Outremer and Reconquista - The Zengid Experience Part 4

The 4th and last game of Outremer and Reconquista sees me in 4th place following my 3rd round defeat. However, I am still within striking distance of the top so all to play for, a win would see me podium at the least.

So how did I do? Read on and see...

In this game I finally get to face one of the numerous Later Crusader armies in the competition; this one being played by Peter Entwistle.

Last recap of my list:

I was the invader and Pete managed to get a Deep Water secure flank on his left. The only other piece of terrain was a Vineyard on Pete's right so he had a nice area in which to deploy his army and deprive me of chances of getting round the flanks.

I won the scouting so was able to get a good idea of where the crusaders were going to deploy. Pete loaded nearly all his mounted troops on his left with his Ayyubid Syrian States allied mamluks next to the Deep Water. Faced with this I decided that a somewhat "route 1" approach was the way to go so deployed nearly all my heavy cavalry in a line extending from the Deep Water with Armenians next to this. The thinking was that the Armenians could "bully" the mamluks and my shooting cavalry should be able to deal with Pete's knights as these were Average - as long as my shooting was OK of course. The Turkmen ally was away on my left to distract Pete's right which included his unit of Superior military order knights.

So it looked like this:

All the allies on table were reliable so we were off ...

My first move had all the subtlety of a brick 😁 A big push forward on the right pretty much as far as I could go. On the left the Turkmen rush forward to distract. Pete has pretty poor discs, especially on his right, and pushes forward a bit.

Move 2 and the charges start immediately. My Franks charge at 2 units of Pete's mamluks - as he has downgraded their shooting to Unskilled I am happy to take the risk of the shooting, and in this charge I am only slowed.

Pete's 2 knight units charge; one contacts my Syrian cavalry (I am hoping they lose slowly here) and the other has charged mamalik and Turkmen who skirmish away and shoot a base off. The Syrian cavalry suffer a bit in the fighting and are 2 bases down at the end of the move. Onj my left some Crusader shooting had badly damages a Turkmen unit, however, they are drawing away troops including the Superior knights so all is good.

My Armenian cavalry have wheeled which threatened the flank of the knights fighting my Syrian cavalry which forced Pete to bring up an Average unit of mamluks to cover the flank. As they would have to take a charge from the Armenians to continue to cover the flank I was quite happy with this.

Next move my Franks again charge at the 2 mamluk units who again evade; this time, however, I lose a base to the Black dice shooting.

The Armenians badly damage the mamluks they are fighting over the turn and usefully the Syrian cavalry hang on and take another base off the knights, although they are just a Wound from breaking. The other knight unit again charges, my troops evade and the knights lose another base.

On my left my damaged Turkmen are shot down, but the second unit pulls back a fair distance and so continues to distract 3 crusader units. All going OK so far; the lost unit is just one of those things.

Next move is a bit of a mix of success and frustration - so fairly normal MeG then 😂

On my right the Franks charge in hitting both mamluk units. They severely batter one of them, but as Pete brings up some (Poor) spearmen to threaten their flank they break off and are 2 bases down at the end of the move.

The Armenians fail to break the mamluks they are fighting, although they reduce them to 3 bases (half); this is a tad frustrating as if they had broken them their pursuit would have taken them into the flank of the Poor spearmen mentioned above which would, hopefully, have been rather devastating. Ah well, it happens.

The knights who had been reduced to 4 bases again charged but were destroyed by the shooting of the mamalik and Turkmen they had charged. Good news 😁 On the other hand the Syrian cavalry broke (expected) but in their rout rolled a 1 for the distance and so the knights pursuing them did not end up where I had anticipated and where I had my Bedouin cavalry unit placed to flank charge them. Got to love the dice 😞 That said, the knights were pretty isolated and down to 4 bases.

The following move was quite dramatic.

The (now) 4 base knight unit charged my mamalik and Bedouin; as the latter could not evade I chose to stand the mamalik as well and the shooting and combats broke the knights. My cavalry pursued into useful positions to threaten the crusader infantry in future moves.

At the same time the Armenians broke the mamluks they were fighting and their pursuit took them behind the Poor spearmen who had moved out of the way, but had not been able to do anything other than go straight forward.

To try and unjam things Pete had charged my Franks with both the mamluks facing them. Whilst this reduced the Franks to 3 bases the damaged mamluk unit broke - think I was a bit fortunate there. Pete had lost 3 units rapidly in 1 turn. Elsewhere units moved around a bit but nothing decisive.

The Armenians now charged the Poor spearmen in the rear and rode over them as if they were not there. On the rest of the table there was some jockeying for position. I was trying to work my bedouin behind the crusader infantry whilst Pete manoeuvred other infantry to threaten the flank of a mamalik unit.

Again the next move was relatively quiet. Some of Pete's infantry ended up in combat with a mamalik unit, but neither side did much damage. My Armenians turned round to aim at the crusader camp and I moved units to threaten the remaining Ayyubid mamluk unit to keep it honest/

The next move teed up the finale. The Armenians advanced up to the camp and would charge it next turn. Likewise I lines up a rear charge on the remaining mamluks. However, my previously unengaged and undamaged unit got into a fight with crusader infantry and promptly collapsed to half bases 😖

The end came the following move when my Armenians charged into the camp and sacked it in the Charge Phase ending the game.

The final score was 15-7 to me.

However, as Lee had beaten Robin Spence on top table I could "only" make 2nd place with my 54 points compared to Lee's perfect score of 60 from his 4 games. Many congratulations to him 😁

The final scores were:

Overall it was a great weekend's gaming. I think MeG works really well for the crusades and brings out the different troop types and tactics better than any other "generic" ancients set I have played. I think it would only be bettered by a dedicated crusades set.

Finally, here are some pictures of Pete Entwistle's beautifully painted crusaders that I played in my last game. Deserving winners of the best Painted prize 😁