Dark & Feudal Ages at Alicante 2022
The Peoples Crusade vs Ghaznavid
Game 1 The Peoples Crusade vs Ghaznavid
Game 2 The Peoples Crusade vs Ghaznavid
Game 3 The Peoples Crusade vs Samurai
Game 4 The Peoples Crusade vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 5 The Peoples Crusade vs Vikingos!
With one not-defeat tucked under their made-from-Jesus-sandal-leather souvenir belts The People's Crusade confidently approached the second game insecure in the knowledge that sheer numbers of bodies had barely been enough to avoid a crushing defeat against an army who basically just concentrated all their good stuff on one flank and attacked.
With that in mind, the joy of Peter The Hermit and his happy go lucky gang of neer-do-bads was delighted to find themselves facing yet another of the Ghaznavid armies in Round 2
The lists for the The Peoples Crusade and Ghaznavid from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Alicante can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
These battle reports come with their own unique and hand-crafted The Peoples Crusade-themed Spotify Playlist, which you can listen along to while reading through the ensuing nonsense.
Either click here to open Spotify on your own device, or click the button below to start the playlist from your browser.
Being either unwilling, or intellectually incapable of working out the need to change an already proveably unsuccessful plan, the terrain again featured a defending army of The People's Crusade, and a waterway to narrow the table.
In the name of the Father! In a change from the first game however Peter The Hermit had dished out as much terrain as he could lay his hastily bandaged (in lieu of C12th suntan cream) hands upon, which ended up scattered across the p[laying surface like so many communion wafers spilled by a priest tripped by a poorly located loose kneeler.
This Ghaznavid army however was not quite so tooled up in the elephant department (that's not a euphemism) and had also spread itself across the width of the table, unsure how to deal with the horde of crap wandering towards it at a slow walking pace.
For the seaside contingent, this meant a line of otherwise-unsupported Ghilmen cavalry gingerly approaching a phalanx of rabidly-praying European peasantry, very conscious of the risk of getting bogged down in a combat which would see the waiting batch of Crusader Knights suddenly appear and make things rather uncomfortable for the pseudo-Afghan nobility and their steeds.
The somewhat Assyrian-inspired Dailami and archers in the middle of the Ghaznavid force had of course made a beeline for the rough terrain, only to find themselves facing off against what was laughingly referred to as the crème of The People's Crusade's infantry forces - a bucketful of Impetuous honest to goodness actual Medium Swordsmen.
This was not the Dailami's preferred set of opponents, but the Crusaders had enough men (and women, children, adolescents and farmyard animals) to pick and choose where their best stuff went and still cover the table with other nonsense with some considerable ease.
Holy Father forgive me! Leaving their vulnerable bowmen behind, the Dailami advanced boldly but without it seemed any real hope of protecting their flanks from the much wider and more numerous forces of rampant European Imperialist Christianity.
Battle was joined almost immediately, with one of Peter's less Hermetically sealed sub-generals leading the charge.
In what can best be described as a mixed bag of combat outcomes results the crusading Christians smashed through the alliteratively incompetent Dailami defences to blow away one mountain warrior, and at the same time shambolically stumbled to a beaten battering and absorbed 2 whole hits against the other.
The opposite flank was much more straightforward for the uncounted multitudes who made up The People's Crusade.
Sweet Lord! 4 units of Ghazni spearmen and an elephant would normally be a conundrum for most opponents, wide and solid enough to block off most attempts to bypass them and containing enough defensive and offensive capability to blunt and repel most types of attack with a fairly bloody nose.
For the army of nonsense however this conundrum was a Gordian knot, and the answer was just to keep hurling great slabs of Impetuous Pilgrims at it until the spearmen inevitably cracked, and their flanks became subject to the power of devout Judeo-Christian prayer and a well aimed sharp implement to the ribs.
The Ghaznavid Nobility were still more puzzled than proactive next to the seaside, and with the more competent (in the loosest possible sense of the word) men and women of The People's Crusade driving off the less-potent Afhgani cavalry. Suddenly the Nobility realised they were at imminent risk of being outflanked by people they had dismissed as a hapless rabble.
Screened by their own slingers and javelin skirmishers, the peasant wall smirked in a self-satisfied way as it began to see a viable route to not just their own salvation, but even a smattering of coolness coming through their skills in non-frontal combat.
Spearmen? Pah! Nothing like a bit of essentially expendable peasant action to focus the mind is there!
A random and eclectic selection of medieval geezers with more implements than an expert gardeners shed might reasonably contain hurled themselves at the spearmen, secure in the knowledge that they could pretty much absorb losses 2 for 1 and still come out on top.
Even the act of avoiding the elephant and feeding it a skirmishing javelineer had been pulled off with some aplomb by the prayer-incanting, hard-charging fired-up parade of parishioners.
Peter the Hermit!
Sweet Jesus! The Assyro-Dailami and the proper fighting-trained religious not-mob had exchanged units in the centre, but mathematically this did leave The People's Crusade part of that equation with a heck of a lot of units, and the Dailami with one.
Most of the Peasants surged forward on a tide of god-given fervour, slamming into the second string bowmen and even starting to have visibility of the Ghaznavid camp while the Dailami inched forward cautiously, very conscious of yet more cross--bearers behind and in front of them.
This was not a good day however to be a Ghaznavid archer
Pope Urban II originally planned the departure of the Peoples Crusade for 15 August 1096, and sent out a series of Whatsapp messages to all his mates to try and drum up interest
The response was beyond his wildest expectations: the appeal went viral and up to 100,000 Crusaders including women and children signed up for a trip to the Holy Land
The idea of a bit of sun and sand by the Med was almost certainly very appealling, but widespread severe famine and pestilence across Europe, and a widely held expectation of the imminent arrival of the End Times also probably nudged a few towards joining up as well
With The People's Crusade now flooding around and often over the scattered components of the Ghaznavid army on most of the table, the Afghan nobles were starting to feel the need to actually do something heroic next to the waterway.
The main problem with this concept was that the screening of the religious levies by light infantry had been so effective that none of them had yet become the subjects of effective mounted archery, leaving the Ghilmen with little if any advantage should they decide to charge home.
My Sweet Lord! Anyways, with the tide of battle swinging against them elsewhere Afghans Nobility decided that they at least had to try and overrun half a dozen or so kitchen-implement-equipped half-hearted no-quite-fighters, and surged forward..
..only to be met with a wall of resistance more tenacious than any donation-plate waving church warden at a society wedding held in his local picturesque parish!
As this was all happening next to the waterway, the tide of battle was slowly turning against the Assyro-Ghazni spearmen on the opposite flank as their hit-count nudged ever higher putting several of them at the brink of elimination.
With the Elephant seemingly stuck against a lone javelineer, and a waiting second wave of Crusader Knights keen to deliver the Coup de Grace to the almost-biblical era spearmen the sands of time were running out for Ghaznavid resistance to the almighty power of god (and sharpened spoons).
Ghaznavids in India
Someone's god however was clearly picking up their Whatsapp messages, as the first line of Pilgrims suddenly fractured and started to collapse as the Ghaznavid Nobles finally upped their game and broke through the stubborn and prayer-infused resistance on the beachside battleground.
Some of the leading lights of Samarkand society had fallen by the wayside in the process, but now the mounted heroes of Islam could see a path to.. erm, fight the Crusader Knights when already carrying some injuries ?
The Peoples Crusade did have its difficulties en route.
In the town of Zemun a dispute about the sale of a pair of shoes led to a riot and, against Peter's wishes, the town was attacked and the citadel was stormed.
This resulted in 4,000 Hungarians being killed and many provisions being stolen from the locals to feed the Crusaders
Just goes to show, never mess with a hippy dudes Jesus-sandals
And, as this angle shows, the Ghaznavid Nobility would need to get a real shift on, as with the last Dailami apparently and entirely predictably overrun, men and women of The People's Crusade were now poised to overwhelm the left flank of the Nobles line with sheer numbers.
Jeezus on a pushbike! Medium foot in the Open is - as regular readers will o doubt know - not usually a good counter for enemy mounted troops, but here with a 5:2 advantage of numbers the odds were rather different.
As Bob Dylan almost said, With God (and overwhelming numbers) on Your Side, You'll Win the Next War.
Bob at the Beeb : 1964 TV show footage
Finally unleashed, the proper Knights of the Crusading Orders leapt into action.
Enough peasants and artisans had now given their lives to create a cinematic-quality opportunity for a charge the like of which even Charlton Heston would have been proud, and so grasping at the chance with both hands the Knights ploughed into the already-weakened Ghilmen at great speed, skittling them out and removing them from the field of play in short order.
The Assyro-Ghaznividians were to their credit putting up a stiff resistance, even as they teetered on the very brink of elimination, as the true "rather crappy" nature of an attack composed of half dozen Levy started finally to become apparent.
Sheer numbers however continued to present insurmountable problems for anyone hoping not to have a sharpened effigy of Our Lord And Saviour inserted into their ribcage by an angry former baker from Aix en Provence, as the peasants of The People's Crusade found flank after flank to chip away at the Ghaznavids resolve and beak point.
The final blow was, as had been the case on the waterside flank, delivered by a devastating charge of Crusading Knights.
With all of the peasants practically eliminated the only vaguely proper soldiery on the Christian team steamed into action, hammering the shattered spearmen and sending them back in spectacular fashion to the far biblical past where they surely belonged. A last-gasp, casualty-tastic win for The People's Crusade
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
Post Match Summary from Peter The Hermit, The Peoples Crusade Commander
Maaaan, that was really wild, I mean, what a head trip huh? For a crazy dude like me who's basically been living off pizza deliveries and making cereal from old Amazon delivery boxes for like, huh, the past 36 years to have not one but two consecutive days out is just amaaaaazing - and then the winning thing, wowzer - I'm like a genius dude!
And man alive, those elephants were crazy cats aren't they? Well, not literally of course, they are elephants - but to see so many when I've not even had TV nature documentaries for like, oh, maybe 2 years since my Netflix subscription ran out was just wild in the extreme
The dudes in the actual army also seemed really up for some getting up close and personal and giving the opposing soldiers some real hands-on love too. They did all their god-prayer stuff, then were right into it from the very start - fantastic vibes man!
Winning is nice, I mean, like really nice, but the whole going outdoors thing still does my noodle. At least there was a small window of opportunity to retire to the cave and have an afternoon nap this time
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Go, prick thy face, and over-red thy fear thou lily-liver'd boy, after claiming victory in but one single game you fear you may have the touch of a true general
Thou leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agatering, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch! What nonsense - you were fortunate to meet an opponent who had not spied your mission of nonsense and had set their army up to match a very different type of Crusading list to your pile of nonsense.
I cannot listen to anyone claim that this victory was down to owt more than the element of surpise - much more of your conversation to claim anything else would I fear infect my brain.
There is little to do to puncture such misplaced confidence, but I must tell you friendly in your ear, sell when you can, you are not for all markets. The value of your newfound expertise will surely be measured in the next game against the Samurai
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition against the Samurai
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Game 1 The Peoples Crusade vs Ghaznavid
Game 2 The Peoples Crusade vs Ghaznavid
Game 3 The Peoples Crusade vs Samurai
Game 4 The Peoples Crusade vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 5 The Peoples Crusade vs Vikingos!
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