Remote Reconquista - Zallaqah 1086

It's been a while since I did any gaming over the internet.   However, in response to my post where I confessed to doing very little actual wargaming Jon Freitag (He of the excellent Palouse Wargames Journal blog) invited me to take part in an online game of Basic Impetus.  This is a version he has adapted to work on a hex gridded tabletop which makes it much easier to deal with via a PC monitor.  The game was a refight of the Battle of Zallaqah 1086 CE.  As it was a remote game I entirely failed to take any pictures or make any screen grabs...Doh!  So I have 'borrowed a couple of images from Jon's write up (found here Palouse Wargaming Journal: Zallaqah, Again).  Besides Jon acting as umpire and game manager we had three players all called David being myself, David of the Ragged Soldier Blog and David of the Serener Skies Blog, plus one Chris (Nundunket of the Horse and Musket gaming blog)

I have played basic Impetus a couple of times before and enjoyed the experience.  Jon's adaption to a hex grid worked really well and once again I really enjoyed the game.  I was cast in the role of one of the two Commanders of King Alphonso VI's army.  It was clear from the start that this would be an uphill task as the Almoravid  and Andalusian forces outnumbered us.  Now this is a period and location which I really don't know a great deal about so I had no idea as to the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two armies.  One major issue was that the Muslim Infantry were equipped with long spears which meant that the Spanish Heavy Cavalry couldn't attack them frontally without sacrificing their additional Impetus combat dice and they had bow support behind the rank of spearmen.  Offsetting that was the fact that the Muslim infantry were at the same disadvantage against our heavy horse.  The second was that even if we were able to beat their first line a second, equally strong infantry force formed a second line behind it and lastly we were deployed with our heavy cavalry as a front line directly facing their heavy Infantry blocks.  This would be a tough nut to crack.

The initial deployment for the Christian army.....

... and that of the Muslim army.   You can begin to see our issue?

After a very quick planning session my fellow Spanish commander and I decided to avoid the Muslim centre and try to re deploy our cavalry to the flanks where we would be facing a more favourable set of opponents.  All we had to do was pull off redeploying in the face of an aggressive enemy with substantial archery assets!  As expected while attempting this we were peppered with arrows, fortunately this caused more disorder than deaths and after two turns we were starting to look like we had managed to reposition at least some of the cavalry.  Two units stayed in the centre to deter the enemy (that's my story anyway in reality it felt too dangerous to move them in the face of the enemy infantry as getting hit in the flank often leave a messy pile of bodies).  This seemed to give our opponents pause and there was a delay before they decided to advance and engage which gave us time to get stuck in on the flanks.

We had the better of it against the Arab and Moorish cavalry at least initially.  But eventually as knights often do they pushed too far and the inevitable counter attack hit them.  At the same time the Muslim centre rolled forwards.  This was messy one of my Knights held on for far longer than I expected and reduced the attacking infantry to a single stand before being destroyed.  This gave me what looked like a fairly easy target but could I roll a decent di roll, of course not!  I did eventually destroy it and my light cavalry was pushing down the right but there was still the little matter of what was pretty much a second army to fight and that was starting to push forwards on our left wing.

At this point we were told that both armies were on the cusp of breaking!  The enemy decided to go for broke and went after a weakened unit of knights over on the left ....and bounced.  The loss was enough to break them leaving us one point away from breaking, so the result was a draw!  

After the game was over Jon explained that the historical result was a near annihilation of the Christian army, so I am even more pleased at the outcome.  All in all a great game and very well run by Jon.

Trying to hit a moving target

This is not a post about the odds of hitting something with a projectile weapon, but a reflection on the wargaming  targets I set myself for this year.  You see they moved, I wasn't looking and suddenly my priorities changed.  Or possibly I became side tracked.  I don't have a laser focussed, hard edged focus on my targets so it was bound to happen.  This year my interest in creating 2mm armies for Strength and Honour was replaced by an interest in completing my 6mm pike and shot army.  If I do anything with those rules I will actually go with my existing 6mm armies.  My focus on DBA armies which are contemporary with my Late Imperial Romans has remained and my wish to build up some Goths and other assorted migration period Germanic types has also survived.  

As a result my painting time has been given over to painting Goth Warbands and 17th century Bavarian Cuirassiers of late.  I'm here to tell you that painting that blue and white checked Bavarian flag is damn tricky in 6mm too.  I'm reminded of the early versions of the FIFA football video game where the graphics were incapable of showing Blackburn Rover's blue and white halved shirts so they instead used an average tone of pale blue all over!  I tried I really did but I just can't get the lozenges the right shape, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  My Bavarians will have to live with some dodgy diagonal stripes on their flags.  Still progress has been made and so far this month I have finished two bases of ten Cuirassiers and three of 16 Goth foot warriors.

The Goths as they currently stand (or for the cavalry sit)

Adding those to earlier figures I painted earlier in the year gives me the army shown above.  These can be any flavour of Goth or even Vandals I suppose.  They can fight alongside a Hunnic force as allies and at a pinch stand in for Franks or early Saxons.

Hopefully this will be the Roman view of them, from behind as they retreat

This painting output has had the bonus effect of pushing me over my painting target for 2025, yes folks the lead pile is currently 30 figures smaller than it was on 1st  January.  I'm not 100% on target as I have slightly more foot figures than I started with but the amount of cavalry and miscellaneous stuff like artillery and dragoons I have completed has taken me over the total figure count target.  That includes adjusting for the number of figures bought during the year as well.

But what about the moving targets?  Well I have taken some items off the list and added a couple to it.  The plan to extend my DBA armies out to being basic ADLG army size is no longer a priority.  I doubt I will have time to finish my Hunnic or Moorish DBA forces either.  I do have all the figures for the Moors but would need to buy more Huns to get me over the line on that one.  So I have punted all those down the road for the moment.  I'm still torn over what do about the Early Byzantinian DBA army.  At the moment it is entirely made up of proxy figures, but I am very tempted to grab some of the new Baccus figures to replace the current infantry, who would then revert to their Sassanid allegiance.  I suppose I might just get the Moors over the line if I get some serious painting time in, but then again I might not as there are a lot of light cavalry to work through.

It's good to be flexible I suppose, and important to be realistic about what I can achieve over the next few weeks.  Watch this space, as they say, although it is unlikely I might just surprise all of us before 31 December comes around.

Helion's Bavarian Armies during the TYW - a review

I'm a bit of a fan of the Helion Century of the Soldier series as it covers one of my core periods of interest, the 17th Century.  I have three or four on my bookshelf already including another by Laurence Spring the author of this book.  It is only cost which prevents me having many, many more.  They are best thought of as an step up from Osprey's offering as they are of a higher page count so can go deeper into their subjects.  I'd normally go with Osprey as an introduction on a topic and then the Helion if I then want to delve deeper.  As a bonus Helion have opened a second hand section to their webstore where books both second hand or with minor cosmetic damage (as was the case for this purchase) are offered at a discount.  With this book I made an offer of £7.50, which included postage, against a list price of £25.00 for a new copy and it is the latest updated second edition.

Looks interesting

I have wanted this particular volume for a while now as my re-enactment unit within the Sealed Knot has a connection to Bavaria in the Thirty Years war due to our links with the Memmingen Pikeniere who invite us to join them in the four yearly 'Wallensteinfest'.  If I'm going to take part in a Bavarian Thirty Years War event I felt that it would be nice to have some background information.  This book gives me that, in spades.

My copy is softback but quite robust.  Excluding the rather useful bibliography the main text runs to 212 pages including 16 pages of colour illustrations.  the contents page shows the main areas covered.

There is a lot of information crammed in here

From a tabletop wargamers perspective not all of those chapters are of key importance although for creating a living history background for a re-enactor the information is a gold mine of detail.   So for example Chapters 8,9 and 11 and 12  cover things that don't see much coverage when the dice are being rolled but will add a lot of depth to a living history persona.  On the plus side the plates have some lovely illustrations of colours carried by the Bavarians.  The chapters on "The rank and file and "Organisation" give clues on unit headcounts at various points in the war.  The appendix on Regiments of the Bavarian army gives a potted biography of every unit, even the minor unit we recreate (not brilliantly it has to be said) when over there.  The bibliography is useful even if it does cite a couple of Osprey titles amongst the primary sources.

Now for the not so good points.  For a book subtitled 'The backbone of the Catholic League" it doesn't give a chronology of the League or any information on it's composition.  I had to turn to Wikipedia to for that.   There isn't an index, to me this is a major omission in what is significant reference work.  Then, despite having chapters on Organisation and Tactics it doesn't give me all the detail I had hoped for to allow me to create a table top representation of the units that make up the Bavarian army and to show it's combat deployments, unit formations and battlefield tactics.  I was hoping to have a run down on how Tilly organised and fought his forces and how those things changed after his death.  After all we know Tilly favoured larger infantry combat formations but very little detail is provided.  In fact Tilly is hardly mentioned after the short biography in Chapter 1!  I'd tell you exactly how few but there isn't an index to let me easily do that.  Some information on how the Army fought is there but it is a pretty broad brush approach over all.  We do get some data on unit sizes and pike to shot ratios but very little of the depth and width of infantry formations.  Period military textbooks are quoted but these range from late 16th century material, Gerat Barry's description of the Spanish formations from the early 1630's, through to English sources and post Thirty Years War material without any explanation of what might be relevant and why.

I know hard information is difficult to come by but it would be nice to have comments to say this author writing in 1600 gives us an idea of where tactics stood at the outset of the war, this from 1632 despite detailing Spanish doctrines may show what influenced Tilly.  Such and such a source although written in 1650 may be showing us the final tactical developments.  From a wargaming perspective I have seen this stuff done in much better ways.

Like the other Helion book I have by this author (In the Emperor's Service which covers Wallenstein's armies) it has the feel of an academic paper rather than a book aimed just at wargamers alone.  For anyone doing living history it is a treasure trove of background information on Bavarian forces.  For the pure wargamer it is a little light on the nitty gritty of formations and tactical usages, but still a good source.  I suppose I bring my own bias to the book as what I really want is guidance on how to portray the army on a wargames table and which tactics to use with it.  After reading it I'm still unclear on how (for example) Tilly deployed a foot Battalia and how this changed after First Breitenfeld, There is too great a relance on sources that even at the time would have been considered a secondary source and there are sources used that have no direct bearing on the Bavarian army.  Those are used to show general trends in tactics but if you are buying a book about a single army in a single period it's likely that the reader knows that stuff already. Overall I'd score this book as a 7/10 and I'm glad I obtained it at a deep discount.