Game 48 - Byzantine Era 3: Thematic Byzantine
Thematic Byzantine with Merovingian Frank allies (Gordon 200 pts) v Umayyad Caliphate in North Africa (Alec 200 pts)
Major invasion 698 CE (ADLG Std, 15-May-2024)
Battlefield Effects: Umayyad Caliphate: Special adjustments
The Plan (penned in advance of
the battle)
This week’s game turned out to be
a Major Invasion of the Arab Umayyad Caliphate in North Africa by the
Byzantines with a Merovingian Frank ally in 698 CE; the Umayyad Arabs also
rolled a ‘Special Adjustment’ Battlefield Effect. The exact one, of course,
won’t be known unit immediately before the battle but still needed to be taken
into account in the bidding. Talking of which, Gordon went down to 200 points
for the honour of playing the Byzantine’s so even though I would have preferred
to have been that side I didn’t want to go any lower, so I let him have them.
My thinking was that with equal
size armies, having the benefit of a Battlefield Effect I thought would be
enough to give me a better than even chance of victory, especially as the onus on
winning the battle and resulting pressure would be on Gordon.
Both the Thematic Byzantine and Frankish armies can have large numbers of good quality cavalry and/or even more decent heavy spearmen. So after pondering for a bit, as
I didn’t know what the Battlefield Effect would be or what mix of forces Gordon would come up with, I have gone with a
counter-punch approach, with three combined arms commands. Each one contains
three mediocre supported Jund spearmen and two Jund heavy cavalry, most of which are
elite. In addition:
·
I have given one command a brilliant commander,
a mediocre Bedouin light camelry unit and four Arab javelin-armed light horse
units;
·
The other two commands I have given a competent
commander and two bowmen units.
I decided on a camelry unit in
order to have a bit of fun, to see if Gordon over-reacts to it with his
cavalry. I may be able to upset the Frankish heavy cavalry charge with its
panic effect on horses, but really it is only going to be a gimmick.
My plan will be to put the
brilliant command containing the light horse on the open-most flank, where I
can send the light troops forward to do a bit of harassing early doors, but
otherwise I will wait to see what Gordon does; I suspect I won’t have to wait
long as he has to get a move on in order to force the win. This is all subject
to the Battlefield effect of course, which may force me to reconsider, so
there’s no point in thinking about things any more deeply until I know what it
is.
Battlefield Effect
So, now that I’ve put the army
together I rolled for the battlefield Effect getting a four on the die –
resulting in the enemy suffering from Starvation. Obviously my commander has
been undertaking a scorched earth policy in order to weaken the enemy before
accepting combat.
The result is that all of
Gordon’s units have their move reduced by one UD throughout the game;
alternatively I could go for the universal Battlefield Effect option. I have
decided to go with the starvation option because it will stress Gordon out and
put him under pressure from the start given that he has to make the running,
and may cause him to make mistakes which I can take advantage of. It will also
give me more time for my light horse to cause mayhem.
One final thought, if I can place
the light horse in ambush over on a flank I may be able to get the drop on the
Byzantine’s as their movement will be reduced.
That’s the plan!
The
Battle
Gordon's turn two
Gordon advanced with all his forces - he sent his medium cavalry on his left wing to support his light cavalry giving him the edge in the subsequent shooting phase, scoring two hits on my light horse.
My turn two
I pulled my light horse back, as below:
I decided to pull my light horse back to safety. My bowmen continued shooting - scoring a couple of hits, as below:
Gordon decided to charge in. Against my infantry bow units he had an equal chance, against my heavy spearmen I was up two; it was unlikely to go well and didn't. Gordon lost all the combats, losing one Byzantine heavy cavalry unit as well as his brilliant commander family representative as below.
At that point Gordon admitted defeat.
Well, Gordon' s plan seemed to be to max out on impetuous and impact cavalry, charge into contact and hope for the best, which to be fair isn't an unusual tactic for ancient/dark age cavalry armies. This time it didn't work. Whilst I find it hard to predict what Gordon will come up with on the day I was expecting him to have had more heavy infantry than he did as it would have given him the advantage in the melee combats.
Neither the battlefield Effect nor the camelry unit had any impact on the game.
Gordon's comments
Pre-Game
Despite
the battlefield effect for the Arabs, I need some points so bid to invade.
As
the defender Alec will simply have to sit on the corner with some terrain to
protect one or more flanks.
The
Arabs can have a nicely balanced force, or go infantry heavy, or cavalry heavy.
I imagine there will be a lot of heavy infantry, with some cavalry to take
advantage of one of my many mistakes.
The
obvious choice for me is to maximise the heavy spearmen on my side and try to
batter my way through (if I can suitably propitiate the God of Dice). However,
that sounds pretty dull and as I have to have at least 6 heavy cavalry I take
impetuous Frankish cavalry, six Kavallarioi, some light horse archers and some
medium bow horse. Each command also gets some heavy spearmen as back up and
something g to rally on (why does that never work in any set of ancient war
games rules? Did it ever work in reality? Did the manuals get it all wrong?)
If Alec doesn’t get the terrain or surprises me with a cavalry heavy force I have some chance, and worst case is I can stand in front of his spearmen and shoot at them. Given a six hour game I might even win that way. Or in the real war game world I might get some disorders and take a chance on hitting a weak unit or two in combat.
The Deployment
Alec
gets a very secure flank on my left and lines up lots of spearmen and some
bowmen, all backed by good heavy cavalry. There is not a lot deployed opposite
my left flank. I can’t see why Alec would risk a flank march, so the ambushes
are real.
I put the Byzantine command with the light and medium horse archers on my left. Line up the Kavallarioi of both Byzantine commands in my centre and the Franks on the right. While far from ideal for the Frankish cavalry I have a notion of lushing them through the plantation opposite while their spearmen demonstrate aggressively. The rest of the cavalry to advance and shoot at anything they can. With a bit of luck they might even get to kill the bowmen and open some holes in his otherwise largely impenetrable line of spearmen.
The Game
The
starvation battlefield effect is annoying, but not such a big deal if Alec is
just going to sit there.
So,
everyone advances. Alec throws some light horse forward on my left but I have
more luck shooting and they don’t fancy the medium cavalry so retreat into the
field. My centre advances to shooting range and his bowmen outshoot my cavalry
(not entirely surprising given the cavalry are mediocre for shooting, but rather
buggers up the plan).
I
could keep trying to inflict damage and get my Franks through the plantation
(natural cavalry country), but we have only a couple of hours left. And I am
being outshot by his bowmen. So, the cavalry charge to destruction causing not
one hit on the bowmen).
Game over – I am not going to win this now.
Post-Game
Alec
got a good position and made great advantage of it. It is something of a theme
for the defender, and often convinces me I have lost as soon as deployment is
finished. You need some troops that can cause a sudden explosive loss to make
such a game interesting. It all comes down to the dice, but at least there is
some jeopardy for both sides.
Result
Umayyad victory - minus one Prestige Point to the Julii
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