Last night we ended the week with a 15mm battle between a force of Sicilian Normans and a Byzantine army. The game was based on a real battle but I cant recall it now - basically it what is known in our group as "a line them up and charge" battle, which, although we wargamers often try to avoid, is actually what most battles were, at least until the advent of firearms!
We used "To the Strongest" rules - the Normans had four commanders all heroic and the Byzantines 3, all sub standard. the effect of this on play was that a unit with a commander in the same box could retake both an activation and a combat test for the Normans, but only the activation test for the Byzantines.
The Normans on average were better troops and had 18 coins in their morale store, whilst the Byzantines had 15. John and I were the Byzantines with Julian and Mark the Normans.
The initial layout of the two armies - Normans on the far side were the attackers
Byzantine heavy spearmen with regular archers ahead and a screen of light skirmishers covering the line
One of the many Byzantine units of light skirmisher archers
The Norman centre - two units of peasant levies alongside two units of heavy knights
The Norman commander surrounded by mounted knights and heavy dismounted men at arms
The Byzantine commander with the best of the Byzantine army
The Byzantine right prepares to meet the Norman advance
The Norman right (Julian) advances en masse against John
The Norman left (Mark) advances against my position
A scrappy melee quickly developed on my flank. The Normans destroyed one unit of skirmishers and we lost a coin....
A unit of knights in front of Johns position is disrupted by arrow fire
Johns heavy cavalry charged by Julian's Lombard's
On John's flank, the Lombard's continued to advance but the Byzantine line held firm
Compare this image with the one two above - two units of Norman heavy cavalry have departed the field - at this stage, the Normans had lost 3 or 4 units at 2 coins each, whilst we had still only lost the one unit of skirmishers....
One of my heavy cavalry units charged Marks remaining knights - an inconclusive combat left both units disrupted
The ongoing action on our left, another unit of Lombard cavalry attacked on three sides. Light units can only attack a flank or rear in these rules, but if they do, they get two card turns to inflict damage AND the target cant fight back!
Julian had a number of stunning card turning failures - this is one of them - a 1 for activation on both of his commands, so neither of them could do anything
The two commanders confront each other in the centre of the battlefield
Another lucky result for us - Julian activated a unit with his commander attached, turned a 1, had a second attempt ...and got another 1 - anything but a 1 would have activated the unit!
The junction of my two commands on the right flank - a significant portion of Mark's force was now absent and we had lost one more unit - so the coin count was around 12 to the Byzantines to 8 for the Normans
The quality of this image is poor but I left it in to show another example of Julian's card turning prowess - this time he activated with a pair of 10's, more or less guaranteeing that each unit could only take one action.
A lone unit of skirmishers holds out against two superior units of Normans
The Byzantine centre - the mounted unit in the upper right is the solitary surviving Norman unit in this shot
Roughly the same position in the next move - that Norman unit is now disrupted and being attacked from two sides - the Normans were down to 3 coins
The final nail in the Norman's coffin - John destroys the last unit of Lombard cavalry, taking the Norman coin count down to ZERO - whilst the Byzantines retained 11 coins!
A final view of the centre of the filed - many of the best Byzantine units in the centre bottom played no part in the action, having hardly moved since the Norman advance commenced a couple of hours previously.
A great game and an unexpected result - John in particular did very well against Julian's superior forces.
Splendid battlelines...until chaos everywhere! A bloody and beautiful looking game rross...
ReplyDeleteThank you Phil...yes, the tidy ordered lines did not last long, once the combat commenced!
ReplyDeleteGame looks good and what a margin of victory. I recently played my first game of TtS! and it was good fun. I want to get it into a regular gaming rotation.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jonathan - over the last 6-9 months our Friday night group has probably used this rule set more than any other, although we do use Kallistra a bit too. The cards instead of dice takes a bit of getting used to and I am not sure how accurately it represents the effect of arrow fire or edged weapons, but its a fun game and the coins mean you generally get a winner, un like many rule sets.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is bloody dice game! ...oh hang on a second there weren't any dice...either way we were robbed...I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteIf we based it on the luck you had with those cards Mark, both you and Julian would be married to super models who were also wargamers!
ReplyDeleteNice looking armies,I think it's a pretty good game,dice or cards it's all an element of luck,I do like that you usually get some sort of go(unless you keep turning aces as your friend did!) So your not rolling to activate and then doing nothing.
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Yes agreed Iain - the (quite) recent move in many rules sets towards having to activate each turn before you can do anything can be very frustrating if you are having a bad dice day! The use of the coins can be a bit artificial - we have had many games where it has come down to an element of luck as to who got rid of whose last one or two coins to get a win - but at least you get a result - bit like a penalty shoot out to decide the world cup final - not ideal but better than no winner!
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