordered; in addition Gordon has exposed the flank of the undisordered one to being attacked in the flank by one of my knight units.
The position at the end of Gordon's second turn is as below:
My turn three: My good luck holds - with the help of the Frankish mercenary knight unit charging into the flank of the unit of Gordon's light cavalry that isn't yet disordered I polish off the rest of his light horse, one by shooting and two in melee. The shooting was 50/50 so I got lucky, in the melees I was three up and two up so it was less of a surprise when Gordon's light horse were destroyed. Additionally I managed to get a couple of my own light horse units behind his line of heavies pinning some from behind.
My light cavalry behind Gordon's line are a bit vulnerable out on their own but to destroy/counter them, Gordon will be forced to break up his line of heavy mounted troops just as the way has been cleared for my heavy mounted units to approach leaving his units vulnerable in turn (plus it keeps up the mounting psychological pressure on Gordon of fast approaching and inevitable doom), so I figure it will pay off.
The position at the end of my turn three is as below:
At this point having lost all seven of his light cavalry units, and as it was only turn three, Gordon decided the battle was unwinnable; to avoid a painful endgame he decided to admit defeat.
Post-mortem
I do agree that at that point it wasn't looking good for the Byzantines, I had already managed to sweep away the Byzantine light horse screen, admittedly with a good dollup of luck, though Gordon's advance of his light horse to a position where they couldn't be supported by his heavies didn't help their cause, and I had worked some of my light horse around behind some of Gordon's heavy cavalry so his call was probably right.
On the other hand I felt that my handling of my left wing had been less than competent and consequently I had managed to get the troops in my centre and left into a difficult position pinned against the rough terrain with no help from Gordon! With the score currently 14-3 in my favour, however, I doubt Gordon could have made up the deficit on that flank in time before I managed to get the extra five points I needed to achieve victory. It did mean that my planned for clash of knights wasn't going to take place but I was happy to accept the win.
I think the turning point came when Gordon threw his remaining light cavalry into combat in turn two unsupported by his heavier mounted. Gordon didn't realise the pressure he was exerting on my forces with the steady advance of his right wing infantry - time was on his side. When his initial light horse attack failed he would have been better off either pulling back the remainder and waiting for the infantry or going in hard with all his mounted, at that point just going in with his remaining light horse largely played into my hands allowing me to destroy his forces piecemeal.
Gordon's comments
Pre-Game
The Bulgars have to win or I get a point. I expect to be fighting in the plains.
I am tempted to go for an infantry army, but the large number of bowmen, especially as mediocre, would be too vulnerable to what I expect to be a strong mounted enemy with a mix of medium bow cavalry and heavy cavalry and knights.
However, a largish infantry centre of mediocre spearmen and two average bowmen might stand up for a while. I will then have a command of 4 light horse and three knights: probably beyond my ability to manage properly, but worth a try. Light horse to delay and soften up before the knights charge to victory. The third command will have two elite Vardariot light horse, one other light horse, and three heavy cavalry impact – a slightly weaker version of the second command.
The Deployment
I take maximum terrain pieces. They mostly end up on Alec’s side of the board.
I mess up my deployment – three mutually unsupported commands (I had a notion that if I didn’t like the look of Alec’s army the cavalry could move towards the infantry, covered by the light horse). It could have worked if I hadn’t been too aggressive with the light horse. The use of light horse is a very obvious problem for me.
Seeing my camp hiding next to the waterway probably made the point that there wasn’t going to be anything particularly aggressive on this flank, so he could aim to concentrate on my open left and centre. His deployment seemed to reflect that.
Alec’s undeployed command left some uncertainty for me, but I had plenty of space to avoid deploying close to the open flank and any flank march, and I had no need to be too aggressive there anyway.
The Game
I decided that simply standing put on the right with all my infantry would lead to my cavalry being overwhelmed quickly. If Alec’s hidden command was in the two ambushes I didn’t think whatever troops he had would pose an insuperable risk to my mixed infantry command. So, they advanced quickly as there was no one to stop them.
On my right and centre I made a mess of the light horse movement. A combination of inventing my own rules and being too aggressive with what should be a delaying action. The light horse made their concerns about this obvious by losing every combat except one.
I did manage to manoeuvre the cavalry and knights as I wanted, but having lost the light horse they were compromised.
Game over.
Post-Game
Maintain purpose! Flexibility to take advantage of enemy weakness is good (see Alec’s response to my game play), but make sure you have the force and skill to do that.
Light horse bow should avoid close combat even with other light horse bow (beware of seductive overlaps). I was unlucky in the melees, but the position was weak to start with.
Don’t make up rules!
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