Back in the Shed

It's been about a month since we last pushed any toys around in Shedquarters, what with one thing and another, but we were back this Tuesday. After a break of that length I went for something a bit different to recent games, and put out the Reconquista plastics. One of my favourite armies, these are, being lovely figures that I did a half decent paint job on. For simplicity's sake we were using AMW as a rules set.

Christian Spanish to the right, Andalusians to the left. Armies at 10 units, with a break point of 7 units. These are based on the army lists I did for this period in February 2016. I didn't get them right then: don't know that I've got them right now.

Anyway, it was another excuse to get out my Great Wall of China and pretend it's an Iberian city wall.

Phil and Tim had the Christians. Chris K and I were the Andalusians

Phil had the Christian cutting edge, three units of knights. 

Chris faced him with two units of Andalusian heavy cavalry and two units of jinetes.

On my wing I was facing some Caballeros Villanos and jinetes with skirmisher bows and horse archers.

Phil had a cunning plan to tie up lots of our units with his knights.

We had a slight advantage with missile units. The question was whether we could make it pay.

They also had some good heavy foot, which dominated the centre of the table.

Eventually push came to shove on the heavy cavalry wing. Phil avoided a one on one with one of our heavy cavalry units and tried to flatten our skirmisher bowmen. In the distance his knights are also attempting to run down some of our light horse.

Chris proved to be a tactical genius, and came out evens in the bow/knight combat.

I, however, quickly lost my skirmishers. My light horse was doing better, but I needed to be through Tim's and away into the rear before his heavy cavalry overran me.

As our bowmen stood firm, our central heavy cavalry were able to deliver a flank contact on Phil's knights.

Oh dear. Things don't look good at my end of the table.

Chris breaks one of Phil's knight units, and lines up one of the others. He disengages his light horse, pausing only to pepper Phil with javelins.

In the centre we pulled back our heavies, preparatory to getting stuck in with them and a flank attack from some skirmishers.

We were unable to develop that opportunity, so I switched the javelin men back to play cat and mouse with the Spanish heavy foot.

We're throwing everything at those knights on the other wing, but they hold on.

Tim has crushed my right, and is turning in on the foot, sending his light horse on a raid round the back of the army.

We triumph at Chris' end of the table, but not quickly enough.

My end of the table is a complete wipe out. Victory to the Christians.

As usual AMW delivered a decent game that kept us all engaged for a couple of hours or more. The armies aren't balanced, with the Christians having more of a cutting edge. We really needed more space to make the most of our light troops. Perhaps 8 units a side would have been better.

Regardless of that, it was a fun evening, and I do like the look of these armies.