ADLG - Game Report 304

Taifa Kingdom (204) vs Kingdom of Sicily (188)

Game two against Johannes's Army of the Kingdom of Sicily; perhaps I should abbreviate that to AKoS – perhaps not! Once more I was invited to defend in the plains. I was familiar with this enemy army, as I had been considering it myself although Johannes's army design was somewhat different. He deployed with a weak foot centre of mediocre heavy spears, and on his right (my left) were medium impetuous knights while on the right were medium impact knights. For our part we deployed similarly with foot centre and horse left and right.

The initial advances were quite tentative with Light Troops doing their screening thing.

I pushed the left wing forward to try and goad his impetuous Knights into attacking my Knights. I advanced the foot and right wing together for mutual support.

And goad them we did! The initial contact was one of the fiercest first rounds of melee combat I have seen for a very long time, with us prevailing by only losing one heavy cavalry to the Sicilian's one Knight. For the ADLG bean counters the combats went from left to right (Taifa first number) 6 to 1, 1 to 6, 6 to 3. However, the mobility of the Heavy Cavalry has allowed them to reorganise and now attack the flanks of the Sicilian Knights. On the right two Heavy Cavalry have engaged the enemy bows; and bows as they can do not only withstood the charge but also inflicted two losses on the cavalry!

The centre and right move into contact, where honours are about even along the line, and certainly not as damaging as the last first contact! For the ADLG purists the light infantry man at the left end of the infantry line is not in contact as they were slightly behind the line of the spearmen could n't to their right. On the left we now have the job of trying to finish off the remaining enemy Knight as quickly as possible to allow the left wing cavalry to regroup and support the centre. However, the Medum Spearmen are well placed to support as well.

Outcome

From this reasonable position it all went south as the Taifa foot and horse crumbled, leaving the Sicilian's master of the battlefield with a win, in which they lost 19 of their 24 cohesion points.

Tournament running scores: One Draw, One loss, three games to go.

Lessons Learnt

What could have been either a costly Taifa victory or a mutual destruction was compromised by the dice gods.