"To the Strongest" Medieval Spanish Game

On Friday we had a five player game of "To the Strongest" with a scenario pitting Muslim Andalusians against Christian Europeans of an El Cid variety - actually, they are Normans but no one was counting!

The scenario came from a real Medieval battle but I don't know what or where. The Muslims had a small force deployed in sight on a hill in front of the Spanish army advancing in column. The Spaniards started to deploy to attack this small force but then realized there were vast numbers more Muslim troops in the dead ground that they had not seen - an ambush had been sprung - this was the point at which the game commenced.

I tried to do some maps of the action but it was so confused with the ebb and flow that to be honest I really cant do it accurately, so gave up after three! Basically, Chris' Muslim cavalry on the right came forward very quickly and inhibited Nicks left/centre of the Spanish force for most of the game. In the centre, John charged forwards with his cavalry too and engaged some of Nicks knights frontally. Julian on the Muslim left had only infantry but he came forward too to attack my Spaniards on our right wing.

In the ensuing action, I had a great deal of luck with my bowmen, who hardly missed a shot all night and "popped" several of Julian's light infantry units as they only required a single hit without a save to be wiped out. As usual with these rules, we had a pile of coins representing army morale, ours was 15 and the Muslims 18 at the start of the game.

When the game ended three hours later (with a break for Thai takeaway dinner) we had lost about 4 coins and the Muslims were down to 0!

This is not really a true reflection of the game as Chris certainly had the better of things on his wing, but the fact that the majority of the Muslim force was light made it quite easy for us to knock them out and each time one went, they lost another coin. The game ended appropriately when my archers were able to get three unsaved hits on a double sized heavy infantry unit under Julian's command, losing them the last coins. I think my missile troops probably accounted for 75% of our success in this game - which was strange as we have often had games where archery is completely useless and scores hardly any hits at all.....

Above - Initial deployment of the two armies as the game commenced

 The first moves as the Muslim army advances rapidly to catch the Spaniards before they could deploy.....

Position after the first couple of moves - I gave up on the idea of the map after this as I could not really track the movements accurately....Chris came right down the flank and onto the high ground and caused Nick a lot of trouble, knocking out two or three units of light cavalry. John engaged with both Nick and me in the centre - one of my heavy cavalry units pushed him right back to his own table edge before destroying him, but were then hit in the rear by Muslim infantry although I think they survived. Julian advanced against me but my archers killed everything that came in range.

The Muslim left under Julian

 The Muslim Centre under John

 The Muslim right wing under Chris

 The starting position for Nick's force

 The initial deployment of my force opposite Julian

 My infantry commander

First moves - my archers on the hill and in woods backed by heavy infantry - cavalry on the left of the woods engaging John

My cavalry advancing on the right - in the background the Spanish left and Johns centre confront each other 

Nicks light cavalry melee with John in the centre - I think Nick lost this fight 

Julian's black clad Muslim infantry advance on their left towards my force 

The situation on our left - Nick's cavalry pushed back by John's advance 

 Johns heavy cavalry with light cavalry to their rear

My archers on the hill prepare to "darken the skies" 

 My knights advancing in the centre

 My knights engage John's cavalry to the right whilst Johns remaining cavalry push forward against Nick

 On our right, my other cavalry force attack Julian's infantry unit 

The knights won the melee and another Muslim unit was removed from play

The confused situation on Nick's wing - infantry in the woods and cavalry confronting each other - the two units in front of the woods are part of Chris' force from the Muslim right wing. John's central force are just out of sight but were on Nick's cavalry's right flank here 

 Nick's knights have disordered Chris' heavy cavalry in the melee

 Another unit of Julian's black clad infantry in combat with Spanish heavy infantry. This was an extra heavy unit with spearmen backed by archers and took three hits to remove rather than two.

 And they came off worse - now disordered

 My solid line on the right wing of the Spanish army - the disordered infantry from the previous shot have retired to the hill, where they had four rounds of archery to contend with - I achieved four hits and Julian could only save one of them - game over as the Muslim coin pile ran out!

 Final position on my wing

Final position on Nicks wing - Chris still dominates the flank with his units of Muslim cavalry, but John was pretty weak in the centre and Julian had lost two thirds of his force, mainly to the archers.