Ancestors of the French : A Tournament in Normandy, 2023
Norman vs Communal Italian
Game 1 Norman vs Communal Italian
Game 2 Norman vs Komnenan Byzantine
Game 5 Norman vs Sicilian Norman
The next morning we spotted a street sign opposite our apartment - was this an omen for the Norman army perhaps?
Anyways, having negotiated our Air BnB's steep stairs and with the BMW satnav helping steer a driver suffering the digestive after-effects of the best part of a kilo of pork knuckle and a bottle or Rose wine the previous evening, the intrepid team of three Brits made their way up into the mountains near Le Havre (I mean, who knew?) to a textbook community hall facility in the suburban metropolis of Montivilliers
As competitions go this was a rare event - one where we knew almost no-one, as we dived head first into the black coffee and croissants of the pre-first-game socialising while the traditional "umpire fiddled with laptop nervously" background music played on.
Eventually the draw was announced, and I found myself playing Etienne with a Communal Italian army
The range of armies in the competition was surprisingly wide given the theme - about 5 Normans, a good smattering of Byzantines and a couple of these Communal Italians.
The army is one of very few to be allowed the anti-cavalry (or Knight!) weapon of war Wagons Blades, which can be pushed into contact with their opponents and rack up good factors against mounted troops, but which don't shoot. The rest of the army is a mix of Elite Impetuous Knights, the usual spearmen/crossbows (some of which can be mixed formations) and other medieval odds and sods.
The presence of War wagons did mean I could in theory dismount some or all of my Knights, but with 10 Italian knights on table I really didn't fancy reducing my own mounted strike component against an opponent who might just run any dismountees down.
The lists for the Norman and Communal Italian from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Normandy can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
With that phase done we commenced the first bit of French-language terrain selection I had done since Avignon some 7 years hence
I was the attacker, and with the Italians likely to be reliant on their War Wagons I was expecting to face a fairly small and rather slow moving enemy army - so I was a little surprised when my opponent picked almost the minimum possible of terrain.
Wide open spaces might favour the speed and skirmishing of the Breton allied command I had taken, so I too put down very little terrain - all of which fell in almost entirely irrelevant places on table, and none of which I was able to move, even with my Strategist Guillame working his hardest to choose the best field of battle
L'Art de la Guerre hint - "Strategist" (aka those who were famous for being good) generals cost more points in ADLG than other generals, and have more command and control capability.
They also get to try and move an additional terrain item in the terrain phase, representing the heightened ability of these legendary leaders to choose the best locations to bring their enemies to battle
Creme de la menthe! With an almost blank field, I then chose to stack my army to the left hoping to outflank the Communal army on this side, and draw its huge block of high quality knights forward to then swarm and surround them sometime after disconnecting them from the block of spearmen and wagons on their right.
As for the small command of Papal spearmen and a couple of knights on the Communal left, I hoped to distract them all out of the game with a handful of skirmishers, possibly picking on them if my shooting had started to take effect
The Italians however were strict adherents to the 1970's and 80's style of football of the great era of the Azzuri (despite being most dressed in red) and were cautiously deployed to refuse their right wing with a stronger than expected formation of wagons and mediocre spearmen
This would require some seriously cute lock-unpicking from the Bretons, but at least the Communal army had not selected any mixed spear/crossbow formations which would have put out more than enough shooting to keep the Bretons at safe distances
Bain Marie! With the enemy deployment clearly signalled, the smaller Norman command of knights started to swing into the middle to join their King and his huge block of spears and knights to face down the inevitable Italian lance-point charge
With the Bayeux Tapestry fresh in my mind, and also with the Italians suddenly rushing forward a block of spears and Bladed Wagons, the smaller Norman command decided that now was the idea time for a Feigned Flight.
They turned about and retreated, a remarkable signal that my plan to draw out the opposition was still uppermost in my mind even now we were deep into the, erm, second move of the game
Over on the opposite flank the plan of distracting the smallest Papal command of Italians was also still working out, as Guillame held his men back in the centre and instructed the light horse and skirmishing javelinmen to rush up and taunt the Communal troops, seeking to pull them away from the main zone where the battle would surely be decided
Breton curses and insults echoed in the municipal building air as the rather pathetic Norman scouts sought to grab the attention of a couple of units of Italy's finest
Sadly, the Italian Knights weren't quite as headstrong and gullible as I had hoped (being non-Impetuous), and they pointedly ignored the haranguing scouts and stuck to their task of looking to reinforce their armies centre
Coquilles St Jacques! Having failed to dangle a sufficiently attractive pasta-based bait, Guillame's skirmishers decided now was the time to get really irritating, swarming around the surprised Italians to hurl javelins at them from all sides.
The Normans chose this moment to also despatch spearmen and Elite Knights to this wing, looking to work closely with the light troops to engineer some sort of fractional advantage from this originally-defensive situation
What's in my list then?
The Norman list I used was very much driven by wanting to accommodate William as a Strategist, which soaked up most of the total command points available to the army. As a consequence of this, he ended up with by far the biggest command of the three in the army, and with the most diverse range of troops as well in order to take advantage of his extra-special Strategist-level command and control capabilities
His command was made up of:
- 4 Milites (2 Elite, 2 "normal") Impetuous Medium Knights
- 4 Dismounted Milites, Heavy Spear of which 1 was armoured (to soak up spare points more than anything else)
- 2 LF Javelin and 2 LF Bow as infantry skirmishers
- 2 Bowmen, one of which was Mediocre
- `1 Breton Scout Light Horseman with javelin
The idea of this command was that the fighting would be done by the Spearmen and Milites, with the rest playing a support role.
The Light Foot could either screen the Milites from enemy archery, or potentially sit in dense terrain and block/delay any enemy attempt to use it to outflank the Norman army
If the command was deployed on a flank, then either the Milites + the LH could sweep up the wing with the spearmen holding the centre, or alternatively the Milites could drive down the middle of the table adjacent to the other "Milites-only" command as an 8-wide block of Knights while the spearmen/archer combination would provide an effective deterrent with real teeth to dissuade any enem mounted troops from trying to drive down the wing themselves
The Spearmen's role was also to act as "cheap Knights", trying to position themselves in front of the enemy's best mounted strike force and take it on the chin, hopefully absorbing their devastating initial charge and either severely damaging, or maybe even halting and beating 4 of the enemy's most expensive and potent troops while my own Milites looked for something easier to overwhelm and overrun elsewhere on table.
As such, this command had flexibility to deploy on a flank or in the centre, and also to approach those different tasks in one of two ways by swapping the relative positions of the Milites and Spearmen as well.
Chances are it will rarely if ever deploy first though, as keeping at least some of those options open until as late in the deployment sequence as possible is pretty important to get the best out of this huge command
The actual Bretons meanwhile were overcoming their disappointment at not encountering any apple-based Plantations in their part of the table, greatly reducing their cidre-making potential in this particular report.
Bonnet de Douche! With the Communal troops still resolutely refusing to dismember their own coherent defensive unit, again here the skirmishers decided to try and force the issue, sneaking up to the edge of the battlefield to hurl javelins and threaten to outflank the Communal spearmen and even perhaps make a cheeky run for the enemy baggage
Boom! Combat was joined for the first time in the most unlikely of circumstances - light horse and javelin skirmishers combining to surround a surprised Knight and send him frantically flicking through the rulebook to the 2nd bullet point on page 63 to confirm that even LF in the flank will cancel his Impact capability in the first round.
Swinging fully onto the offense on this flank, an Elite (flowers on the base) Norman Knight hurled himself forward to engage the other (non Elite... but I told you that already) Italian nobleman to give the Normans a slight edge in both combats. If this worked out, it could blow a huge hole in the Italian flank well before the two main lines were due to clash
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Having any enemy unit in front-edge combat with your flank will cancel pretty much any "bonus" ability your unit has, as the distraction of someone hacking away at your flank is quite off putting.
In this case the Italian Knights lose their "Impact" capability, which in turn allowed the Breton Scout cavalry to also then claim a bonus for their own Javelins (which would otherwise have been cancelled by the Knights "impact" ability). So, adding the little dude in the flank actually creates a 3-factor swing in favour of the Bretons, turning a 3-0 to the Knights into a straight 2-2 combat
Mr Grimsdale! But, not everything could go as planned.
The smaller command of Knights had lost patience and their commander was unable to hold back their exuberance any longer.
They urged their steeds forward to take on the Communal spearmen, and also the bladed wagons too - a matchup which was so adverse that distracting some of the enemy spears by charging them in the flank with yet more Norman mounted scouts even seemed like a good idea at the time.
L'Art de la Guerre hint - Impetuous cavalry don't have to impetuously charge ("steady", ie uninjured) Heavy Infantry in front of them, but Impetuous Knights have no such qualms and will pile straight in if they are not held for 3 PIPS. A Competent General, such as the one leading these Norman Milites, will fail to roll high enough command dice to hold his Impetuous knights back 1 time in every 6 command die rolls.
Andouille Enorme! Having javelined the most rearward enemy spear unit to distraction, the Bretons also decided that combat was now a way to sweep away the enemy quickly and punch a hole in the back end of the Italian formation
Or, perhaps, they thought that getting into combat before the lumbering Bladed wagon got into action was better than waiting to be pushed off table
Either way, the die was about to be cast - and by some of the lightest equipped troops in the Norman army
Disastre! Everything everywhere may well be an Oscar-winning film, but in this cavalcade of combats it also functioned s the geographic locator for adverse combat outcomes as the stoic Italians defended resolutely and rebuffed every Norman attack hurled at them with interest.
Far from rolling through the enemy flanks with some bold aggressive actions, the Normans and Bretons found themselves on "Le Pied Derriere" literally everywhere on table!
With Guillame still distracted by this shambolic first round of combat for his newly-minted army, the Italian Nobility were able to add injury to insult by simply rolling forward in a line into the rather disorganised Normans.
Calvados in a Cupcake! Sadly the important consequence of the smaller command of Knights losing control in the previous turn was that the Norman archers had been left exposed to an enemy cavalry charge, and so luck was now very much needed to stop the entire centre of the Norman army from being run down like the dogs they were
The battle was going to be brutal and short as Knight on Knight action burst into life - and from the Norman standpoint it probably needed to be as the Commune was now wheeling its Bladed wagons forward at ever-increasing speed to join in the fray
Parma : The Italian Commune in the 1200's
Disastre Complet! The Communal Knights didn't just gain the upper hand, they grasped the entire arm of success almost up to the shoulder and yanked it as if it were the church bell in the tower of the Duomo of Milan!
The Norman troops were scattered and distraught as they contrived to lose almost every combat they had entered into as the jubilant Italians hacked and poked their way through the shattered French lines
The final ignominy came as the commander of the impetuously impetuous smaller Knight command was dragged from his horse in the first round of combat he had ever undertaken, and despatched by Italian mounted noblemen !
Stinking Comte! Another phase of combat, and the huge holes in the Norman line simply got bigger and bigger as the Italians continued to press their already considerable advantages
At this rate the battle would be ending quite some time earlier than the 14 hours of combat reportedly taking place at hastings!
Norman blood splashed as liberally as cidre fountaining out of a broken farmyard press as the army of Guillame Le Conquerant was utterly crushed underfoot by a well drilled and disciplined Italian full court press
Croissant shavings littered the floor as the Norman Milites shed their armour and discarded their knapsacks all the better to flee at full speed from this theatre of gallic coastal defeat
Guillame begane to realise with some dismay that he perhaps would need to be renamed in the very near future, unless the ground rules of nominative determinism were somehow wildly different when transcribed into Norman French
The Result is a crushing defeat for the Normans, only doing 9 points of damage to the Communal army
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 the Norman Commander
Well Mr Grimsdale, that was a turnup for the books. I think I need to reflect on that defeat and use the lessons learned to add to the library of Norman Wisdom.
I really did expect to draw the Communal Italian army apart much more effectively than I managed in the end, and that was largely down to the careful and tidy way they moved around the battlefield giving me very few opportunities to attempt to exploit.
The Italians compounded their efficiency with some bravery in combat, but relying on my men to dig themselves throughsuch solid defences with good fortune was never really going to be a scenario that could have worked every time anyway.
I will retire to my extensive castle and fire up the Calvados presses so I can fortify myself for the future rounds
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Oh, how the mighty have fallen! William the Conqueror, more like William the Loser! Thou art a foul and treacherous knave, whose cowardly heart didst bring defeat upon thyself and thy army through your unplanned and untested army and its flailing attempts to get to grips with this well organised opponent.
Thou didst lack the courage and prowess to lead thy men to victory, and thus hast earned thyself the title of a craven and spineless cur who failed to be bold enough to dismount some of his own Milites to take on the inevitable Wagons of War - and the equally predictable mediocre spearmen between them.
Thy foolish tactics didst lead thee to ruin, and thy incompetence on the battlefield hast sealed thy fate as a bumbling fool who cannot work out where to attack and where to defend, but instead probes everywhere and pierces nowhere at all.
Thou art a sorry excuse for a leader, and thy defeat shall forever be remembered as a testament to thy ineptitude and incompetence, or, at least until the next game is played.
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
That's the end - so why not go back to the Match Reports Index and read some more reports?
You may also like....
Game 1 Norman vs Communal Italian
Game 2 Norman vs Komnenan Byzantine
Game 5 Norman vs Sicilian Norman
View My Stats for My Match Reports Pages
