As usual March saw the regular ToIL early medieval MeG competition taking place at Boards & Swords Hobbies in Derby. This is always a good weekend and this year 22 players took part.
I went with a Great Seljuq Empire army and to see how I did, read on ...
The army I chose was:
I took this list as it is a while since I used a proper horse archer army and I was missing the running around and shooting 😁 I also felt that with a good number of Skilled shooters it was well placed to take on the current "meta" of large "stodge" armies. The Sultan's personal guard act as a "punch" unit and with the Mamalik form "hard points" around which the horse archers operate. It would have been nice to have a Fortified Camp, but the list does not allow this and so I was expecting the camp could be lost in some games.
The draw for the first game saw me matched up against Hammy who was using Moravian (randomly chosen for him). Not exactly a well known army but consisting of fairly usual early medieval troop types of blocks of "stodge" infantry and charging cavalry; would be quite big and as it had quite a few archers would be a challenge.
I won the initial dice roll and defended in Plains (shock!) and we ended up on a featureless plain with no terrain to worry about. I outscouted Hammy by 40% (IIRC) so he would have to show his hand before me when deploying which is always an advantage with a horse archer army IMO. The Moravians deployed in a solid formation with their infantry in the centre, a fairly strong cavalry wing on their left and cavalry in reserve. As this left their right flank a bit open I massed my army to my left with most of the Skilled shooters to that side; I had a unit of mamalik and horse archers on my right to delay the Moravian left wing as best they could. I accepted that my camp would quite possibly fall but the plan was to cause enough damage to the Moravian right flank that I would win there.
It looked like this:
The game started as you would expect. I pushed my right flank troops forward to delay the Moravian left and also advanced on my left to get my horse archers up for shooting. The Moravians advanced on their left but held back on their right and redeployed their reserve cavalry to wards that flank.
And this continued for a bit as I got to within shooting range on my left. However, my right was under pressure.
The following move was something of a defining moment. On my left the Moravians charged my horse archers who were being supported by the Sultan's guard as a "hard point". Alas, the dice for the variable moves were distinctly unkind. The guard rolled a long move and 2 horse archer units rolled 1s (one for skirmish the other for run away). This was pretty much the worst possible result. If just the guard had rolled a normal move it would probably have been reasonably OK, but the dice said no ...
2 horse archer units caught, one in the rear. The one caught in the rear didn't last long and the Sultan's guard didn't last much longer, although the other horse archers did hold out for a bit but they went under a move or so later. Bit of a bugger really 😭
On my right the camp was unsurprisingly overrun and I was left scrambling for points as Hammy pushed for victory.
I did get one of the Moravian units with a charge in their rear by a mamalik unit, but that was it and my army went down. There had been a few other poor evade dice rolls along the way - to a degree that it just got funny rather than frustrating.
So 2-15; not the start I wanted but, maybe oddly, still an enjoyable game.
In the afternoon I played Philip Powell and his Later Nikeforian Byzantines. We've played a few times when he has used various set ups with this army, and so far I have been successful.
I again won the first dice roll and defended, however, Philip won the territory card play and we fought in Standard terrain. We had a couple of woods on the Byzantine table edge and a piece of rough on the left (secure flank) and a hill on the right in the Byzantine rear that had no effect on the game.
I outscouted the Byzantines by just 10% but that was enough to mean they would show their hand first.
Philip deployed his camp between 2 woods and put some weak troops in the woods to keep them out of harms way. The fighting part of the Byzantine army then deployed to their left of the woods with a centre of Varangians including the guard, with a unit of Tagmatic and Thematic cavalry on either wing. Not that wide, but quite tough. I split may army basically into 2 parts with a unit of mamalik accompanied by horse archers on each wing, the left also had the guard. I had nothing in my centre and each wing had one of the Arab cavalry units. It looked like this:
My plan is to envelop both wings, with the hardest push being on my left where I can use the guard as an effective combat unit. I also think I can run one unit of the Arab cavalry straight at the Byzantine camp as it is undefended and sack it - reducing the number of proper units I will need to break.
The Byzantines advance cautiously, but feel that the Tagmatic unit on their right is vulnerable to my guard (I'd agree) and so start to withdraw it - of course, this just helps me envelop that flank.
You may have noticed that on my right I have got one of the Arab cavalry units around the Byzantine wing; this will be very useful in a while but they will need to swap from Skirmisher to Loose formation before they can do anything really useful.
My enveloping moves carry on and with the withdrawal of the Thematic cavalry I can gang up quite a lot on the Tagmatic cavalry of the Byzantine right. My right is under a little more pressure but I'm not feeling particularly threatened. It is all feeling a bit Manzikert at this point - in a good way 😁
Not shown in the above picture is the Arab cavalry unit about to charge the Byzantine camp ...
Good shooting on my left heavily damages the Tagmata and the pressure of the guard force the Thematic cavalry to return to stop the guard getting into the rear of units. I am very happy for these to fight my guard as I expect to win that fight. The right is less successful but under control and the Arab cavalry there switch to Loose formation in anticipation of charging something in the flank or rear. The Arab cavalry get close to sacking the Byzantine camp.
As expected the guard get the better of the Thematic cavalry and reduce them to nearly broken quite quickly. On the right the Arab cavalry charge and break the Thematic cavalry on that wing aided by horse archer shooting. And the Arab cavalry finish off the Byzantine camp, albeit they are recued to half their bases as the camp fought back (well, the Arab cavalry were Poor)/
On my right the victorious Arab cavalry and horse archers do not have long to celebrate their destruction of the Thematic cavalry as the Tagmatic cavalry on that wing exact brutal revenge. However, as I am winning elsewhere I am not bothered.
On the left my horse archers shootdown the damaged Tagmatic unit and the guard finish off the other Thematic unit. It is all looking bad for the Byzantines ...
The end came shortly after this as the guard and mamalik combined to crush a Varangian unit by charging it front and rear and so break the Byzantine army.
15-4 to me and I was very pleased after the morning's result. I felt I'd done everything right this time and had also not suffered any embarrassing evade dice rolls.
So a combined 17-6 on the day. Had hoped for more obviously, but with a good day 2 I could still finish respectably 😁
Accounts of day 2 will follow.
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