Dark & Feudal Ages at Alicante 2022
The Peoples Crusade vs Maurikian Byzantinos!
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 Byzantinos!
Game 5 The Peoples Crusade vs Vikingos!
Many a Crusade had foundered and gotten lost in the side streets and bazaars of Byzantium, and the night of the middle of the tournament took us on a march across masked-up Alicante to indulge in an evening of Argentinean steaks, Spanish red wine and some sort of fruit based brandy imported from the Northern Territories of Espana!
Good God! This same brandy appeared, based on the facial reactions of those who tried it, to also be eminently suitable for usage in a Greek Fire siphon
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Anyways, after a little more late night consumption and a gradual remembering of what being on holiday actually means, The People's Crusade were up and ready after a nights sleep greaty improved by finding the in-room thermostat, and were facing a post-breakfast opponent in the shape of a Maurikian Byzantine army.
The lists for the The Peoples Crusade and Maurikian Byzantinos! 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.
The Maurikian Byzantine list is perfectly solid, with a good mix of quality cavalry who can shoot and fight, solid infantry if you so wish, and a good scattering of rough terrain troops too - a sensible evolution from the Late Roman era moving in all of the right directions. It's main weakness seems to be that it's not the more interesting and toy-laden Nikephorian, or indeed any of the later ones where knights start to sneak into the lineup - not really something Maurice and his crew can reasonably be expected to address to be honest.
Attempts to clutter up the table with maximum defensive terrain picks against what had to be a mostly mounted force had proved to be a partial success, and with a large Impassable gulley to the left of The People's Crusade's deployment area
Jeezus!!As the first dice begam to roll, it was clear that the horde of the religiously unwashed would be starting this day's campaigning by trying to fight their way out of a defile against a well-drilled, well-equipped and almost-all mounted highly professional opponent.
Amazingly, after only three games in the tournament, Peter The Hermit had finally recognised that the 4 Knights in the army were actually quite good.
Holy Cow! As a result of this astounding near-Moses-like revelation, the idea that perhaps they could be better employed leading from the front and causing havoc in the enemy instead of lurking at the back as a reserve behind a speartip attack lead by partially equipped non-combatants had slowly take root in the minds of the military leadership of The People's Crusade
The Byzantine army was clearly put together in a time of military OCD, and advanced with a number of very tidy lines towards the utterly haphazard, almost brownian-motion advance of the multiple elements of the Crusading force.
The only thing where both armies seemed to be in agreement was the need to push out a skirmish screen and exchange rather low-level missile fire, as clearly that was the done thing and so both armies were committed to make sure they definitely did it.
The Byzantines were the first to blink, or possibly the first to follow a manual written for this sort of stuff the like of which The People's Crusade would only be able to answer by highly selective quoting of carefully curated passages from the Bible.
Good God! Byzantine skirmishing horsemen dropped back seamlessly though their various oi-ended cavalry units to leave the hodgepodge and deeply unprofessional rabble of Crusaders girding their Jesus-loins ready for proper combat.
Quick summary of the Strategikon
All four Knights of the Crusadopalypse were now together in the middle of Peter The Hermit's battle line, shielded by the same luckless light infantry who had spent the previous evening being shredded by Samurai archery.
Much as the last game, the set-up was all done, the question was now one of whether the dice would deliver a good outcome for the men of God.
Well, the Byzantines clearly had no interest in finding out.
Gotterdamung! The Casino at the Hagia Sophia would be remaining firmly shuttered this fine Alicante morning, as the Klibanophorioioioio turned tail and fell back to far out of range of even the most ambitious and self-confident Knightly charge range imaginable, leaving the Crusaders alone in a sea of empty playing cloth.
With the cowardly retreat of the Maurikian horsemen, the Crusaders attentions had rapidly turned to bringing up the rest of their wall of crappy infantry, keeping the crud abreast of the Knightly cream of their army.
Unfortunately this meant they forgot entirely that their Knights were wont to go haring off after any Tom, Dick or indeed Enemy Light Horse unit pushed forward into charge range by the wily Byzantines.
Cue one spectacular failure of command and control, as the once-coherent Crusader Nobility raced off in a veritable firework display of incompetence chasing fast-evading shadows and ending up ready for the soon-returning Oi Cavalry to pick them off one by one.
As this fascinating and illuminatory photo shows, as this idiocy was ongoing in the important part of the battlefield, Crusading pilgrims had successfully marched through terrain deposited on the flanks of the table and even now were emerging into the end zone to find that they had almost no opposition and that their long march was probably completely wasted in terms of influencing the outcome of the game.
But, it's still a nice flag isn't it?
Maurice - Life and Times
Saints Alive! Maurice instructed his well-drilled cavalrymen of the Oi factions to return to the fray, and a massively piecemeal battle instantly developed in which hard-hitting Knights in penny packets faced off less-potent, but overlap-assisted Byzantine cavalry across a broad swathe of the playing surface.
Would God be on the side of the big battalions today, or favour the religiously fervent yet far less Orthodox Crusader Knights over the defenders of the Holy Roman faith in Anatolia?
Who knows?
Aaaah! The long march of Christo-Mao may yet prove to be fruitful! Swinging into the heart of the rear of the enemy army, well-equipped Crusading Pilgrims made threatening gestures with a variety of sharp and semi-sharp implements at the Byzantine horsemen.
It was not entirely clear how dangerous this whole Medium Foot taking on Mounted in The Open would be as a strategy, but at least it was drawing some Byzanto-cavalry away from overwhelming the spectacularly rash Knights in the centre, thus stringing out a battle that The People's Crusade could now possibly see turning into an attritional grapple to the death against yet another more competent but far smaller foe.
Good Lord! The tidy and uniform Byzantines had by now started to make their local superiority in numbers and competence count, whittling down the Knights one by one and finding ever-more telling gaps in the Crusaders ragged line of resistance through which to dart to devastating effect.
But wherever they had a chance the hard-charging Crusader heavy cavalry were giving as good as they were taking, and sometimes more.
Medium Impetuous Elite are simply never gonna give anyone up quite that easily
The Crusading Multitudes of Crap also had some tricks left up their voluminous oft-clerically-inspired sleeves too.
Byzantine Javelineers had been stealthily creeping through the broken ground on the Crusaders left, looking to put some pressure on the closely packed semi-unarmed peasantry of the Crusaders second line secure in their belief that Heavy Infantry Levy would not come into the terrain to take them on.
Unfortunately for the Isaurians, they had failed to figure out the Impetuous "Impact" bonus of the levy would cancel their own javelins in any melee, making it a straight even fight where a win for the levy would see them inflict double hits to boot!
The Byzantines plan of falling back would in normal circumstances have been a solid one, but with more loud-praying, psalm-singing Pilgrims now meandering around their backfield than you might find in an Iberian Cathedral sheltering from the heat on a particularly hot summers day, nowhere was now entirely safe.
May God be my Witness! The well equipped and well drilled Byzantinos Cavalry might have all the toys in the toybox attached to their saddles, but with fanatical levy and half-hearted warriors singing loudly on all sides that training often counted for naught.
The entire battle had turned into a swirling mess as both sets of lines dissolved under the pressures and opportunities presented by the collapse of their opponents once-coherent formations.
Everywhere you looked there were Constantinopalese Soldiers fending off stones thrown by displaced Hanseatic fishmongers, and Flemish knights battling Anatolian city dwellers.
Something complicated about Byzantine fast archery
Slowly, chalice by chalice, rosary bead by rosary bead, the Byzantinos started to gain the upper hand in the increasingly wide open plain in the centre of the battlefield.
The last of the Knights was still fighting valiantly, but the Maurikian horsemen had followed their manuals to a T and had overrun most of the peasant infantry who had been unwise enough to pilgrimize themselves withing reach of the hard-charging lancers from the fabled walled city.
But, the efforts and exertions involved in pushing Orthodox Christianity down the throats of the far more catholic rabble who made up The People's Crusade had also taken a heavy toll on the Byzantines. Maurice's men issued a mighty Maurician sigh, and realised that the extra casualties they needed to inflict to break the Crusader army were by now very far out of reach.
Jesus in Sweatpants! As the game timed out, both sides took stock, totted up their near-fatal losses and decided that a hard-fought draw was not an entirely bad outcome for them both
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
Woooah, what a head-splash in what is still only my second day out of the old isolation tank huh? I mean, this is supposed to be a crusade about peace and love, but these dudes seemed to be like, well organised and practically trained for war - not cool at all dude!
I guess the lesson here is never to trust a righ guy who owns a horse and has servants. The rich should be persuaded by love and flowers to renounce their worldly possessions and join the tribe of people and pedestrians, but the posh hangers-on to my congregation on this Crusade seem to have decided to renounce their worldly existence by haring off after other dudes on horses, and then getting properly mugged down some Constantinopalese back alley. Or is that a euphemism for something that may have happened to me once when I was InterRailing i my early 20's which made me decide to become a hermit? I honestly can't remember any more.
Either way, no-one won and no-one lost here, so cosmically the balance of the universe has not been affected either way by the outcome of this meeting of minds on a higher astral plain.
I just home we are fighting our last battle somewhere less dry and more damp - mainly as I am really starting to miss the old 'shrooms, you knwo what I mean?
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Another draw snatched from the jaws of defeat, and created by your own lack of self control? Methink'st thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee
I scorn you, scurvy companion, and after that disaster I am sure that many of the men, women and goats who follow you will think likewise as a man who cannot control his most basic urges is not one who is fit to lead a horse to water, never mind an army to battle
Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon I would cover you with my own apostate phlegm rather than see the only 4 decent troops in your army forget the basic rule of Impetuous charges against light horse. Admittedly the command and control available to you is limited, but you really do need to be more careful with your biggest assets my khaftan-wearing companion
Away, you three-inch fool! Bring me a better outcome against the Vikings in your next game in what must then be classed as a Northern Crusade
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
You may also like....
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 Byzantinos!
Game 5 The Peoples Crusade vs Vikingos!
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