A bit of a mixed evening

This week was supposed to be another Reconquista game, featuring my 20mm plastics and the players from last week. As it turned out I was unable to get enough signal strength in Shedquarters to run the Zoom session, or rather join it. I set it up as an open session, so the non-local participants were able to get in and chat, but the man running the game couldn't. I had set up and tested a slightly different configuration during the day, and it had worked fine. Alas, as soon as the sun went down, I lost wi-fi in Shedquarters. I can’t understand it. I’ve tried today to put in Powerlink connections, but they make no difference. They have confirmed, as I thought, that Shedquarters and the house are on different ring mains, so using the house electrical cabling doesn’t make any difference.

I have moved one of the subsidiary nodes to a different location – it is now in the garage – and that has given me a bit more pep in the various configuration trials today, but the signal strength wavers between 20bps and .01mbps. I’ve been looking back at posts, and I can’t see why I have a problem now that I didn’t have back when we were experimenting with Skype. It is all very frustrating, and I can't keep organising games for people then not have them be able to play.

Anyway, enough of my woes, and on to this week's game. This was a re-run of the Battle of Zalaca, which I've previously done with DBA. The historic accounts of the battle have tens of thousands involved, and piles of dead bodies. It's more likely the armies were about 3-5,000 in size, with the combined Andalusian and Almoravid forces being the larger. Modern thought reckons that Alfonso and his Castilians had about 2,000 heavy cavalry and 1,000 foot. Looking at where the battle was probably fought would indicate that's probably right, assuming a couple of metres per horseman, and them fighting in two waves.

The battlefield is a sort of funnel, bounded by a river on one side and difficult hills on the other. The Muslims had built a palisaded camp to the north of Badajoz, and formed up in four lines. Firstly fanatical "jihadist" skirmishers/light infantry, then Andalusian heavy cavalry, Almoravid foot and finally the Almoravid light horse. Historically the light horse slipped out sideways and worked their way round the Christian flank, attacking their camp/baggage.

Alfonso was coming off the back of a string of victories, and was getting a bit cocky. This was the first time he'd met the Almoravids in combat. Arabic sources say he broke a truce in order to attack by surprise. His cavalry went off at full speed, leaving his heavy foot to keep up as best they could.

With our on-line contingent missing, Richard took the Christians, and Phil the Muslims.

Richard was a bit cagey at first, giving his infantry time to close the gap a bit. Phil pushed up with his light, missile armed, troops with the intention of weakening the knights before they hit his Andalusians.

He was fairly successful on his left flank initially, causing some Disorder. We're playing Basic Impetus, but with a few modifications. Impetus troops don't lose impetus until they've fought hand to hand, but their impetus can't exceed the unit's base value.

Richard stopped holding back, and pushed his cavalry forwards, into a hail of missiles.

Richard charged and contacted some slingers, who weren't quick enough to get out of the way.

The knights ride the slingers down, and ride deep into the Muslim position. On the left Phil is getting some hits from his barrage of missiles, as Richard presses on.

Phil has brought up some light horse on his right to play cat and mouse with the Castilian cavalry.

Having plunged deep into the Muslim ranks, Richard's knights are whittled down by sustained missile attacks. So much so, Phil decides he can finish them off with a charge from his light horse.

Sure enough, they are routed. Rolling a couple of sixes didn't hurt.

 

Richard tries to clear out the javelin men protecting the Andalusian cavalry. What should be the work of seconds is rudely halted as they roll two sixes. This bounces the Knights back, much to Richard's consternation. Phil follows up for the next round of combat.

Sometimes you can push your luck a bit too far. In the second round, despite having no impetus, Richard's dice behave better, and the jihadists are broken.

Richard pulls up his second line of horse to fill in the gaps. On his right, some of his knights ride down more skirmishers, but fail to contact their next target.

Yusuf and Alfonso lead their men into a head to head charge. The situation favours the Christians.

To their left, however, the other Andalusian cavalry charge their opponents who have been weakened by missile attacks. The combat bogs down with no clear winner.

Outside them, the left most Christian cavalry breakthrough, the Muslim light horse evading out of their way.

Richard adds another unit to the mix, and drives back the cavalry with Yusuf.

Breaking their opponents, the knights career into one of the big Moorish spear units.

The attack on the long spears is beaten off. Elsewhere, the knights are struggling to impose themselves as strongly as they might have liked.

And then in the right centre, they start to gain the upper hand a bit. Phil brings up some light horse to aid his ailing heavy horse.

Richard is bringing up fresh units, but he has two knights units that are looking like they'll break the next time someone looks their way. Phil has an open flank to push his light cavalry through now, so things could get even dodgier for the Christians. However, Richard has got another cavalry unit through, and is having a go at the other block of spearmen.

The knights attacking the spears lose out. Here is a picture of where they were.

The knights who charged the other spear block take some shooting hits and leave the fields. Here's a picture of where they were.

Phil has manged to isolate one of the Christian supporting archery units, and runs them down with some light horse.

Richard is hurrying up his foot to cover his flanks, as he fears being surrounded.

Phil closes with some light horse and pelts the knights with javelins at close range.

The cavalry in the centre have entered a stand off.

Richard is about to launch a charge through the light horse and cavalry, but we had to call it a night there. Both armies were one pip off being broken, so it was really close in the end. It was a tense game, with Phil trying to suck Richard's cavalry in, and Richard trying to exploit his advantage in the centre.

Compared to last week the luck was a lot more even. Phil was lucky to get pretty much all of his light horse evades done - it's a 50/50 chance - and missing one of those could have really opened up his position, otherwise it was mostly honours even.

Phil remarked that he had more light horse than he knew what to do with. The on-line scenario had the Muslim commander decide on a secret flank deployment location and timing. I dispensed with that as we started late, and with the players in the room it was hard to sort out without giving everything away. I think, in retrospect, it would have heavily unbalanced the game against the Christians, and lead to a more historical outcome - which was the destruction of the Christian forces after they fall back to defend their camp.

The game did make me think a lot more about the accounts we have, and they do not completely add up still. It will be worth trying again, with some slight changes, I think.

And as you can see, the Christian camp escaped without a scratch.