Game 42 – Byzantine Era 4: Later Macedonian/ Doukas Dynasties
Nikephorian Byzantine (Gordon 184 pts) v Normans in Sicily and Italy (Alec 180 pts)
Major Defence 1050 CE (ADLG Std, 6-Mar-2024).
Battlefield Effects: None
The Plan (penned in advance of
the battle)
This is a Byzantine Major defence
against invading Sicilian/Italian Normans in 1050 CE. I am playing the Normans
at 180 points against Gordon’s Nikephorian Byzantines at 184 points. I am
currently 1-0 up in the era so if I win it’ll be 1 to minus 3; if I draw or lose
it’ll be one all.
The Norman army relies on its
excellent heavy cavalry, which in this era are classified as Medium Knights,
whose sole tactic is basically one of charging into everything in front of them
and sweeping them away. In fact the Norman army list allows for little else, so
one way or another that will be my plan!
Accordingly, I’ve selected one
command of six elite impetuous Medium Knights one mediocre heavy spearmen and one crossbowmen; one command of four impetuous Medium knights with two javelin-armed light horse to guard a flank; and a third command of five infantry units – three mediocre heavy spearmen, one crossbowmen and one bowmen to sit in reserve or on the other flank.
I’ll pick Plains as the region,
try to minimise terrain, line my knights up and go for it. What happens after
that will be in the lap of the gods.
That’s the plan!
The
Battle
As invader I got to chose the region for the battle so I chose Plains as planned. As defender, Gordon selected his terrain pieces first, in addition to the compulsory field he chose a gentle hill, two plantations and a marsh. As Gordon had maxed out on terrain options I minimised mine - I chose a road and another field. All the bad terrain went down on my centre and left, leaving an open area on my right.
Thinking that Gordon had maxed out on terrain for a reason e.g. going with infantry and units that could operate in bad terrain I expected him to place his camp to the the right of the field on his baseline so that it could be protected by those infantry, to my surprise he placed it to the left of that field; it was fortified however. As I didn't have many troops that could operate in bad terrain I decided to place my camp to the right of the marsh.
When deciding on my battle plan I decided to place my infantry command on my left, near the closed down flank to the left of the marsh, my main knight command in the centre and my mixed knight/light horse command on my right where the light horse could operate freely in the open terrain.
Gordon only placed two commands, an infantry command on his right, in front of his camp and a cavalry command on his left. The infantry command only consisted of four heavy spear Skutatoi even though commanded by a brilliant commander; however Gordon also placed two ambushes to his right which units, unless the missing command, would have to be commanded by that same commander.
Gordon's cavalry command consisted of two impact and bow-armed heavy cavalry, two cataphracts and two bow-armed light horse commanded by another brilliant commander.
So, Gordon's third command was either in ambush on his left or on a flank march which could theoretically be on either flank. I decided that, whatever option Gordon had gone for, I had no choice but to stick to my plan. Impetuous knights aren't able to do much other than charge into contact so I was pretty much committed to getting into combat at the earliest opportunity in any case. I would just have to follow the plan and react as best I could with the the other troops available to me as threats arose - which of course they surely would.
You can see that I lost no time in advancing as fast as possible all across the board. Not knowing where Gordon's missing forces would appear I was forced to leave some units to the rear - a knight unit and two infantry on my right on the hill, and one bow unit on my left. I didn't feel that either force would be sufficient should Gordon's missing command turn up on their respective flanks but decided that I couldn't afford to pare away any more units from my strike force.
Gordon's turn one
Gordon reacted in his turn as below:
As you can see - not much of a reaction at all. Gordon's two light horse advanced into shooting range and his main battle line advanced slightly. Of course, one of those light horse scored a shooting hit.
I still had no real clue as to where the missing command was, Gordon was obviously playing a mysterious waiting game, however, I considered by this point that a flank march entering from my right was now the most likely reason for its absence.
My turn two
I continued the advance - charging Gordon's light horse and scaring them away. As below:
I dropped off another unit on each flank as I advanced to give more flank march protection.
Gordon's turn two
As below:
Gordon obtained a successful flank march roll so announced it's imminent arrival on my right. His on-table troops all advanced into charge reach and Gordon also revealed one of his ambushes - an elite unit of Varangian guard swordsmen with two handed axes, which he began to move towards the likely upcoming location for the infantry melee. His light horse managed to score a second shooting hit but I caught up in losses incurred by getting two hits on his units.
My turn three
As Gordon had obligingly advanced into charge reach of my knights I did what knights do best - charged. I also charged in with my infantry on their left in order that my end knight unit not to be overlapped. The position just after the charges, but before the combat die rolls is as below.
Gordon evaded from my charge with his two heavy cavalry, back to the table edge. In the picture below you can see on the right one of Gordon's light horse being assailed by three of my knights into its flank. The advantage to me, in addition to hopefully obtaining a quick kill, was that in wheeling to their right my knights were able to begin to face towards the edge of Gordon's flank march arrival, whilst still being out of the 'panic' zone.
The combats were as bloody as expected, as the picture below shows.
Each of us lost a unit but I also achieved four hits with my knights on Gordon's infantry and cataphracts.
In Gordon's turn three his flank march turned up - as below:
Gordon's flanking command consisted of three heavy cavalry and two light horse, led by yet another brilliant commander. Gordon brought them on in the gap between the hill and my front line; clearly the axe was about to fall on my flank. Elsewhere Gordon returned his heavy cavalry that had evaded my knight's charge back into bow range and the melees continued.
My turn four - ended as below:
My right-hand command, luckily for me, got a good command roll enabling me to both charge into contact with Gordon's heavy cavalry guarding his cataphracts' flank as well as turn a couple of units to face Gordon's newly arrived flank march without them going uncontrolled due to their impetuosity.
In the combat phase I finally destroyed a cataphract unit and caused more disorders on several of Gordon's units. It wasn't entirely one sided, as I had now accumulated eight hits too, but my knights were doing the job I was paying them for.
Gordon's turn four ended as below:
Up to now Gordon had been consistently getting good command rolls - this turn, of course, when he needed a good roll for the flank marched command in order to exploit it, his luck failed him. What little he was able to do Gordon reserved for a rally attempt which also naturally failed.
The fighting continued along the line, both sides getting multiple hits. Gordon's Varangian guard finally got into the fight - causing two hits on its mediocre heavy spear opponent but I got lucky killing Gordon's heavy spearman guarding its flank.
At this point Gordon was only three hits away from army destruction whilst I was seven.
My turn five ended as below:
I managed to get Gordon's army over the line - a flank attack on the Varangian guard, destruction of the second cataphract, both the heavy cavalry guarding its flank, and one more heavy spearmen unit, easily pushing his army over the edge.
The end result was 19 losses (17 required) for the Byzantines and 11 losses (19 required) for the Normans.
Post mortem
A good result for me obviously. I stuck to my plan and managed to pull it off which is always gratifying. Given that Gordon had opted for a flank march victory for either side generally becomes dependent on whether or not it turns up in good time to have a decisive impact. I was fortunate that whilst Gordon's flank march arrived on turn three, the bad command roll Gordon made on the following turn for that command effectively gave me another turn of grace before it could have any major impact. The five turns I got was enough to bring my plan to fruition i.e. charging in and hoping for the best. The rest just came down to die-rolling, so my knights deserve the credit for that not me.
We had a quick discussion afterwards as Gordon asked whether I thought he had made any mistakes. The one that occurred to me to mention at the time was him choosing lots of terrain that closed down the battlefield when he didn't actually have the troops to take advantage of such terrain. Additionally with his army's superior command ability and more controllable cavalry he would probably have benefitted more from open terrain than I would have.
Whilst writing this report a second more obvious one occurred to me that I was quite grateful for at the time, which was that Gordon advanced his troops into charge reach of mine in his second turn. This enabled me to launch my attack a turn earlier when it was clearly in his interest to delay the moment my knights got into combat as long as possible in order that his flank march could get into a position to have an impact on the game.
Gordon's comments
Pre-Game
As Byzantines I need to survive
the game. I imagine there will be a lot of knights.
The Byzantines have some good
cavalry , but not good enough to stand up to the knights. The cataphracts have
some chance, so are an obvious choice. However, the cavalry are likely to be
the battle winners for me if handled well (oh dear!). The command points are
good – I will take 3 brilliant generals to give me some chance of
outmanoeuvring the Normans, if only by accident.
So: one command of three heavy cavalry and two light horse to run rings around the enemy; one command of heavy cavalry, cataphracts and light horse to run rings and stand up and fight; one command of 1 Varangian Guard (silly not to, but a bit vulnerable to the knights) and four Skoutatoi with support to defend the fortified camp.
The Deployment
Having decided to go with a
cavalry army I proceeded to close down the battlefield by choosing maximum
terrain.
As a consequence I decided to
send the cavalry command on a flank march, which fooled nobody because there
was only one flank they would ever arrive on.
Alec deployed his infantry opposite my right flank infantry. He then deployed a frankly unnatural amount of knights in two commands on my left, so I was pretty much doomed from the start. Unless! I got my infantry into his and the Varangians worked some magic.
The Game
Alec advanced; it’s what
impetuous knights do. I made some moves to try to slow him down to allow my
flank march to arrive.
I then thought it was all getting
a bit scary and that I needed to threaten his infantry (who were shooting bits
of mine). The cavalry then had to advance to protect the flank and slow down
his flank command which looked like it could easily take my camp and/or roll up
my line. A high risk strategy as I am but I was relying on the flank attack to
win. So, all in.
The infantry combat was pretty
much even. The Varangians did some damage but got hit in the flank and I think
I forgot that his crossbowmen were LMI which might have made a difference to
the combat (much better factors against them than against MI).
My flank march arrived at a
reasonable time. I had three options:
1. Go for the three units Alec had left at his rear
and then take the camp. The three units were uphill and would not have been a
pushover. And his main attack would have continued to outnumber and outfight my
left flank command.
2. Head for the gap between his front line and rear
and hope it worried Alec enough to move units away from the main combat. But, I
couldn’t see this having any real effect in time to save the day.
3. Move to attack his exposed right flank. This
would at least give me the opportunity to slow down the destruction of the rest
of the army. But, Alec was well prepared for this and I would still be fighting
at a disadvantage against the knights. Unless some good command rolls for me
and bad for him came up. So this is what I chose to do.
He crushed the flank march and the other cavalry command.
Post-Game
See Pre-Game section. Having made a plan I threw it away entirely voluntarily. A more open field would have allowed me the opportunity to take advantage of my better command and more manoeuvrable troops.
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