El Cid, First Game for a Long Time

We have plans for Hail Caesar so it seemed appropriate to get a game in and remind ourselves of the rules.

The only armies I have enough of for a small game are my El Cid collection so we decided a small Reconquista game would be in order.

Our game has a force of Christians led by the Count of Asturias returning from a raid into Zaragossa. The Zarragossan's, supported by Catalan mercenaries, block their passage home determined on retribution.

My forces are a little unbalanced so hopefully the game will inspire me to finish more Muslims.

The Muslim forces are 5 units of Berber spears with 3 units of archers in one division blocking the road. Supporting them are three units of Mercenary Catalan Knights.

Off table ready to attack the flanks of the Christians are 2 cavalry Divisions the first has one unit of Heavy Andalusian Cavalry with three units of light Horse and a small unit of horse archers. The second three units of Berber light horse and another small unit of horse archers.

The Christians, supported by a plate of chocolate digestives, have 2 divisions each of horse and foot. Left of road the first division has 2 units of light horse and 3 of armoured Knights. Then a unit of archers supports two armoured Christian foot and one unarmoured. On the road is the stolen baggage in the form of mixed camels and donkeys. To the right of the road a unit of crossbows supports 2 armoured and 2 unarmoured foot and lastly 3 units of Asturian armoured Knights with a unit of light cavalry complete the Christian army.

The Christian army are in march column, I wanted them to have to sort themselves out into a battle line before they could respond to the Muslim forces.

The Muslims have a very slight superiority in numbers and more missile troops but the Christian Knights are superior in quality by some margin so on balance the Christians should have a significant edge. The only real advantage the Zarragossan troops have is surprise.

Steve commands the Moors, as they are the ambushers they get first move, so after failing to get the Berber foot to move he tried his hand with the horse. He has the option to enter anywhere on his own base line or the right hand edge of the table and elects to enter on the Asturians left flank. He can only deploy one move on, his first larger division deploys, his second fails its orders and remains off table for now.

Move one and Chris, commanding the Asturian army, gets his left hand cavalry division to start sorting itself out, but only gets one move for most units. He then rolls for his Asturian cavalry on the right and gets a double 6, blunder, the Asturian cavalry retire one full move. He then rolls for the left hand infantry, another double 6, you couldnt write it, this time they route of table, the whole division. He will be able to roll to bring them back on next go, but still not good. Lastly his right hand foot division get a single move forward allowing the units to form line one move forward.

Not surprisingly Chris is a bit deflated at the lack of success, still this is really only going to slow him down, he still has the advantage of quality.

Next move and the Moorish Heavy Cavalry charge the front unit of Knights, they win, just, but the Knights pass their morale. Chris reinforces and in the second round looses again, but roles his third double 6 of the night and passes his morale.

Chris is getting organised now and charges Berber light horse with his next unit of Knights, the outcome is predictable and the Moors are destroyed.

Chris uses his sweeping advance to bounce onto the next Berber light cavalry unit and again the results are predictable as the Berbers leg it.

Things are starting to come together  abit now. Steves Berber foot has advances to bring the Christians in range of their superior archery, however the better armoured Christians take very few casualties. 

The right hand divisions of Christians are almost ready to engage the Berber foot and on the left the Christian horse are starter to get the better of their one sided arm wrestle with e Moorish horse.

Steve advances the remnants of the light cavalry to try flank the infantry and slow Chris down, unfortunately he only gets one move stopping perilousley close to the Christian Knights.

The horse archers exchange volleys of arrows with the Christian archers who may possibly have left their bow strings at home and started throwing rocks their aim is so bad.

Chris throws his 4th double 6 for morale on his badly damaged Knights and both sides cavalry pull back thoroughly mauled.

Chris's knights turn about and charge another unit of Berber light horse and drive them off table, this forces a Divisional break test which is passed but there is virtually nothing left of them.

Chris has finally got his right hand divisions formed and charged the Berber foot, despite the long spear rule removing their charge bonus the Asturians are sucessful destroying two units of Berbers.

Its hard fightign but the Christians are definately in the ascendancy and the remaining Berber foot are steadily pushed back.

Interested to see what happens if the Asturian knights break through and hit the Catalan Mercenaries, but we are running out of time.

We call off before we have a final result but the writing is on the wall, after a very shaky start and a fair bloody nose the Christians have driven the Moorish cavalry off, gathered themselves and started to punch a hole through the Berber foot. So whilst the Moors mercenary Catalan Knights are yet to be committed they are not likely to stop the Asturians from driving off the Moors and getting their ill gotten gains home. 

Despite a traumatic start for Chris that may leave him with dice PTSD everyone enjoyed the game and we decided another game is in order to keep our hand in. 

No surprise I have already started buying more figures to plug some of the gaps in my collection so it must have gone reasonably well.

Hope you enjoyed our colourful little game and thanks for stopping by.