The Crusader era
This is a team scenario ideated to be played and finished in a single session. The teams will fight battles between historical enemies in the crusade era from 1096 A.D. to 1250 A.D. and will sum the scores of each individual game to determine the team score and the winner side.
The "historical" battles will be:
Cilicia Armenian (D) vs Seljuqs Turks
Early Crusaders vs Fatimid Egyptians (D)
Later Crusaders (D) vs Kwarizmians
St. Louis' French Crusade vs Ayyubids (D)
Lusignan Cypriots (D) vs Mameluks
The games will be played with the attacker and the defender already determined. The defender is identified by a (D) in the list above.
Report
In our club when we played this scenario some of the players asked for a random pairing, so we did it. The games were:
Comnenan Byzantine vs Kwariziam 23-2
Early Crusaders vs Fatimidi 5-20
Later Crusaders vs Ayyubids 12-13
Mameluks vs St Louis Crusade 2-23
Lusignan Cypriot vs Rum Seljuqs 3-22
Here follows some pictures of the battles to give an idea how games developed:
Comnenan Byzantine vs Kwariziam
The battlefield seen from the Comnenan side. The table was quite open and the attacking Kwariziam decided to try to smash the Byzantine right wing massing CvS and LhS versus CvO. The Byzantine army had a manichean ally and relied much on Bw. The Islamic player deployed deep to use brute force in a massive frontal attack.
Byzantine shooting was very effective and made many losses on the Kwariziams
The Kwariziam was weakened, but thanks to the many reserves filled the gaps and charged straight along all the front, relying on the better quality of his mounted arm.
The attack was a disaster. The islamics lost many troops and the countercharges with overlaps by the byzantines cut down more and more troops. The attrition along the frontage had as consequence that once the first kwariziam corps broke, the others were so logorated that the ME transmisson broke all the army. 23-2 for the Byzantines.
Early Crusaders vs Fatimids
The Fatimid defended and put down many terrains that fell on the left side of the table. The big dune feature closer to the center played an important role as channelled the crusaders and was used by the fatimid for an outflank manouver. The crusader plan was simple, use the waterway as flank protection of the best troops and attack along it.
The Crusaders sperheaded their attack with KnO followed in echelon by the BdS
While the Fatimid infantry used the terrain to attack along the left wing, the cavalry was sent back to attack the exposed crusader flank
The Fatimids after a very hard fight were able to break the enemy left wing and roll the enemy center, but had their right command disheartened. The muslim army suffered many losses, for a final score of 20-5
Later Crusaders vs Ayyubids
This is the game I played vs P. Paglianti. My list is that
The Ayyubids were defender facing an inert Later Crusader army. The table was very open. The muslims decided to try to attack frontally the enemy 24 IKnO on two ranks and use the feigned flight to let ghulams attack twice the enemy formation, while distracting the enemy with a double outflank manouver to try to strip the flank of the bowmen protection.
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The flank attack worked on the right, with Lh stopping enemy bowmen and engaging them from side and rear too. The frontal attack from the CvS was a failure, while the LhS were quite succesful. The CvS feigned flight after the attack leaving the LhS in the center engaged.
The Ayyubid ghulams fled and the inert CiC was not able to keep the impetous knight in formation.
Another charge and another failure by ghulams, failing to kill any knights even when yhey were double overlapped. Again the light horse in the center were succesfull, eliminating more enemy elements.
The crusader charge was hard and deadly. Ayyubid CiC corps took many casualties and was half element away from breaking, while the Crusader had both Kn corps disheartened.
With losses mounting quickly we both had the opportunity to win the game killing one missing enemy element but failed. In the end both the armies broke at the same time for a 13-12 to the Ayyubid defender.
Mameluks vs St Louis Crusade
The battlefield seen from french side. The crusaders, defending, were able to clutter the battlefield with a lot of terrain to hamper the enemy mounted. They ambushed a knight corps in the center behind a hill crest. and ambushed also more troops on the left in a wooded hill. The result was that the mameluk lost the initiative and was forced to fight having few room, with more difficult going behind him.
In the secont turn more french troops concealed appeared on the table, while the egyptian right wing was engaged by enemy isolated and in a critical position
The Mameluk player charged his ghulam in the enemy center trying to exploit some overlaps, but the charge failed and in few round the egyptian center broke. The mameluk right wing was still fighting on, thanks to the reserves sent there
With the egyptian center demise, the mameluk right wing was pressured from three side and after a valiant resistance broke carring down the army. 23-2 For St. Louis french crusade.
Lusignan Cypriot vs Rum Seljuqs
This game was also called "the shame battle" because one of the players had miniatures just undercoated. He is a new player, and still painting his first army, so contrary to the club habits we let him use these, but at the cost of some moking.
The ghost army on the left is the Seljuq horde, attacking a Lusignan Cypriot army with maxed archers and a reserve of knights
The Seljuqs attacked in echelon, trying to outflank the enemy wing on the right. The Lusignan knight reserve moved in position to bolster the corps under attack
The cypriot wing collapsed quickly while the Kn reserve was not fast enough to enter combat due pip shortage and clumsy troops. Now the Lusignan center was under pressure.
The kn charge disheartened one turk corps but losses were mounting for both armies, and the Cypriot center finally broke giving the victory to the Seljuq. 22-3 for the Turks
After these hard battles, the Christians prevailed against the Muslims 66-59 in a close run fight.