Jon this week offered us a Reconquista game using his Basic Impetus hexes variant. He'd chosen the Battle of Ucles, a crushing defeat for the Christian forces against the Almoravids. Like all Reconquista battles in this period the sources are few and far between and horribly vague. Broadly speaking the Christian knights charge into a pocket, are surrounded, retreat to their camp and are slaughtered there.
You may remember from my previous games in this period that I quite like Basic Impetus for this type of battle.
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Here we are with the set up. Ian & I are playing the Muslims, near the camera. Phil and Richard are the Christians. The Christians have a strong centre with lots of knights, backed up by foot spears. Their wings are protected by light troops, including cross bows, together with some foot spears as well.
We have a centre with some medium cavalry, including some camels, and double depth units of spears and bows and one of lots of spears. Our wings have light horse, skirmishers and spears.
My first reaction when I saw the table was that there wasn't enough width for us. With lighter cavalry all round we need to pull out wide and threaten flanks. Still, nothing ventured etc. I started on the right by trying to pull the Christians wider, but to little effect.
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End of turn one, and everyone has moved forwards. Ian has brought up the camels from the rear to deny the Christian cavalry impetus. I'm trying to squeeze the centre where the knights are coming from by closing up my deep units. These should normally be knight-proof, thus funnelling Phil into a narrow space and stopping him exploiting his superior cavalry numbers and quality.
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End of turn two. I have cocked up on the left, and lost a light cavalry unit by getting it trapped against the table edge. It then gotdestroyed when Richard slipped some light infantry behind it and closed off another exit with a ZOC so it couldn't retreat from combat.
In the centre Ian pre-empted the Christian cavalry charge by going in himself. This meant he had a 1 dice advantage in the combat as he had impetus, and Phil didn't. He lost out in both melees, being forced back, but held on with one unit as the pursuit collided with one of our deep infantry units.
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Then it all went south. The deep infantry and Almoravid cavalry lost the combat to the knights, and were forced back. Phil followed up through the ensuing gap. Most of our cavalry is fleeing.
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He burst through and destroyed our baggage (the grey blob on the base line that isn't there any more). We countered with our reserve infantry (BTW there's loads of skirmishing going on out on the flanks, but no one is really hitting anything).
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We drive the knights back, but aren't able to follow up. The knights have a charmed life. Basic Impetus has a mechanism that requires you to roll alternate 6s and 1s for best effect. Phil was using a dice rolling app on his phone that seemed to think that was what was meant by being random. In the centre we counter attack with one of our deep units, who start to drive through the heart of the Christian army.
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Phil then launched another knight unit forwards and hit our last cavalry unit, centre left, (or did we charge him and come off worse? I can't remember now). This was destroyed in short order, and Phil stormed through, swung round, and hit our previously victorious reserve foot in the flank.
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The flanked unit saw off the knights, which was a relief, because otherwise it's curtains. Phil then threw his last knights frontally into my spear and bow units. I hit with some defensive shooting, so it was looking good.
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Well, right up until the cohesion tests, which Phil passes and we fail. That flank 's great hope now stumbles back towards the base line. Luckily only one knight unit is able to keep in contact for the pursuit.
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However the follow up combat breaks the left hand spear and bow unit.
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The pursuit veers off a bit and clips the remaining deep unit on that flank.
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Well, to be honest, we never really got going. We discussed after the game and through email what needs changing, if anything, to balance the scenario. Phil suggested even with some of the tweaks discussed he wouldn't willingly take on the Muslims.
My take is that in fact Phil did have some outrageous luck, with a whole succession of 1s to pass cohesion tests, but I guess that's part of the game. If you don't like it, don't use dice. My fears about the narrowness of the game board were born out. We couldn't get wide and round, and we couldn't create any internal flanks either. The knights just kept coming. On reflection there are somethings we could have done smarter, but on the other hand, apart from some soft shoe shuffling out on one of the flanks our opponents didn't do anything really clever either.
BI still does a good job of modelling medieval warfare in this period, so there's no real whinging from me. The transfer to hexes isn't entirely smooth, but the compromises in play are more than compensated for by the extra speed of resolution. For this scenario Jon said the points were about even, but the points system in BI is a blunt instrument, as unit values vary from 1 to 3. There's an awful lot of differences in battlefield strength and utility from a top end 1 - e.g a T unit with cross bows - and a low end 1, say a S unit with javelins. I'm also not convinced by the troop mix in the army lists, which Jon ignored anyway. And I'd swap 3 units of skirmishers for a single unit of Knights everyday of the week.
Next week we are back in Spain, but in Shedquarters, as I'm getting out my plastic equivalents of Jon's figures and trying to sort out another Reconquista refight.
This time, however, we won't be using hexes.
Interesting action, considering the blank battlefield! The thought occurs that you might have lit on the reason why, although I find ancient and mediaeval history at least as fascinating as the more modern (and I have my favorites there, too), I've never really cottoned to war gaming in those periods. It's the variety of troop types, and the qualitative range within those types. That of course is the drawcard for many. It is also possible I've been soured by the sterile 'competition' mentality that seems to attach to this particular period.
ReplyDeleteYet campaigns - unless played solo - have never really turned out satisfactorily (in my limited experience). I ran into a particular problem during the course of my recent 'Byzantiad' campaign - a snag so serious that I abruptly stopped (although I was planning to do so within a couple more campaign turns anyhow). It was a case of the troop types favoured by the contending types were so disparate that I felt a battle to be scarcely worthwhile, and yet it would have been crucial (I think) to the campaign narrative.
It is a problem for which no good solution has presented itself, which means, more than likely, having to settle for an unsatisfactory one.
Having said that, I would like to see more from the Reconquista - a very interesting historical topic, and long-lasting, too. You could almost call it the 700 Years' War, and it was only in its last year (1492) that the Christians had it all their own way... Those are lovely troops for it!
Cheers,
Ion
Lack of scenery doesn't mean lack of interest. A lot of battles are fought on fairly open plains, especially in the earlier periods, because it's a good place to fight. You will see more on the Reconquista, as I'm putting out my plastics next week. It is interesting to note that the period from this battle to the end of the Reconquista is about the same as between Hastings and Bosworth.
DeleteThe screenshots look pretty clear and useable. That is good!
ReplyDeleteYour report is much more positive and objective than I expected. You are right in that the large spear units ought to be able to withstand frontal attacks by knights. In fact, they hold an edge in dice over charging knights. It was a real upset that those large units kept losing to the knights. As with many rules, if your opponent rolls optimally in every situation, well, then snatching a victory is very tough, indeed. I cannot believe Phil's luck with dice. He would roll multiple sixes to hit and a one on Cohesion Test. Every. Single. Time. Only being disordered after taking four hits from Ian was almost too much. That could be very demoralizing but you and Ian took the outcomes very well.
Looking at the table later, the results look reasonably historical with the Almoravid center crushed in the initial charges with some useable units on the wings and moving forward. Too bad you took such heavy casualties in those initial clashes that your army broke before you reached the enemy line.
In a more even distribution of dice rolls, the outcome could have gone very differently with little effort.
I have manipulated the pictures. They were a bit grey, so I have tightened them up and brought up the colours.
DeleteIt was a challenge to be positive throughout the game, but we play for fun, and no one actually dies. I have sort of resolved not to comment on dice rolling and luck as it looks like not taking responsibility for your own mistakes, but that run of luck in the centre denied belief. Most likely the game scenario does work. We probably need to play it again exactly as it is.
Rolling dice and reporting the outcome is a bit like writing history. When the results are within the band of expectations and both sides are affected more or less equally. Those "normal" events are less likely to be chronicled in the histories. It is the unexpected and low probability events that stand out and are often reported. Especially notable are the events that defy all expectations. Repeatedly. When the tail of the probability distribution wags the game, it is a loss not to report such events since those extreme events often drive the narrative. If struck (repeatedly) by lightning on a clear, calm day, your only mistake was leaving the house.
DeleteIan has previously remarked that we tend to focus on when our opponents are lucky, not when the dice run against them. The only real answer is to track the actual dice rolls, but then you need context as well.
DeleteI think we have all commented upon Ian's recent run of bad luck.
DeleteIn the old days (the very old days during the heyday of Avalon Hill and SPI) when I played wargames first by mail and then by email, we utilized random number generation taken from stock quotes from the daily newspaper. All moves, combats, and die rolls were tracked, tabulated and normalized as was a common practice among PBM and PBeM players. Games were then adjusted to account for die rolls. Yeah, it was a lot of work but victories and defeats could be placed in their proper context with the more skillful players rising to the top.
As in our miniatures' games, a lucky player can be spotted given a long enough run.
That does sound like a lot of work! I was wondering during the game whether it would be better to have hits on a 1 or double 2 seeing as how there's no DRMs. That would have sorted Phil's flip-flop dice rolls. And Ian's recent run is just normal luck that the rest of us get.
DeleteNo reason flipping damage from double 5 or single 6 to double 2 or single 1 would change anything besides rules' convention and my increased confusion. Looking at Damage and Cohesion die rolls from the recipient's perspective, I like the consistency in the way it is now where high rolls are bad and low are good.
DeleteI was joking. I can't think of any other way to deal with Phil's uncanny ability to alternate between high and low.
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