ADLG - Game Report 236

Communal Italian (189) vs Late Crusader (196)

After the series of trials and tribulations with the Feudal French, Paul recommended I seek an alternative. We discussed the Communal Italian, which although in composition is similar to other feudal armies with lots of Medium Knights, at least in this case the Knights are no longer impetuous and are instead all impact. The Army I assembled was based around a strong infantry centre including three units of mixed heavy spears and crossbows; three units printed and painted in 3 days for the battle. This was flanked by two Knight commands each of 4 Knights, supported by light cavalry and mediocre heavy spears.

On to the battle against Robin's Late Crusaders, where I opted to attack in the plains and to find on deployment that atypically the enemy Knights were in the centre leaving two strong infantry wings. And from the start crossbows started to cause attrition to the Knights, and of course one of two unreliable commanders decided that it was in his best interests to hold off engaging.

And finally we had some movement from the recalcitrant commander, who moved his Knights forward un support of the remaining Knights. Perhaps not before time due to the losses they were suffering from Crusader crossbows.

As the enemy advanced it was time to pull back the Knights to regroup and recover. For its part the Knight attached to the CinC has also started to take losses from crossbows. We do manage to get our own return fire into effect with casualties inflicted on the enemy's right flank.

The losses mount as the Knight in the centre continues to absorb cross bolts. Equally our own fire has caused significant attrition on the enemy line.

On the left the Communal Militia have thrown back the enemy in front of the marsh as the main attack goes in against the enemy line. It is now time for the Communal Knights to show their hand.

Only for one of the Communal Knights to die on impact from Crusader spears.

It is now, as the losses on both side mount as the battle becomes broken, a question of who can cause as much harm as quickly as possible to destroy the other side.

The answer was not the Communal Italians, who despite beating the enemy right and centre lost against the Crusader left wing.

Outcome

A Crusader win by suffering 21 of 23 to inflicting 24 on the Italians.

Lessons Learnt

A little pre-tournament recon as other -layer's fight might not go amiss to determine what a potential enemy's battle plan might look like.

A rookie mistake was to move the Knights forward into bow range and cause the losses they did suffer.