ToILing Away With Uqaylids - Game 1 vs Normans

 

The weekend of the 18th and 19th of March saw the regular ToIL competition held at Boards & Swords Hobbies in Derby (ToIL = Time of Inadequate Light - we don't say "Dark Ages" these days 😁 ).

I took a Bedouin Dynasties army, Uqaylids of Mosul. To see how the first game went, please read on ...

The Bedouin army is one I first used back in the DBM days and was reasonably successful with it. After taking up MeG I have returned to it from time to time. I used it at the 2022 iteration of ToIL and did quite well, but due to circumstances had to leave early and so only played 3 games instead of 4. So it only seemed reasonable to use it again for 2023 and hope to play all 4 games this time.

Initially I was going to use the Hamdanids of Aleppo version that I had presented in the MeG podcast on Nikeforian Byzantines (listen to the podcast HERE, or read the list it HERE), however, after a practice game I decided that the "catafract" Ghilman did not really work and so decided to use a version with 2 units of standard Ghilman. I also found a way of getting a unit of Kurdish charging cavalry into the list by a few changes. This added a bit more punch and I think balanced the army better. I also reverted to Uqaylids as I wanted the option of Plains as a territory type instead of Mountains (all the dynasties have Standard and Coastal as territory to which Hamdanids in Aleppo add Mountains, others Plains).

The list I used was:

I think this is quite nicely balanced, however, it is also a bit of a "bits and pieces" army that isn't string in any one area and needs to get somewhat disparate troops to work together. Whilst it will usually want a fairly open battlefield it likes a few bits of terrain if facing a "heavy punch" army such as the Normans who were popular at the competition.

The first round draw put me up against Keith Spedding who was using Normans. Keith has suffered against my horse archer armies when we have met previously, most recently at Britcon 2022, and I'm sure was happy that my army could not have many horse archers. I was, of course, nervous about the number of good charging cavalry the Normans would field (3 Superior and 3 Average as it transpired).

Keith had a Legendary C-in-C and invaded with a Strategic Intercept. However, we drew the territory selection and so I still got to choose the territory type - I had played a high colour to try and get the choice and it worked. I chose Standard terrain and we ended up with a Secure Flank with steep hills and just one other piece of terrain, a Forest roughly in the centre of the battlefield. I was reasonably happy with this; there was enough open space for my cavalry to manoeuvre, but the Forest broke things up a bit giving me some opportunities as Keith had only skirmisher infantry that could operate properly in terrain. I outscouted the Normans by 60% so got a good idea of where they were going before I had to put any troops down.

The Normans deployed with a couple of "filler" infantry lurking at the back, 2 Average cavalry on their right, a centre of crossbowmen and skirmishing infantry opposite the Forest and their left were the remaining 4 cavalry units, 3 of which were Superior.

I placed my skirmishing infantry and a unit of Bedouin on the hill on my left to threaten the Normans opposite. I wasn't expecting the Bedouins to actually do anything but be a distraction, but in Skirmish formation they still move reasonably well even on steep hills. A small Bedouin unit and one unit of the Armoured Cavalry formed the rest of my left. My centre was, unsurprisingly, the Dailami set up to go through the Forest, and the other Armoured Cavalry unit behind them able to deploy where I needed them. My right was the 2 units of Ghilman with the Kurds a bit to their left and rear, and a unit of Bedouin on my far right. The "junk" Bedouin unit was on the baseline trying to keep well away from any action.

So it looked like this:

First move didn't see any dramatic advances as neither of us had great discs. A bit of an advance on my left, Dailami into the Forest and a push forward on my right with the Ghilman. Keith's left advanced a bit but was limited with only the Average unit on his extreme right double moving.

The following move developed along similar lines. I pushed a bit om my left to see if I could tempt Keith into being rash - no luck there 😉 In the centre my second Dailami moved into the Forest to support the Armoured cavalry next to them to contain the Superior Normans heading that way. Keith's right advanced to get up close to one of my Ghilman units, however, with a sneaky Turn 90 and move they repositioned themselves such that if they were charged they could Run Away forwards to get behind the Normans. Only my far left the Average Normans moved to threaten the Bedouin, but these danced out of direct trouble.

This picture shows where the Ghilman referred to above had moved to.

The next move Keith decided to charge the sneaky Ghilman and they duly Ran Away forward as planned. Being Drilled (and having a general with them) they were able to make a Turn 180 and move 2 BW move back towards the charging Normans now nicely behind their rear ... (the move is available to any troops who have evaded, but it is just a lot easier for Drilled troops).

Keith responded by wheeling the Average Norman cavalry towards the ghilman, however, I was able to switch my Bedouins on that flank to Loose formation from Skirmisher and thus threaten his flank. The manoeuvrability of my army was working here 😁 Not much else developed really in this move.

The following move we had the first fighting 😀 As I was the Active Player my Ghilman could charge in such as way as to take them out of range of the Normans as I could move my charge before Keith could - so they charged. At the same time my Kurds charged the same Norman unit frontally - they would be down in all combats, however, I was looking for some contribution to destroy the Norman Superior unit quickly; it would also pin them in place as I was looking ahead to the possibility of Breaking off with the Ghilman if needed.

Keith started to push tentatively forward on his right this move, partly I think because he was under pressure on his left and was looking where he could get extra points.

In the centre I moved a unit of Armoured Cavalry to be able to flank attack another Norman unit, however, keith had his 3rd SUperior unit placed to be able to prevent that by charging my unit (he would be the Active player next move so get to move first). To give myself the option I moved a Dailami unit into a position where, if able and needed, they would be able to Intercept the Norman charge thus allowing my cavalry to flank charge. It would no doubt see the destruction of the Dailami, but I felt the benefits could be worth it - if I didn't have the disc to do it I'd have to hope the Armoured Cavalry held on to allow the Dailami to possibly flank charge the Normans in a subsequent move.

My Ghilman and Kurds did OK but not great - the Normans lost 2 bases and I only suffered 1 wound back; the Normans failed to do anything against the Kurds surprisingly. I decided that discretion was best and did Break Off with the Ghilman and the resulting KaB meant they lost a base. As my Bedouin had come up to attack the Average Normans from behind I was happy with the situation.

Close up of the situation on my right.

Next move the Norman's woes continue. The Average unit is destroyed by the combination of the Ghilman and Bedouin and the Kurds continue to outperform the Superior unit they are fighting reducing it to 1 Wound from breaking whilst still being fairly healthy themselves.

My Dailami intercept works and they are also lucky not taking too much of a battering and the flank attack of the Armoured Cavalry is effective.

Next move the Dailami are flank attacked by Keith's crossbowmen and in combination with the cavalry fighting them they are destroyed. They have done their job though in my view. A unit of my Ghilman charge the Norman cavalry in the rear in this move as well and the Armoured Cavalry finish off the cavalry they were fighting. I'm closing in on victory now.

The game is finished when the crossbowmen who are trying to move deep into the forest are hit in their rear after the Ghilman rather luckily break the Norman cavalry before they can get away. The Ghilman can (just) fight some of them in open ground and when they break the Norman army is defeated.

A very satisfying 15-2 to me. However, whilst I feel that I played a good game, I also think that Keith had some pretty poor combat luck with his Superior Norman cavalry units - all 3 were destroyed for the loss of just 1 Dailami unit. ven in a losing game he could expect better than that.

An account of my second game is HERE.

Pictures of the armies at deployment.