Battle of Bairen,Spain 1097AD.

It is now the end of January,and our thoughts are turning towards "Carronade" on the 11th May!! so we thought we had better do some planning and give some thought as to what kind of game we are going to put as a demonstration.
We pondered long and hard last week,and decided to give our "El Cid" figures a run out this week to try to see what a game would look like and translate onto the games table,and we came up with this lesser known battle from the period-Bairen!!

Top photo is the scenario,bottom is the table before any movement-Graham and Dave were the Spanish commanders,Brian,Paul and I were the Moors-I "assumed" that everyone had read the scenario,but Graham,who was in charge of the Spanish left flank,hadn't,and was "gobsmacked" when Paul's fleet opened a volley of arrows upon him!!!-oh how we laughed!

The "aforementioned" fleet,ready to inflict casualties on any Knight that strays into their field of fire!!

Before waiting for the result of the cavalry battles,about to take place on both flanks,the Spanish "square" moves forward,against the resolute and static Moorish square-a grand sight!

Top photo shows the cavalry clashing on the Moor's right,commanded by Paul,and the bottom one shows the cavalry clash on the Moor's left,commanded by Brian-the camels are causing a bit of confusion in the Spanish ranks-hurrah!!(not 100% historically accurate,but they look good!!)

Now it's the turn of the Infantry to get stuck in!-Graham has charged into my Square,and all hell has broken loose!!

Confusion!!-Infantry and cavalry locked in battle,units retiring(fleeing!) arrows still being shot from the ships-great stuff,and great wargaming.

The other flank looks worse!! but Paul is slowly getting the upper hand,but my square is looking "shaky" to say the least-this is going to be tight.

Brian's flank has collapsed,my square has collapsed,and even though Paul is dominating his flank and shoreline,we had to concede and call it a Spanish win!-what a game,and well done lads,I think we might just take this game to Falkirk.
Roll on next Sunday,could be a Marlburian game,but who knows??

Battle of the Brothers-Spain 1065AD

Last night,Paul,Brian and I had a game using my newly painted Saxons as 11th Century Spanish troops!!-Mainly to get them onto the board,but to see how our rules would work too!

As usual,top photo shows scenario and bottom one shows the table before any moves-I was Alfonso,whilst Brian and Paul were in charge of Sancho's troops.

The two centres move towards the inevitable clash!!-we assumed that all the infantry were armed with spears and swords,so ignored the two-handed Danish Axe held by a lot of my "Saxons".
While the central troops were moving,both wings were "jockying" for position,each trying to out-flank the other.

Brian was in charge of the "Sancho" left flank,containing light infantry and heavy cavalry-I matched him like a mirror image,so it would come down to dice throws in the end!!!-I'll have no chance then!!!

On the other flank,I was out-numbered,so I moved two infantry units onto the flanks of my cavalry to bolster them-hurrah!!-In the background the two centres are just about to charge.

This is how the table looked around move number 4!-flanks not yet engaged but the centre is!!
By some lucky dice throws I managed to win 5 out of 6 melees,and Paul was on the back foot-another hurrah!!

My right flank is in a bit of bother-Brian has won the first round of melees-I will have to send my heavy cavalry in to the fray-but so will Brian-this is going to be bloody!!

There they go!!Brian won 2 out of 3 of the ensuing melees,and eventually pushed me back across the stream-woe is me!!-however I have won all the infantry melees,and am pushing Brian's infantry back!!!!-swings and roundabouts!!

On the other flank,Paul is lining his cavalry up to take on my combined infantry and cavalry.
In the centre,things are going from bad to worse for Paul's infantry-to stop a unit from retiring,he put his command figure with the unit-and,to everyone's surprise,I managed to throw the right combination of dice,and killed him!!!-this forced every unit under his command to test morale,and all but one unit decided that they had done their bit,and headed home-hurrah,hurrah!!!

The "tumbleweed" moment as the table is devoid of Paul's troops!!

This shows Brian's moment of triumph,as he pushes my cavalry back across the stream-however with their centre gone,and their right flank in a spot of bother,I was declared the winner-a big hurrah!!!
This was an interesting game,and, I think, the start of a new period of wargaming,where we can have various "Kingdoms" fighting one another,as well as the fight against the Moors.
We won't be playing on Sunday,because we have been invited by Charlie Wesencraft's club to take part in a re-fight of Waterloo,on Saturday-unfortunately only Brian and I can go,but we'll do our little club proud,I'm sure-a full report will follow on Sunday.
All of the fighting figures(ie everyone except the "El Cid" figure,and some Priests) are from Warrior Miniatures.

San Francessca Convent 1090-Spain

I'm not usually reduced to tears whilst playing a game,but last night,the "Devil's Duo" or the "Satanic Twins" ie Brian and Paul succeeded in reducing me to a tearful wreck!!-During our games we have a mechanism that allows you to "kill" an officer by throwing a combination of a "5" on an average dice,then throwing a "kill" on a kill/miss dice-now this probably happens about 3 or 4 times during the average game-not last night it didn't!! 13,yes THIRTEEN times it happened to me,leaving my Moorish army a leaderless rabble,and sent it to inevitable defeat at the hands of "El Cid" and his Spanish army-woe is me!!!

Top photo is the scenario,bottom photo is the table before any movement-Paul commanded the left of the Spanish(mostly cavalry),Brian commanded the mainly Infantry on the right-I was in command of the Moors.

My plan was to extend my line of cavalry on my right,to out-flank Paul's heavier types-but Paul was having none of it!! and he also extended his line,using his super-duper Normans-the swine!!

On my left,I have raced two cavalry units into the gap between the hill and the table edge,hoping to get a 2:1 advantage over Brian-I didn't quite manage it but did ok in the ensuing melee,meanwhile my infantry and Brian's move slowly towards each other.

On the Cavalry flank,we both charged into each other,and this is where the Officer slaying began-one after the other they fell off their horses,to cries of delight from both Paul and Brian! and just crying from me!!

On the other flank,my initial success has been marred by Brian reinforcing the melee with a unit of the dreaded Normans,and a mass brawl has erupted,which I am losing.This put me in a most perilous position,because if he kept winning he would eventually get into my rear(no jokes please,this is serious wargaming!!)

On my right flank,my cavalry line is being fragmented,and without an officer in sight,my morale is bound to suffer sooner or later(I think it may be sooner!!)

Hurrah!! my infantry has charged into Brian's static formation,and the melee is going my way,if only I can keep my officers away from the Demonic Dice throwing of Brian.Well,no I couldn't and they fell like "nine-pins" putting a dent in my morale -once again,woe is me!!

Now my infantry line is being fragmented!!I am moving the "Black Guard" onto Brian's flank,but methinks a"tad" too late-all is lost!!

This shows the disarray on my right flank,Paul's cavalry are all over me like a "Friday Night Rash"-time to call a halt to this humiliation-would they accept a draw?-does that two finger gesture mean two draws??
This was good game,loads of excitement,colour and bloody lucky dice throws!!
Roll on Sunday,we will be trying out the cavalry part of Ramilles,to see how it works out before our planned re-fight on the 10th October.

"El Cid" 11th Century AD

Last night Paul,Brian and I played a game that saw all of us worn out at the end of it!!
I commanded the Moors whilst Paul commanded the Spanish infantry and Brian commanded the Spanish cavalry.

This is a shot of the table before any movement,Spanish on the left and Moors on the right.The objective of the game was for the Spanish to capture the town and hills,and for the Moors to defend both-simple!!

Paul's first attack begins,he swept forward with his armoured infantry,against the "cream" of my army-Ben Yussef's Black Guard-Brian appears to be contemplating his moves,or is it just wind??

This shot is taken from behind the Spanish cavalry,and shows what a formidable task Brian had.I had written a plan that would see a Moorish cavalry unit move to outflank Brian-but he had forseen this move and had written a counter manoeuvre-the man learns too quickly!!!!!

My central infantry have charged forward in an attempt to stop the Spanish infantry from moving-this was,initially, successful,but then Brian helped Paul out by attacking my exposed flank-he definitely learns too quickly!!-This tussle went on for a couple of moves,then I began to win and Push everything back-Hurrah!!
Of course this situation was not to last,and eventually numbers and wonderful dice throws sent me packing!

The inevitable cavalry clash! I gained impetus by charging down hill and Brian was beaten in all of the initial melees-however he fought back with tenacity and the whole affair turned into a swirl of horses,lance against shield,oaths and furious dice throwing by both myself and Brian-thrilling stuff!!

This is another shot of the cavalry battle,both sides putting their reserves-at this point I was in real trouble.Meanwhile in the background Paul's infantry are creeping forward,driving my Guard back,and threatening to assault the town,my only success on this flank was my cavalry beating Paul's-another Hurrah!!

Paul's assault is shown here,my central infantry have all but disappeared,and with only very poor troops in the town,it looks all over-HOWEVER-the empire strikes back,and I somehow managed to keep control of the town-yet another Hurrah!!!

I am piling troops into the town here,and Paul has been repulsed!! We had been playing for nearly three hours,and a count up showed that I had 5 cavalry units still left on the hill,against Brian's 2,and the town still hadn't fallen-so I declared myself the winner-Brian and Paul agreed that I was the winner and that I played much better than they did and also had a better plan-Well,really they whinged and moaned,and said a Draw would be a fair result,and of course I couldn't argue against that,so we called it a draw!!

We won't be playing on Sunday-too cold! but I have another painting project on the go,so has Brian and I will post some photo's of that-and hopefully Dave will send me a photo of his latest "El Cid" offering.

All of the figures used in last night's game were from Warrior Miniatures "El Cid" range.