ADLG - Game Report 184

Anglo-Danish (180) vs Konstantin Byzantine (192)

For the final battle of the day I was blessed, or cursed, to play a third Byzantine Army. Not that there is anything wrong with Max, in fact he was gracious and willing to “call it a draw” at the start of the game without even rolling any dice. However, I (foolishly) decided that we had come all this way to play we might as well make a game of it. I was again defending this time in the plains, and decided on a similar deployment to see if we could make it win this time.

After having my cavalry wing trounced in the previous game, I instead decided to move them into reserve in the centre and leave the left of shield wall anchored on the field.

The biggest challenge was trying to reorganise the defence by moving the cavalry around the plantation and of course trying to encourage (or at least roll sufficient command pips) the impetuous Norman Knights to do what I wanted them to do.

The Byzantines for their part were largely comfortable with a steady and stately advance to bring their mounted bows into range of my shield wall (however as much as I wanted it to the armour didn’t save as many hits as I would have liked! I have also been forced to bring the mounted troops into the line to plug gaps.

Outcome

In the end of a lot of dice rolls we (or should I say I) settled for a draw with me suffering 12 and only inflicting 2 hits on the Byzantines.

Lessons Learnt

If I am going to defend and protect the flanks, then it is better to deploy that way than try to reorganise on the fly.