Ireland - Italy test match game

Richard Ainsley and me arranged a test match between irish and italian players in the afternoon of Friday the 10th August, before starting Britcon DBMM tournament.

There were four games. I played against Richard, using my Ottoman Turks, facing Later Hungarians. It's always nice to play an historical match up.

I was the attacker and chose a river, to anchor a flank. I had no idea about the Hungarian composition, but I knew it could have many more Lh of my army.

Richard's army was made in a way I never saw: a large infantry corps with wagons, clipeati and skirmishers, supported by three small corps with Kn and Lh. Four regular commands, a very mobile host. We rolled for the weather, and I could night attack.

First night attack turn. My plan was to make full use of the night advantage. I wanted to pin the hungarian army, to not let it use the four regular corps pip advantage and slip away.

The C1 corps should try to attack from two direction on the left. My advance would be echeloned, beacuse I tried to avoid to fight the Wwg and the infantry, looking for a cavalry fight, where the BP difference would have helped me. The three hungarian Kn corps were at 16ME.

Second night turn. C2 is struggling with low pips, but C1 is in an excellent position.

At sunset Ottoman army was deployed threatening Hungarian left wing.

The Hungarian reacted, deploying the LhS to protect its flank from my LhF, and immediately charging the jannissary and the azabs screening the Serbians

Having more toops and higher BP, Ottoman ILhF charged szekelers LhS. The Serbian too attacked the enemy Lh, while the Janissary fire against LhO was uneffective.

Hungarian szekelers and cumans took losses, so the Hungarian player committed the Kn main bodies, charging into the akinjis and the Serbian. The Jannissary were trying to keep their ground, being under attack from war wagons and gusars

Close up of the fighting

The Serbians survived the hungarian attack and in their countercharge broke the enemy corps. On the left the Hungarian knights were successful, and their push widened a gap on the flank, that was exploited by the mobile ottomans

The Serbians again survived the Hungarian attack, while the knight charge on the left was finally halted by the ottoman reserves.

With losses mounting and Kn going back and forth, the lines disordered and gaps appeared, so the fight became even bloodier with many hard flankings.

Finally the Hungarian army broke. 25-0 for the Ottoman

The night attack gave a huge advantage to the Ottoman. Hungarian could not move first and use its main asset, the C3 superiority. Once locked in combat, the grinding was terrible and penalized the smaller and nimbler Hungarian army. Richard played well, but was from the very start in an extremely difficult tactical situation.

These were the test matches results:

Lorenzo Mele (Ottoman) - Richard Ainsley (Later Hungarian) 25-0

Simone Fantini (Later Achemenid Persian) - William Coughlan (Early Achemenid Persian) 10-15

Luciano Marchisio (Italian Condotta) - Tom Warden (Later Hungarian) 25-0

Diego Zullich (Patrician Roman) - Dave Houston (Seleucid) 25-0

So the final score was Italy - Ireland  85-15.

A good start.

Thanks to the irish players for the games, there are not many opportunities to play each other and this test was well worth for all of us I think.