Seljuqs of Rum at Skullrollers 2021 - Round 2

 

To follow the account of the victory of my Seljuqs over the Almoravids in the first round of the 2021 "Skullrollers" competition, here is what transpired in the second round...

To recap my army:

The second round draw matched me up against Jacques "The Belgian MeG Prophet" who was using his much favoured, and quite unusual in composition, Nikeforian Byzantine.

As you can see Jacques approach was to take all the really really tough troops and not to worry about the size of the army. Small may not be favoured by many but the quality troops in this list take some beating and it is an army that will never die wondering. With all those quality troops even with my numbers my shooting was not going to be as effective. Jacques went on to finish 7th of 30 in the competition, showing what the list can do.

Unfortunately due to circumstances totally beyond his control (issues with getting food at lunchtime on the first day) Jacques only got to our table 45 mins after the scheduled start time. Very annoying for us both, but we had to just roll with it.

Once again I defended in the plains of Anatolia and we ended up with an almost open table but with one wood on Jacques base edge which allowed him some flank protection. I outscouted him, but only by 10% - useful as it meant Jacques deployed troops before I did, but not decisive.

After deployment the table looked like this:

I had toyed with sending the ally on a flank march on my right, and if we had not been delayed may well have done so, however, decided to keep him on table - as you can see he was reliable at the start. I floated my C-in-C as usual and had most of my Skilled shooters on my right.

Jacques deployed in a compact formation with his good stuff up front which helped protect the weaker troops from my archery.

His front line from right to left was Normans, Tagmatic cavalry, Katafraktoi and Varagians. No easy targets there.

The first move saw Jacques advance cautiously - no point in leaving flanks hanging after all - and my troops move up on both wings.

In the second move Jacques has truly awful cards and can hardly move. Any forward advance would have played into my hands and so he very sensibly actually pulled back his main line cavalry.

I pushed forward again of course to start getting some shooting going. I also moved some of the allied Turkmen round to threaten to go through the wood, although I doubted anything would come of it - but it could cause Jacques to spend cards where he didn't really want to (he only has 9 remember).

My shooting does not do a lot, mind you we're shooting at a lot of quality stuff so not a total shock. Jacques having more reasonable cards, but still not great as I recall, resumes advancing his cavalry teeing them up to drive off my horse archers. I do manage to slip my skirmisher horse archers round his flank though.

On his left Jacques charges and my shooting does damage the Average unit but doesn't do a lot on the rest of his cavalry. His Shoot & Charge does about the same back to me - fair exchange is  no robbery as they say.

On the other flank I get a bit lucky against the Varangians and they have now lost 2 bases from their 6.

During the move I manage to insert my Arab cavalry into a gap that has appeared in the Byzantine line.

The next move is a bit mixed for me. Whilst my Arabs threatening to get in behind his cavalry meant that Jacques held back the Normans whilst charging the Tagmatic cavalry - thus meaning his line is getting fragmented - his Thematic cavalry catch and break my largest unit of Skilled shooter Turkmen after they rolled an unfortunate 1 on the skirmishing VMD; ah well, one of those things.

However, you will note that the Tagmatic cavalry charge has allowed my Christian mercenary knights to position themselves for a flank charge ...

My skirmisher horse archers meanwhile, were playing tag with the Byzantine Prokoursatores.

Unfortunately after this I forgot to take more pictures.

However, my skirmisher horse archers shot down the Prokoursatores and the Tagmatic cavalry succumbed to the flank charge after a bit of resistance although they did break a unit of Turkmen who had also charged them to try and speed up the combat. Jacques Normans were charged in the flank twice but were putting up a great fight. Else where it was a bit of a stand off.

However, shortly after this picture our time ran out. I had moved the mamalik you see above into a position to charge the Katafraktoi in the rear, which would have been followed the next turn by the second unit of mamalik hitting them again. My Christian mercenaries were lining up to attack the Normans as well and so I think that if we had had the full game time I would have won the game, however, I think Jacques would have broken another couple of my units.

Whilst we ended up 6-6 I think I could have got a 15-8 out of it - all dice dependant of course ...

The third game is here.