Order of Saint John vs Marian Roman

This is another game I could witness on the friday friendly game session before ITC 2013. The players, Jim Gibson and Luciano Marchisio, are quite experienced and the game was an excellent opportunity to learn something..

The Order of Saint John army defended but deployed second. The knights were all fielded in second line to support the infantry. Imho this was a risky deployment facing Sulla's troops, all of them RBdS. The risk was that, should the roman infantry rush forward, the lower quality order infantry could be hacked at pieces.

The Roman was quite timid, advancing slowly and using many pips on both the wings to manouver the AxS in attack position, while the IPsS withdrew facing superior enemy forces. A BdS flying column was sent on the right. All this let the Order troops a lot of room and time to manouver, and Jim used very well this opportunity. First the RBwO were moved from the center to the right...

Then also the Navarrese allied AxS were moved out of the way, so to form a solid Kn line facing the static roman legionaries. On the right the roman PsS covered the end of the line while the order crossbowmen advanced to engage them.

After all these manouvers, finally the lines clashed, and the main fight was between knights and legionaries. All the other troops had a minor role, with the exception of order RBwO that killed many roman skirmishers on the far right

The Romans suffered badly the RKnS charges, taking losses in both bounds due the superior grading counting also in the roman combat bound. After some turns and some bad combat die rolls, the roman lost two corps and the army collapsed. 25-0 for Jim Gibson

The game was interesting: Luciano poor combat dice doomed him, but it had a lot of importance also the complete freedom of manouver conceded to the opponent. Considering Jim skill, this was a big present, and the Order army used this opportunity well.