Dark Ages at the BHGS Challenge 2016

Feudal Spanish vs Tulunid Arab

Game 1 Feudal Spanish vs Tulunid Arab

Game 2 Feudal Spanish vs Communal Italian

Game 3 Feudal Spanish vs Communal Italian

Game 4 Feudal Spanish vs Sicilian Norman

Game 5 Feudal Spanish vs Nikephorian Byzantine

Match Reports Index

Oxford, city of dreaming spires, historic universities who's names are written in the pages of history, golden sandstone buildings and genteel country living, nestled on the edge of the English Cotswolds. That was the theory anyway - the BHGS Challenge takes place in a redbrick upgraded technical college campus within earshot of the lorries and trucks hammering their way up and down the M40 to glamorous destinations such as Wolverhampton and Maidenhead. But anyway.....

My first game was against a Tulunid Egyptian, a rather textbook proto-Mamluk army likely to have shooting horse and some old-school "BwX" type mixed infantry - as well as the handful of Dailami that most of these armies seem to get. With the terrain falling almost entirely on the opposition half I was both fairly confident where their proper foot would be, and where their mounted wing might sit and so I deployed accordingly, aiming to ram my spears into their foot and overwhelm their mounted on the right with both of my mounted commands whilst contesting the rough going on the left with the Almughavars.

With the terrain falling almost entirely on the opposition half I was both fairly confident where their proper foot would be, and where their mounted wing might sit and so I deployed accordingly, aiming to ram my spears into their foot and overwhelm their mounted on the right with both of my mounted commands whilst contesting the rough going on the left with the Almughavars.

This almost succeeded as planned, apart from the minor inconvenience that the Egyptians had refused to take a rough terrain command, and had caught my forces out with a cute deployment of Cavalry in the field on the left, leaving their mounted troops facing my "loose formation foot in the open"...

The right flank was a vast open space into which all of my mounted troops and many of my points were poured - the Egyptians were having none of this however and were instead skirmishing in front of the wall of 2 Dragons steel horsemen in a vague and indecisive fashion

Almost immediately the lack of mounted skirmishers in my army was becoming apparent as a potential problem, as a handful more, potentially Elite Jinetes would have done wonders to clear away the enemy screen. As it was my Impetuous Knights (6) and Heavy Cavalry (4) moved forwards as fast as they could anyway.

On the opposite flank the Almughavars really didn't want to go anywhere in a hurry, as the Egyptian Cavalry deployed in the field opposite them were already practically out of it and into the open plains before the Almughavars had a chance to move. The potential counter to the horsemen was in the shape of the 2 Crossbow units and one Bow unit in the command, but whilst they were dangerous to the horsemen they would be rather squishy in close combat, probably forcing the Almughavars to inch forwards to protect them and the flank of the main spear block.

With nothing meaningful in front of them and enough Egyptian infantry in the middle to threaten the flank of my line of Spears some of the Knights detached themselves from the main formation to go towards the middle as the rest of the line pressed on. Risky...

With a near-inevitable mounted charge skittling the Almughavars the line of Spearmen had already decided to detach a unit of Spearmen to shuffle over to the flank and help out. Whether the Spear command would have enough pips to press its' attack and move this unit long term was however debatable... especially with an Ordinary General.

The Egyptian Cavalry were closing in on the Almughavars, who had been forced to step towards them by the twin imperatives of protecting their bowmen and more importantly the flanks of the advancing spearmen. The Egyptian mixed formations were opening up on the skirmish screen protecting the advancing spears, and some of my newly reformatted markers from Donnington (now on 25mm round MFD bases) were pressed into action.

The Almughavars were ready for heroics, and some of them had even managed to get close to the enemy Bow/Spear formation as well, threatening flanks in the huge gap between the Egyptian Cavalry and their central infantry command. Maybe there was hope and opportunity here after all?

The proximity with which the two armies can choose to start in ADLG was suddenly apparent, as the Spanish skirmishers fell back through their own spearmen leaving the two lines of infantry only a base width apart and ready for a decisive clash. In the pivot of the line a couple of Almughavar units were already in against the Tulunid Swordsmen, but, ominously, markers were starting to spring up amongst the Spanish ranks

In any ruleset, a wild dice swing can upset the best laid plan.... and ADLG is no different. The Egyptian Swordsmen took a mighty swing and carved their way through the Almughavars at a single stroke - what had been a very promising position for the Spanish suddenly was turned on its head and the remaining, already damaged Almughavar unit found itself now badly exposed rather than delicately poised to strike with a decisive flank attack.

Emboldened by the power of their Swordsmen, the Tulunid bowmen nocked their arrows and drew their bows.... and leashed a deadly hail of arrows which blacked out the daytime sky indoors in the lecture hall in Oxford before falling like metaphor-rich sharp and pointy rain on the heads of the Spannish spearmen! Markers sprouted like desert flowers in a downpour and at a stroke the entire line of Spanish Spearmen found themselves at a -1 disadvantage in all future combats... Rallying this many units without taking any further hits was clearly impossible, so the Spearmen now faced a simple, yet unappealing choice of going into combat disadvantaged...

On the right the Arab forces were retreating in good order under a series of repeated charges from the Spanish knights, and their harassing mounted bowfire had already begun to chip away at the Feudal nobles. It was a full-on refused flank from the Egyptians, taking full advantage of the deeper depth of the 300 point game table size to trade space for the opportunity to avoid and disorder the onrushing knights.

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This however was where the battle would be decided, with the Spanish infantry wading into the wall of -in combat - inferior Arab Spearmen, carrying with them a series of hits which ran uniformly along their entire line. The Spaniards were better quality than the Egyptians, but the eroding fire had tipped the odds in favour of the Egyptians everywhere other than where the Spanish Religious Order Spearmen had additional armour.

Chasing the faster-moving evading Arab cavalry was starting to prove a source of major irritation for the Spanish Knights, although now the back of the table was in sight the Egyptian horsemen were increasingly reluctant to keep retreating. Either that, or the by-now fragmented nature of the Spanish formation was such that the Cavalry now felt they had a reasonable chance of success in a straight fight.

The initial round of combat for the two lines of spearmen goes very much in favour of the Arabs, with the Spanish upgrading some of their markers to a 2-hits yellow edged variety - the first time these yellow markers had been out of the box. In the near right, a lone Spanish Spearman has been taking a pummelling from Arab shooting and is now on a Red marker - one hit from destruction.

The Hidalgos and Caballeros are also suffering from muchos shootingios and are being whittled down gradually by a drip drip of bowfire - each time a base goes the Arabs take heart as they see the opportunity for overlaps and flank attacks increase exponentially

The two lines of Spearmen continued to poke away at each other, and the weight of markers was falling entirely on the Spanish side. The longer line of Arab foot gave them an advantage, but with only skirmishers to protect it the Spanish themselves spotted an opportunity for their bowmen to move up and start to threaten their flank.

But the Arabs were more than capable of threatening the Spanish flank in return - their cavalry had almost fully despatched the Almughavars and were already thinking of the damage they would do to the much beleaguered Spanish spearmen, who were moving up the colour scale with an increasingly vibrant collection of cohesion markers in bright Reds and Yellows

With 4 out of 6 units now on Red - one hit away from destruction - the Spanish centre was to all intents and purposes now toast, and were therefore only really fit to have chopped tomatoes or small slices of oily anchovies deposited on top of them for deployment as low-rent tapas items in the rest of the game.

Running out of table the Arab horse took a stand against the Hidalgos and Caballeros.

The Almughavars, in theory the cutting edge of the Spanish army, were utterly eliminated and the Arab horsemen looked around for other targets. A lone Spanish Spearman, long-becalmed as his General had concentrated on bolstering the line of engaged Spearmen, was all that realistically stood in between them and the Spanish flank and baggage. And to be honest, the idea of one unit standing in the way was not especially realistic at all....

...especially when they were too far away to have any influence on the direction of travel of the Mamluks, who ignored the pedestrian Spaniards and instead crashed into the flank of the Javelinmen protecting (in the loosest possible sense of the word) the end of the Spanish Spearman line!

The outcome was short and brutal and entirely expected, and now the once impressive Spanish formation was now a mere shadow of its former self, and a shadow in which almost every unit was just one hit away from destruction to boot..

The Knights and Caballeros were doing much better in upholding the martial values of Medieval Spain, and had even managed to get some previously unseen Arabian markers onto the table as they crashed into, over and in some cases through the Egyptian horsemen facing them.

The Pac-Man like Arab horse were steaming forwards and systematically removing the Spanish spearmen from play turn by turn

The Spanish Hidalgos and Caballeros were faring almost as well against the Egyptian horse on the other flank, as the additional factors of the Knights and the swift appearance of the Hidalgos on the flank, fresh from chasing away LH, was making fairly short work of the Mamluk warriors. Iberian mounted skirmishers flirted with the thought of chasing down the retreating Arab LH who watched nervously from a distance as their superiors were chewed up and spat out.

The line of spears was fast becoming a dot, with only the odd exceptional dice swing to give temporary succour to the Spanish and concern to the Tulunids

With the Spanish left flank evaporated, there even had been time - and pips - for a lone LH unit to sneak it's way past the tabletop detritus and align itself with the masking tape that defined the edge of the world, ready to have a heroic charge at the Spanish encampment and loot all they had which was not a pork-based product (no doubt leaving the Iberians with many days of supplies for their inevitable journey home in defeat)

Some of the Spanish finally decided, after much prompting (and timely rallying) from their General to start to put up something of a last stand, but with fast-moving (12cm) Arab medium foot behind their rear the possibility of devastating flank attacks was very, very real.

The Arab swordsmen crashed into the rear of the Spanish spear line, doing untold devastation whilst more Arab BwX types ploughed forwards towards the rear echelon dregs of combat-unready bowmen making up the soft underbelly of the Spanish centre. Things were almost finished here..

The Result is a substantial defeat!

Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal

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Click here for the report of the next game in this competition

Game 1 Feudal Spanish vs Tulunid Arab

Game 2 Feudal Spanish vs Communal Italian

Game 3 Feudal Spanish vs Communal Italian

Game 4 Feudal Spanish vs Sicilian Norman

Game 5 Feudal Spanish vs Nikephorian Byzantine

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