Friday Night Game - To the Strongest Reconquista

 Last night after work I joined Andrew and Julian for a game of TtS, using Andalusian Moor and Spanish/Norman figures from Julian's collection. many if not all of which were painted by Andrew a decade or more ago.

Julian had put together a scratch scenario that doubtless appears in many of the classic wargaming tomes - the Castilians were in a column of march along one edge of the table, in the process of crossing a river, when an enemy ambush appeared on their flank. The river was negotiable in its entire length, but was a "difficult activation" and troops could only move at one square per operation. We counted the units and divided by three to get our army morale coin total - Julian had 48 = 16 coins, we had 65 = 22 coins. Julian's force was smaller but of better quality.

A rather poor image of the battle field - Spanish on the left heading away from the camera - Andrew commanded the Moors right flank - farthest from camera, whilst I took the centre and left -this side of the river.

Spanish knights advancing - Old Glory Normans I think

Moorish skirmishers armed with javelins

Early in the game I redeployed half of the left flank across the river to join the centre

Andrew got some good activation cards and pelted across the table, almost catching the van guard in the flank...unfortunately, when this shot was taken, he had come to the end of his activations...

The column of Spanish heavy infantry and bowmen with their attackers just visible to the left - they were certainly feeling a little nervous at this point!

Meanwhile on my flank, Spanish knights charged my light infantry skirmishers

I had left three light units on the left flank and advanced with the "Black Guard" in the centre

On our right, Andrews initial charge had been repelled and the Spanish brought the battle to his infantry

My sole cavalry unit (note, Julian needs more Moorish cavalry, especially horse archers!). They charged heavy infantry defending a wood - why? Seemed like a good idea at the time - but of course, they were disordered and repulsed!

At this point, we broke for dinner, so here is a quick interlude of travel images from last weekends trip

Artistically fashioned buildings in Tirau, which is quite famous for its corrugated iron sculpture work 

Rotorua - WW1 memorial to soldiers of the Arawa Tribe (Iwi) surmounted by a rather diminutive King Edward VII

A WW1 artillery piece - I dont know what it is, but I am sure many of you do!

The Bathhouse which was funded by the NZ Government and was its very first organised effort at encouraging tourism

Another bath house adjacent to the previous building

The statue of Sgt Fred W Wylie stands proudly in the Government Gardens with the Museum in the background. He was a brave soldier who fought in the Boer War with the 4th New Zealand Contingent. He was killed in action at the young age of 25. On the back of the statue there is a inscription HE WAS BRAVE AS A LION

And now - as Julian always says when we have finished eating - "Back to the war!"

Julian advanced with his knights up the river and launched an assault against Andrews bowmen

Meanwhile, on my flank, the light infantry had destroyed one unit of Spanish knights and driven off a second - impressive work!

The central mass of the Spanish army, numerous units of good quality heavy infantry spearmen, move up to cross the river and engage the Moors

Julian requested I take this image! We remembered (for the first time in TtS) to do the morale tests for all adjacent units, when any unit was killed. Here, a Black Guard unit has popped in the bend of the river, and I also had the archers in the woods disappear, plus the archers in the bottom shaken - we lost 3 coins in one hit!

The game got a bit hectic at this point and I didn't take many more images. From the time of the previous image, when we had a comfortable lead of 14 coins to 6, Julian gradually whittled us down until we got to 6-3 The final turn saw me kill a unit which caused the morale testing for the units nearby, and one of the lights also popped, thus taking care of the Spaniards last 3 morale coins - we still had 5 - a close run thing indeed!

Above and below are two shots of how the table looked at the conclusion of the game - quite a lot of empty spaces where troops used to be!

A great game and kept us going till after 10pm -I had to apologise for getting a bit emotional at some points - turning cards seems to be just as fraught as rolling dice! The number of times you turn over a 10 when you want a 1 is amazing - and extra frustrating when the 10 would have been the perfect card on the previous turn!