Later Crusader vs. Ilkhanate - how good is that podcast list?

 

After the last MeG Podcast on the later Crusades it was inevitable that one of the lists got a run out. So Ray ran the Later Crusader list that went down so well on the podcast, whilst I used an Ilkhanate army that I painted up last year during one of the lockdowns. As to what transpired, read on ...

Ray won the initial dice off with a skull - 2nd time in 3 games he's done that - and chose to invade. Also winning the first card play he picked Standard terrain and chose to start the PBS "gamelet" in Normal density with Mountains/Forest secure flank. The only thing that changed with the card playing was we moved to having no secure flank terrain. Terrain placement led to 2 pieces of Rocky Ground on one flank (my left, Ray's right).

So lots of open space for manoeuvre and knightly charges. I'd have preferred a bit more rough terrain scattered about the field, but to be honest was not too bothered. More importantly I outscouted Ray by 50%. I generally feel that a good outscouting percentage is more important than control over the terrain for horse archer armies. It allows you to concentrate your effective shooting from the outset and forced the opponent to be a bit conservative in deployment.

After deployment the table looked like this.

The Crusaders have Unprotected archers on the wings with units of mixed crossbowmen and spearmen next to them and in the centre of their line, with a unit of (Superior) Crusader Knights and another of (Average) Outremer Knights also up front - the former more central. At the back waiting to go where needed are the Military Order Knights including a 4 base unit of Fanatics.

The Ilkhanids have most of their horse archers on the right with a unit of Superior types roughly central and a unit of ordinary Mongol cavalry left. Also on the left is a Cilician Armenian vassal ally with a couple of units of charging cavalry, some foot archers and a unit of rubbish spearmen.

Some shots of the combatants before we got underway.

The Armenian ally was happy to participate today.

This ally has been taken with a Talented general - I consider it too important to how the army operates to take a lesser general as it needs to be onside from the start. Other army set ups can stand a few moves of a hesitant ally and so a (cheaper) Competent is an acceptable risk, but not this army.

First move saw no great surprises. The Crusaders pushed their infantry forward with most of the knights holding a bit back, only the superior Crusading Knights were up with the infantry advance. However, Ray did decide early which way his Military Order reserve was going and moved it towards the Ilkhanid left where their ally was and there were fewer shooters. The Ilkhanids pushed shooty cavalry forwards and on the right manoeuvred a unit on a sweep around the Crusader left wing. All relatively sedate and cautious. The situation at the end of the move looked thus:

A closer shot of the Military Order block.

Move two saw the initial moves develop with the Ilkhanids bringing their shooting to bear on the Crusader left hoping to use their Skilled shooting to take out the Crusader infantry and thus open up the flank. The best Ilkhanid cavalry was in a position to contain the Crusading Knights and hopefully wear them down with shooting - although with the knights being Superior even their Skilled shooting would only be on White dice not Green, albeit with "S" counting as a Wound.

The Crusaders continued to advance their push on their right wing advancing the Military Order "hammer" towards the rather outnumbered Mongol cavalry. The Ilkhanid's Armenian vassals remain in reserve to allow shooting to do some damage. At the end of this turn things looked like:

Closer shots of the main parts of the field:

Move three not unexpectedly sees some shooting start, but no charges yet from the Crusaders who, sensibly, want to hold these back until the best moment. Obviously the Ilkhanids have no interest in charging at this point. The first bout of shooting sees a few bases knocked off but nothing too dramatic.

The Crusader mixed infantry units have an interesting decision to make; their front rank has Shield Cover but if they use this the bases that do cannot shoot, thus they have to decide whether to maximise the damage they can do or to maximise their resilience. Also, if they choose Shield Cover they are Slowed by 1 BW (but could choose to prompt through if they want should they have the cards).

In this move they went for the better shooting. Both sides seemed overly capable of rolling blanks and so, as mentioned, there was not too much damage. This was to be a feature of a few rounds of shooting on this flank.

On the whole the situation on the Crusader left/Ilkhanid right remained fairly static with both sides happy to see how the shooting panned out, although the Crusaders did wheel another crossbow unit to pressure the Ilkhanid's best cavalry.

On their right the Crusaders continued their controlled push but the Ilkhanid's vassals now advanced their charging cavalry up to a position where they would be able to charge the infantry on the Crusader right and the weaker knight unit, the Outremer Knights.

The situation now looked like this, and both sides expected that the next move could well prove important:

The observant will have noted that at the end of this move Ray had held back a significant number of cards in expectation of how important the next move could be. These were to ensure that his charges could go in, and also push through shooting if necessary. It meat not making some possible moves in the turn, but it was a better approach and fits with the prudent nature of successful Crusader warfare. MeG rewards the historical approach in this (sort of) historical match-up.

And a few more close up shots from around the field of battle.

When the cards were dealt for the next turn there was a minor disaster for the Ilkhanids. To get the charging cavalry to do what I wanted I had calculated that I would probably need 2 Whites, a Green, and a Yellow card - although in an ideal world only 1 White and 2 Greens would be better. I had held back a Yellow from the previous move as part of my plan. The idea being, of course, to charge the units as a Block with the Yellow for Pushing Through Fire - not wholly fool-proof, but I think likely to be adequate. Alas, the cards dealt were 2 Black and a Green.

Change of plan required ...

The decision was made to throw one unit into the crossbowmen on the grounds that they were going to be shot at anyway, and hope to cause damage - the wing would not collapse if it went wrong so felt an acceptable risk, and if it went right the rewards were potentially good. The general went in with them to maximise the impact and chance of breaking through. It would mean that no other Armenian unit would be doing anything this move.

At the same time Ray charged the non-Fanatic Military Order unit at Mongol Cavalry who Ran Away to avoid the chance of being caught. Being Skilled shooters they still shot on White dice as opposed to the White+ if they had Skirmished, so could still be effective - alas they weren't.

Ray also moved the Fanatic unit towards his right to cover any potential issues the Armenian cavalry might cause and pushed the Outremer Knights towards the Armenian cavalry pushing the skirmisher archers back in the process.

As later events show this was probably an over cautious move by Ray as it took the Fanatics out of the game for a while. Whilst they had no obvious enemy in front of them at the time they did have a direct and free route to the Ilkhanid camp which whilst not a high status target is a TUG towards break and causes a KaB on all enemy units if destroyed. Maybe Ray felt it was beneath the dignity of the Fanatics?

On the Ilkhanid wing shooting reduced a Crusader crossbow unit to fairly dire straights, but otherwise shooting was a bit ineffectual.

The fighting between the Armenians and the crossbowmen resulted in 3 bases lost each and the Armenians broke off. This was advantage Crusaders as the Armenian cavalry was now 1 Wound off breaking whilst the crossbowmen still had 5 of their 8 bases left.

The end of turn situation looked like this:

In the following move the Armenian cavalry charged the Outremer Knights. The unit reduced to 3 bases was involved on the basis that it might do something in the charge and if it didn't it would probably be destroyed by shooting before movement anyway. As it happened it did nothing and broke on contact - but the resulting KaBs did nothing. The better Armenian cavalry reduced the Outremer Knights to 3 bases whilst remaining intact themselves.

Before anyone asks, the odd looking position of one of the Outremer Knight bases is due to the charge of the now-destroyed second Armenian cavalry unit and how that contact panned out.

Elsewhere the non-Fanatic Military Order unit charged the Mongol cavalry who this time skirmished, but were slowed and just came up short in the charge. However, the Mongols had now run out of table and thus would be contacted next time, although the Armenian skirmishers had moved to be able to shoot the knights so things were not entirely clear cut.

On the other wing we had a round of seeing who could roll the most blanks in the shooting phase. Next to no damage was done despite quite a few dice being Green or even Yellow. More than a little frustrating for the Ilkhanids who had, reasonably I think, expected to create a hole this move. Ah, well that's how it goes. Situation was now:

Close ups:

I mainly remember the next move for being yet another where we were checking our shooting dice to make sure there were sides that weren't blank. I suppose the saving grace was that it was both of us - although I'm sure either of us would have been happy if it were only the other that had the blanks ...

So to a great extent the Ilkhanid right/Crusader left stayed to a great extent as it had been.

On the other flank the Outremer knights broke in the Charge Phase (that oddly placed base had to charge the Armenians so there was a charge combat) and the Armenians pursued into the Fanatics, although little damage was done by either side in this bound. Ray moved his righthand crossbowmen into a position too charge the flank/rear of the Armenians in the next move; their days are numbered.

The other Military Order unit charged the Mongols and despatched them in the Combat Phase, although they had lost 2 bases during this. They then pursued into the Ilkhanid camp.

A fairly quick turn that left us like this:

The next turn was the last we played as Ray had come down with a serious headache (not the game) and also we felt we knew how it would pan out.

As expected the Armenian cavalry was destroyed between the Fanatics and the crossbowmen. On the Ilkhanid right the shooting finally came good and the persistent crossbow unit was shot away and the Mongol cavalry moved to be able to chare the flank of an archer unit. The second Crusader archer unit on that flank was also in a poor position with an exposed flank and the other crossbow unit was starting to suffer from the shooting of the best Ilkhanid cavalry. That wing was now crumbling quite fast.

Of course, being a MeG game we had to have a comedy moment and this was provided by the Military Order unit fighting the camp - although the archers shooting them did play a part.

Basically, this picture explains. The camp has taken 3 wounds and so is a wound off breaking. However, they have just inflicted the necessary wound on the knights (not marked) to break them.

And at this point we wrapped it up with the assumption that the Ilkhanids would have won 15-8 or 15-6.

A good nip and tuck game in my view, and good to get back using horse archers for me. Also we are pretty much getting back up to proper game speed now which is good. I made a few errors along the way but nothing serious enough to cause me issues. At the end we agreed that Ray had made a significant error in not getting his best unit - the Fanatics - into the game earlier. They are extremely powerful and represent 10% of the army points in just 4 bases; they need to be fighting.