Largish El CID Game

 For this months Sunday game we had a large El CID encounter with 9 players.

We would have 24 Divisions of troops on a 14 feet by 6 feet table.

For our scenario a large Muslim army has raided into Christian Territory and is returning laden with booty and slaves. In march column jammed up on the road they find their way blocked by 3 divisions of Christians and Christian reinforcements appear at intervals on their right flank as the game progresses.

To make it easier I have dropped the army lists below straight from the excel spreadsheet I used.

Muslims

These forces are spread along the road and the Muslim commander Chris Charlton gets to decide what order they are in front to back.. He decides that a division of light cavalry screening his front followed by his best foot the Black guard will be best.

The Christians and commanded by Si, one Division of six foot blocks the road with two more and a division of Knights marching on in support. 

I had actually split these down into smaller divisions for ease of movement but later realised I had done this after I sent the lists over to Chris and asked him to print them! Doh!

Christians:

So whilst the Moors have a fair advantage in numbers they are bunched and hemmed in so will take time to sort themselves out, the Christians have the advantage of surprise and better cavalry but will have to commit to battle piece meal if they want to keep the advantage and stop the Moors organising. ,

The Christians deploy to block the road in a strong deep formation somewhat protected by a wood through which the Moorish horse cant pass.

 

 On the flank near the rear of the Moorish column Richard has a division of Christian cavalry and immediatly throws his light horse at the Berber spearmen still in march column. The archers flee, the first unit of Berbers are ridden straight over and he is straight into the next.

A good start for the Christians who have grasped the need to be aggressive to prevent the Moors getting organised.

Also move one Mark has a further division of Christian Cavalry arrive on the right flank of the moors, having much further to go he is content to close the distance,

In response the Moorish light cavalry begins to deploy to cover their flank and face the Christians whilst the mass of foot tries to untangle itself.

At the front the Black guard is hampered by the inexperience of Ben Yusufs son Muhammed who cant see a way to deploy his superior troops. We made him a level 7 commander as Historically the Cid beat him more than once and a it of confusion at the front buys the Christians badly needed time to bring more troops up.

A view down the table gives an idea of the scale of the game with the two isolated divisions of Christian horse  mybe 5 feet apart doing their best ttie down the Moors.

Rich presses a further two units of Knights forward to take advantage of the confusion as the Moors continue to struggle to get into battle formation.

Chris Charltons rear division has managed to get turned to its right flanks and begin to advance towards the woods that earlier hid Richards Knights.

Marks Division has made rapid progress and is almost set to charge into the Moorish column.

Jerry however has got his first units of Moorish light horse forward and chages the Christians.

As Jerry and Mark battle it out the rest of Marks Christians push toward the colmn.

Unfortunately for Mark this part of the line is guarded by Muslim heavy cavalry, almost as good as his knights.

At the front of the column Dave is still trying to deploy his Black Guard and finds his light cavalry is an encumbrance being too light to go for the Christians but too numerous to easily get out of his way and allow him to get to grips.

The sneaky Christians push their archers and crossbowmen through the wood to both the Moors but are driven back by the Moorish light horse..

Dave pushes the Black Guard camelry to his right flank to counter the Christian Knights Richard is pushing forward, albeit still very slowly.

A couple of hours in and most of the Christians are now deployed and closing on the Moorish column, the Moors are slowly untangling them selves ad throwing their horse at the Christians to buy them both space and time .

At the rear of the column Chris is now pushing his Moorish foot through the light woods to attack the Christian left flank and start closing them down.

Marks second division of Knights close with the Moorish column and troops are now engaged almost the legnth of the table.

Richard has pulled his Knights back behind his remaining light cavalry unit as the Moors get organised and start to inflict casualties. Aware the Chris's infantry is on his left flank and getting caught up by the horse may pin him for the infantry to take him in flank.

The Moorish light horse advance to challenge Richards remaining unit but he is keeping just out of range.

At the front Dave's Muslim light horse is still doing all the fighting and the Black Guard have barely moved all game. It seems unlikely there will be a break through today, there may not even be any sort of decisive clash.

The Christians have finally got most of their troops deployed on the table end but both sides are still struggling to get their best troops to grips with each other.

Mean while the remaining Christian forces have deployed onto the flanks of the column and the Moorish cavalry has pushed out to face them in a series of running cavalry combats. 

As we return from lunch at last the Black Guard are formed up ready and advancing but it may all be too little too late.

The other division of Black Guard is still in march column and going nowhere.

At the front its a slugging match but neither side can get to each other fully still.

Richards initial Cavalry division remains largely intact but he has pulled it back even further from the rear of the column to avoid units breaking and force the Moors to come to him, trading time for space.

The Black Guard cavalry and Camelry have closed with the Christians Knights abd both sides struggle to gain the upper hand.

Jerry's Muslim heavy cavalry finally break Marks original cavalry division only to find a fresh division of Knights behind preparing to charge him.

As the day draws to a close it is all still to play for. Neither side has captured any of their opponents leaders, the Christians have failed to capture any baggage whilst the Moors have failed to move their force any further down the road. I award a minor victory to the Moors who have destroyed one Christian division but this is pretty tenuous, the Christians have penned the Moor in all day and they dotn look like breaking out anytime soon.

The game itself worked mainly as planned, it did take longer for the Moors to sort them selves into a coherent force, at the end of the game the Black Guard were still not properly engaged with Richard and Si's Christian foot at the front of the column. We could perhaps have done with less players and less troops on table to get a result as it goes there is another full days worth of gaming to get a proper result to the game but I think everyone enjoyed it and we all got our models on table.

Bunch More El Cid Painted

So a few more of the African Moors in quilted armour, this lot will finish this unit off.

The gap with my El Cid collection is Moorish, mainly the colourful Andalusians, beautiful and fun to paint but time consuming so I have spent more time than I should on easily painted armoured Christians. I hope to start re-dressing the balance.

As with other units 15 will do this, 5 on each base. Also like my other units a mix of manufacturers in use.

These first two are Fireforge, lovely plastic figures, chunky, easy to paint and characterful, the only thing letting them down is the lack of base making handling and basing them awkward,

The last two Gripping Beast figures for this unit, the right hand figure has a hand swap giving him a short sword instead of a spear. Whilst the figures are all slightly different I have kept the colour pallette the same to tie them all together, brown shields and white tunics etc.

The last two for this unit are a little different, they are the first figures I have painted from alternative miniatures. These are metal versions of the reconquista range of 3d printable figures and are lovely castings. I have lots more of these, particularly cavalry for both sides. I also have some 3d printed figures from the range to compare but more ont hat later.

This chap is an Artizan Designs figure, I have a small number of these, I have chosen to paint him as a black African as that is how he was sculpted, this one however as the standard bearer of an important leader is no doubt a freed slave, there were many African and Slav slaves in the courts and armies of Muslim Spain and many were freed to rise to prominent positions. This one is well on his way.

Here are the Africans in quilted armour, I think the mix of figures looks nice.

The Infantry command also coming out well with a mix of varied colours across the base lifting it and making it  pop a bit.

And the cavalry officer, again lots of colours on display to lift this figure, I think the orange tawny horse tack works quite well.

All together and ready for tonights game.

Next up hopefully Muslim armoured cavalry.

Thanks for stopping by.

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.