Fanatics ≠ Archers - Again

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With our first game taking not very long at all, Peter and I had plenty of time for a second. I’ll let him tell the story again:

Peter writes…

In our second Galatian vs Western Sudanese battle, Rob deployed his camp slightly off centre to my left and surrounded it with his scary hairy warbands. He then deployed one cavalry command to my left of that and the other way off on my right.

So I again used my camp as a hardpoint on my left flank garrisoned by an entire command of archers to counter any possible attack by his cavalry on that flank.

I then deployed another command of archers centrally to create an interlocking field of fire in the middle. On my right I deployed my only cavalry command supported by a full infantry command to face his single cavalry command.

The Battle Begins

On that right flank I quickly marched forward with my 8 units and 22 arrows facing 2 units and 4 javelins. The numbers quickly showed and Rob’s command was quickly disordered and surrounded.

In the centre I advanced my massed bows to create interlocking fields of fire directly in front of his warbands. This deterred them from advancing.

Just as they were deciding they were fanatical enough to charge forward, Rob attempted to drag his cavalry on my left, that were facing my well garrisoned camp, into the centre enroute to supporting his outnumbered cavalry command on my right.

However this blocked the advance if his warbands and the combination of rough terrain, hesitant unwieldy warbands and intimidating fields of fire quickly turned into a log-jam with the cavalry baulking at entering rough terrain, and his unwieldy warbands both getting in the way and still reluctant to advance into the interlocking fields of fire.

The Battle Continues

On my right, Robs outnumbered, outflanked and unsupported cavalry quickly caved in allowing me to threaten the flanks of his central warbands.

At this stage I advanced my camp garrison out into the main battle area and started to shoot into the flanks of his bogged down cavalry and the still reluctant warbands.

Before long the constant rain of arrows in the middle and the cavalry attacks into his flank was enough to conclude the battle.

Conclusion

Every battle with Rob is always enjoyable and good fun, especially when we are both trying out new armies. In this case Rob’s conclusion was that Galatians don't like being shot at and so my Nigerian army almost exclusively of archers was his worst nightmare.

It does show that sometimes massed archery can work although like me, most TtS players have experienced disappointing and unreliable volleys from massed bowmen. And I know from my personal experience at the World’s that sometimes it's the enemy’s raw LI/javelin that throws its one javelin and kills off both your wounded verteran cataphract and its heroic senior general!

That’s all part of the joy of TtS and means that whatever situation you are ever in, never give up, because your opponent might just fail the save and give you a last minute victory!

My Comments

Well that didn’t work out very well, did it!

I still need to find a way to get my fanatics into combat without being shot to pieces by massed archers; and need to remember how difficult it is (on a competition-size table) to switch a command from one side of the field to the other: the table-size is designed to get a result not allow for anything other than micro-tactical manoeuvers.

That’s two games in a row without a win for my Galatians!

Fanatics ≠ Archers

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With enough Celts now painted to have a game, I was keen to get them onto the tabletop. Perhaps unwisely, my first opponent was Peter, winner of almost every To The Strongest competition he enters.

The first incarnation I tried was the Celts as fanatical Galatians: an army comprised of six units of deep fanatics and some cavalry. I’ll let Peter tell you what happened…

Peter writes:

I love experimenting with new armies, new troop type combinations and new tactics and seeing how well they perform, either as an official tournament army or with slight variations to stress test their full potential.

I’ve been inspired by a Nigerian CEO mentoring client who told me about the fascinating medieval history of his nation including Mansa Musa who is, relatively speaking, the richest man who has ever lived, far outpacing the likes of Gates, and Musk through his extraordinary gold mines. Although beware any email from his 20 times great grand son who claims to have found his inheritance down a mine!

Anyway…

So I created a Western Sudanese Nigerian army and fought two battles against my good friend Rob, who wanted to test out his brand new Galatian hordes with gorgeous tartan cloaks.

Essentially an army of archers fighting against hordes of hairies.

In our first battle Rob deployed his hordes in the middle with cavalry protecting each flank. I deployed my archers centrally with my small cavalry command on my left and my camp as a hard point protecting my right flank.

The Plan

My plan had 3 components …

  1. To have a melee free stand off in the middle whilst peppering him with arrows.

  2. To draw Rob’s cavalry command on my right forward into a killing zone surrounded by archers in my camp and nearby woods.

  3. To win the whole battle on my left with a combined arms attack of cavalry and massed archery, around two woods that would constrain and frustrate both his cavalry and his deep warbands.

The Battle Starts

On my left I pushed forward with all my cavalry supported by several bow units. This sucked his cavalry and three warbands forward, with a bloodlust to crush my impertinent bowman.

I then manoeuvred my three mounted units against just one of Robs and moved four archer units just into range to pour arrows into his other cavalry unit and three deep warbands that were struggling to manaouvre around the two woods. The deep hairies were also attempting to swerve right to avoid the interlocking field of fire of yet more of my formed bowmen on top of a central defensive hill. This led them into a very constricted area between the two woods where their lack of manoeuvrability bogged them down into in-action and created a traffic jam. In an attempt unblock this cloggage one unit of fanatics chased some annoying archers into a wood getting delightfully entangled in the vegetation. Not ideal for a deep unit.

Meanwhile in the middle I selectively advanced more bowmen into range to annoy his central wall of warriors who chose to stand and take it, presumably scared that their naked private parts may get skewered by my arrows if they charged me. This stand off suited me as I had 14 points of bowmen holding up 44 points of warbands. Inevitably this meant I had superiority elsewhere on the battlefield.

On my right I advanced and then retreated my apparently helpless archers to tempt Rob’s cavalry forwards into my killing zone. Sure enough one cavalry unit fell for the trap whilst the other, luckily helped by poor cards, decided discretion was the batter part of valor and held back - abandoning their mates to a porcupine death.

The Plan Unfolds

Back on my left I had outflanked one of his cavalry units but despite multiple frontal and flank attacks it survived against the odds. So using the 3rd “P” of my 7 “P” wargaming principles – “Pranking and Surprise”, I unexpectedly pivoted and manoeuvred two of my mounted units to charge Robs exposed and very surprised warband flanks. The bulky naked Galatians stuck between the woods couldn’t react in time and quickly collapsed.

This left the lone warband that had now extracted itself out of the “fire pan” of the wood into the “fire” of being surround by 3 formed bow units, one in front, one on the flank and one behind. With a likely 10 attack cards every turn the outcome was surely inevitable?

Back on my far right, the interlocking fields of fire easily took out the lone cavalry unit that had got too excited and isolated without any cover or support.

The End Is Nigh!

Eventually in the middle the four big Galatian warbands decided at last to risk their surprisingly small private parts by advancing towards my bowmen - who instantly started to edge backwards. But it was too late. On my left the surrounded warband succumbed to repeated double volleys from behind (to get the -1 save), and being charged from the flank. As both Galatian flanks collapsed they gave up enough medals for my plucky (did you see what I did there?) Nigerian archers to win an almost casualty free outright victory in just over 60 minutes.

Lessons Learned

  1. Massed bowmen CAN be deadly even in TtS - provided you keep them out of melee against superior melee troops.

  2. The 3rd “P” - Pranking and Surprising your opponent with unanticipated tactics can be deadly!

  3. Overlapping fields of fire in an Agincourt style killing zone, can be devastating especially when focussed on foolhardy individual targets and can also scare off even superior yet hesitant enemies.

  4. When you have inferiority - slowly back away. When you have superiority use it or lose it!

  5. Experimenting with unusual armies is fun and can unearth some real gold!

  6. The Western Sudanese Nigerian army is the first Sub Saharan army I have ever seen used in TtS and is well worth an experiment or two!

  7. Plans don’t always work, but it’s better to have one than not.

Anyway, that was the first battle of two.

My Comments

Although I might quibble with some of the above, it was indeed a masterful demonstration of how to use mass archers against fanatics. Indeed, I’ve done something similar with crossbows against Ikko-Ikki in the past.

Peter’s mounted units did do a lot of damage but, to be fair and as you’ll see in the pictures below, this was as much to do with the fact that the first two cards my horsemen drew for the first two turns were Aces. My fault for not following Trevor’s Rule - always move the general first!

I certainly found the combination of deep units and an 8+ save a challenge: but one I will work on for the future! Here are my pictures of the game:

Rajputs Come A Cropper - Part Two!

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After botching my deployment in the previous game—a mistake that clearly played a part in my defeat—I made sure not to repeat it this time. In particular, I avoided trapping my cavalry behind my infantry line. I also wanted to give my elephants the best possible chance to engage the Norman cavalry (who really don’t like Nellies), so I positioned them squarely in the centre of my line.

The eventual deployment gave me strength of numbers on the left flank, so I rushed that forward looking to win there and then curl back into the centre.

In the centre, the two battle lines crept towards each other…

…but when the first major clash happened, it was a disaster for the Rajputanis: Norman knights thundered into my veteran fanatical cavalry, smashing them—and their general—off the field. The accompanying elephants were swept away as well on a failed rout check, leaving me five coins down in seconds and a gaping hole in the centre of my line.

Perhaps my other unit of elephants would do better?

Perhaps not!

Meanwhile, my infantry on the left had finally gotten into bow range, and were peppering the opposition with arrows, not that it seemed to have much effect. The battlefield now looked like this:

The tide did turn slightly on the far left flank, where the remains of my cavalry, supported by javelin-armed infantry (in blue) and some more archers (in yellow) did manage to do some damage…

…and my infantry on the left were just about holding their own…

…but in the end I had lost too many coins already, and when a squadron of Norman knights slipped through my empty centre and took my camp, it was all over!

So two defeats in a row for the Rajputanis, but a fun army to play and one that might do better against a different type of army.

Rajputs Come A Cropper - Part One!

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Time for some To The Strongest and an opportunity to test out all the changes from Even Stronger v14: new elephant rules, cavalry no longer able to move two squares backwards and more.

In order to test out the elephant rules, you have to have some elephants on the battlefield, so I would play a Rajputi/Later Hindu Indian army versus Rob using Italo-Normans.

The Rajputs are an unusual army: a strike force of fanatical, veteran, lance-armed cavalry backed up by large numbers of raw bowmen: talk about the sublime to the ridiculous! I wasn’t sure quite what I was going to do with them, but I did know that (a) I wanted to get my fanatics into the action as soon as possible and (b) I wanted my elephants to fight the Norman knights.

I had won the scouting, so looked on with interest as Rob placed said Norman knights squarely in the centre of his battleline, with what infantry he had relegated to covering the wings. This non-standard deployment completely banjaxed me, and I ended up with a horrible deployment with half my cavalry trapped behind my infantry and both elephant units miles from where I wanted them!

As I had the initiative there was therefore only one way to sort the situation out: an all out charge straight at the enemy, using the time it would take my men to get there to sort out getting the right units into the right place. In particular, I wanted my lancers to hit the unsupported Italo-Norman archers on the far right of Rob’s line: easy meat to give me an initial boost!

Unbelievably, my fanatical cavalry, despite nicely charging home with their lances, failed to even disorder the archers, who would go on to be an immovable bastion securing that end of the enemy line!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, my own archers had moved up and were peppering the Norman cavalry there with arrows. If you look at the Norman horse in front of the trees in the pictures below, you will see that all three cavalry units have been disordered by bowfire, with only one of my units suffering in return.

The Normans on the left were therefore now in prime position to be finished off, garnering me lots of lovely victory medals but, try as I might, I just couldn’t land a knockout blow. For the rest of the game, my bowmen would fire off the last of their arrows plus some brought up from the camp, and my javelinmen would bravely charge in to melee, but nothing I did would break the veteran Norman knights. Very annoying, especially as my raw bowmen were evaporating under the pressure!

Back to the far right wing, where those pesky Norman archers were, and would forever, hold up my cavalry from sweeping around the enemy flank. Look at the third picture, top right, in the gallery below…another unit of fanatical lancers, led by their general, in the perfect position to charge the rear of the enemy bowmen, but failing to drive home, leaving the unit ripe for annihilation by some Norman knights and the clever use of the Someone has Blundered stratagem.

With things not going very well on both the left and the right, I now had to hope that good things would happen in the centre. I had finally managed to extricate the rest of my cavalry from their unfortunate deployment positions, but now found that I couldn’t get them and their accompanying elephants into action against the rest of the Norman knights, Rob making sure to keep his horses well away from the smelly Nellies and focussing his efforts on my loose order infantry: easy prey for knights.

By this time I had also worked out that the cards had decided to hate on me for this battle. As you’ll hopefully have seen, there had already been several occasions where I had manouevred into the perfect position only to fail to achieve anything remotely ressembling useful!

Battle was effectively now joined right the way across the table, and it wouldn’t be long before something had to give somewhere…but, again, I just couldn’t seem to land the knockout blow, not even on the deep unit of Italo-Norman spearmen in the picture bottom right in the gallery below.

Both sides were now on their last few coins and, inevitably, it was the Indians who broke first: an already disordered unit of bowmen routing when Norman cavalry invaded their forest refuge!

That had been a cracking game of To The Strongest, despite the result not being in my favour. Rob’s initial deployment was superbly disruptive, totally psyching me out despite my won-the-scouting initiative, but I like to think that I battled back from this strategic disadvantage to gain a local, tactical advantage on several occasions, with my good intentions then only thwarted by the cards. Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!

Roll Call '26 Game Four: Venetians Abroad versus Ayyubids

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So it was on to the final game at this year’s Medieval Madness competition at Roll Call.

At least six of us were in contention for the title: Peter, Dene, Mark, Tim, Si and Yours Truly…with Mark and I, and Peter and Dene, playing each other in this final match up. Not difficult to see that in order to secure overall victory, I needed to beat Mark and see Dene beat Peter. Exciting stuff!

The Ayyubids set up mostly in the middle of the battlefield with, I was told, a force off-table as well. I adopted my usual ‘cavalry on the wings, infantry in the middle’ formation, planning to smash his cavalry on the right with my knights, and use my other knights to curl around the Ayyubid right wing. My infantry would advance to assist where possible.

My knights on the right duly advanced into range, charged in with their lances and, much to my consternation/annoyance, were disordered and forced to retire. This was very much not part of the plan!

Fortunately, my knights survived the Arab follow-up and, with the help of reinforcements from the centre, held and then overwhelmed the advancing enemy cavalry. All well and good, but I’m using double the number of units to deal with the incursion, leaving me light elsewhere on the field!

Meanwhile, on the left, my other knights punched a hole in the end of the Arab line and, supported by the Alabardiers, managed to get into a position to first threaten, then take the one of the enemy camps

With the general I had killed on the right, I was now on nine coins taken, so within a couple more units of winning, but now faced two new threats.

Firstly, on the left, the Ayyubid off-table force arrived: a ‘massed lights’ double unit of light cavalry which, combined with the light’s Mark had had floating around there since the beginning of the game, meant three light cavalry units roaming around in my rear.

I manged to move some infantry across to contain the threat, but lost the first of my coins as the Arabs picked me off from the flank.

Secondly, the Ayyubids advanced strongly in the centre, which I had needed to weaken in order to reinforce the right to contain the Arab breakthrough there.

Attacked from two directions, and with only lights and crossbowmen to hold off elite heavy cavalry, I was punished badly: suddenly finding that Mark had drawn just about level on coins, and needed only three more to finish me off. The Alabardiers had also been unlucky with their cards and were now disordered and in danger of breaking. Time was ticking on, as well, which meant I had to do something fast.

Fortunately my second unit of knights on the left had so far sailed through the battle unscathed, and were in the perfect position to assault the already-disordered Arab infantry in front of them. In went the knights, the Arabs broke, and Mark’s last two coins were mine.

So I had won the outright victory I needed, but a tight one: 12 coins to 10…but what of Peter and Dene? A big victory for either could see them take the tournament overall, with my money being on Peter managing to do just that!

Fortunately, Dene had managed to hold Peter to a draw…which meant that I had won the tournament: the first that I have won outright (i.e. not as part of a doubles team) or had organised myself (the last two Britcon events). Thanks for pointing that out, btw, you know who your are!

Here are the final results:

 

A great tournament and a great day’s gaming, and not just because I won!

Roll Call '26 Game Three: Venetians Abroad versus Gurjara-Pratihara Indians

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With two good wins already under my belt, it was inevitable that my third battle of the day was going to be against Peter and his Gurjara-Pratihran Indians.

This was going to be a tough battle (I have never beaten Peter in competition, and only managed to hold him to a draw twice…which adds up to a lot of losses!) so, after losing the scouting, I decided to abandon my usual “infantry in the middle, knights on the flank” set up and put all my knights on my left flank.

This did give Peter some food for thought, and he pondered my deployment for a bit longer than usual before, as expected, weighting his troops on one side: his plan being to form a schwerepunkt on his right wing, fighting two thirds of his army against a third of mine, then turn and roll up my line.

View from behind the Gujarati lines

As predicted, The Indians slam forward on the left

As you can see, I knew exactly what was coming…and still couldn’t stop it…but at least I had all my knights (my best troops) where the action was as opposed to seeing them flail around on the isolated flank for the first part of the game.

Anyhoo, we were barely out of the second turn before his cavalry and elephants were upon my line: the elephants and camelry being particularly troublesome to my knights (the veteran nellies save on only a 3+ when facing mounted troops!) and his lights threatening to lap around my far right flank.

The gallery below shows the battlefield at this point from left to right. It looks pretty bad, (and it is!) but the one thing I have learnt when facing Peter in this position is not to give up: you have to get your troops that he has managed to isolate on the flank opposite the action back into the game as soon as possible, ignoring the lights that hover to harrass them, and hope that your knights can hold out for long enough for the reinforcements to get there!

Fortunately, my knights on the left were wearing their metal armour for this game (they often seem to be wearing their ceremonial cardboard armour!) and managed to hold out against both elephants and camelry for the next couple of turns, even managing to push back the centre of Peter’s line as my infantry started to arrive from the right.

The writing, however, was on the wall, and soon my far left command collapsed entirely, and Peter turned his troops in and prepared to roll me up like a kati roll on a Kolkata street corner.

Rolled up like a kati roll on a kolkata street corner!

Then, much to both our surprises, the “time” was announced: no new turns could now be started. As I was just finishing off a turn, literally about to draw cards to activate my final command, that meant that the game would end once I had finished what I was doing: no chance for Peter to polish me off.

I won’t say that this wasn’t a collosal relief, as one more turn would, I think, have given Peter the victory. Looking at the picture above, I can see the light cavalry next to the pen taking my camp, possibly both; the other lights on the back row and his elephants smashing my knights with the army standard from the flank and off the table; and me also losing the disordered knights in the centre. As he already had nine of my coins, Peter only needed another four to get a total victory, and I’ve just listed the opportunities to gain ten!

As the game had seemed very short (and we weren’t playing particularly slowly) I checked with the organiser whether we could, in fact, start another turn, but was told very firmly that we couldn’t. Madness to check, I hear you cry, but, fair’s fair: Peter had me beaten and deserved the overall victory…but I won’t say I wasn’t pleased that the “end the game” decision stood!

So a winning draw for Peter 6-9, leaving all to play for in the final game of the day.

Even More Celts

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My Celtic army is coming along nicely: I’ve now finished three more units of heavy horse, and started to add some heroes as well.

Here are the three new units of horse. All are Victrix figures painted using Contrast paints, and with shield transfers from Little Big Man Studios (available via Victrix) and all with cloaks from Weave of War.

I’m going to need a lot of heroes for any Celtic army: six for the warbands and then another three to five as standard. I’ve decided to try andget as many Celtic personaities into the heroes mix as possible, which means trawling the Internet for interesting one-off figures. Here’s the first two I’ve completed: Boudicca and Obelix.

Boudicca is a metal casting from Belt Fed Gaming available from the Colonel Bills website. She is also painted with Contrast paints, but I have attempted to glaze her skin tone.

Obelix is, quite rightly, a giant of a figure. He is one of the Aquila Empire: Gaul Heroes set of two resin prints from Anima Games UK available via Etsy. The other is Asterix, who will appear in due course.

Roll Call '26 Game Two: Venetians Abroad versus Bretons with Norman allies

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My second game at this year’s Roll Call tournament was against Chris’ Bretons with Norman allies.

The Bretons won scouting and, after deployment and as expected, headed straight for my line. Of particular concern was my right flank, where I could see the potential for a worrying overlap.

I managed to block the overlap, with my knights taking full advantage of the situation to drive back the Breton attack there.

This led to an amusing situation where both Chris and I used our stratagem cards in the same turn: each playing Someone has blundered!, and each using it to turn a unit of our opponent’s horse through 180° so ending up back to back on the edge of the table!

Meanwhile, the left and centres were thundering towards each other, and I had a quick success as my two units of knights on the left smashed a Breton cavalry unit from the table and forced another to evade backwards.

Elsewhere, more Breton cavalry charged my spearmen in the centre, but the Venetians held firm, with more of my infantry turning to take them in the flank.

My rapid advance on the right and the Breton rapid advance in the centre had meant that a gap had developed between the main points of contact. The Venetian Alabardiers, led by their general, saw an opportunity and marched through that gap and into the Breton camp, with three easy victory medals as their reward.

With the fleeing Breton cavalry unit on the left now hit in the rear and destroyed, and a Breton general killed somewhere on the field (I forget where!), Chris was now down to just one coin…which I took by driving the light cavalry off board on the right for a 10-1 victory for the Venetians.

A really fast-moving game of TTS where the action was literally non-stop. For once my knights were having a good day (i.e. were wearing their metal armour rather than the ceremonial cardboard version they usually seem to wear) and swept all before them, and my spearmen remembered which way round their weapons went!

Roll Call '26 Game One: Venetians Abroad versus Medieval Irish with Feudal Scots Allies

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My first game at this year’s Roll Call ‘Medievals-Only’ tournament was against Adrian’s Medieval Scots-Irish army.

The Venetians were outscouted, so deployed in a traditional “infantry in the centre, cavalry on the wings” formation. The woods on the right hand side of the battlefield looked ideal terrain for the enemy, so my plan was to hang back on the right, advance on the left and, quite frankly, see what opportunities presented themselves!

First up, however, was a general advance forward one square to give the Venetians some fighting room, making sure to keep the integrity of the line intact. Note the large numbers of Irish light troops trying to get around my right flank.

And it was on the right that the first threat emerged: those advancing enemy lights being joined by a unit that had started the game lost off table to pose a potentially tricky situation that required a bit of careful manoeuvring to deal with.

But in one of those coincidences that makes life interesting, I too had had one of my units lost off table: a squadron of light mounted crossbowmen appearing directly behind the Scots-Irish.

This disrupted Adrian’s plans as neatly as the appearance of his lights on the right had disrupted mine. He turned his longbowmen, safely ensconsed behind stakes on the central hill, to deal with the threat, only to see the flank of the archers charged by some of my knights coming in from the left.

Charging uphill against infantry behind stakes rarely goes well, even when from the flank: the knights failed to budge the enemy archers, leaving the situation as shown in the photo below:

Adrian (who was not having much luck in this game) turned some Scots spearmen to threaten the knights, only to see my horsemen retreat backwards two squares and then charge the same spearmen in the flank (whilst they still could, as ES14 has stopped this cheesy manoeuvre happening), whilst the Ballesteri Montati (mounted light crossbowmen) charged the rear of another bunch of Scots.

Meanwhile, the fighting on the right hand side of the field had intensified, with the superior armour of my knights there countered by the larger numbers of troops they were facing. Neither side seemed able to make much progress.

Back to the centre, where the Scots spearmen in the centre had crumbled under the loving attentions of the Venetian Alabardiers. The Scots spearmen near the hill, however, although disordered and attacked on the flanks, were still putting up a brave fight.

This stabilised Adrian’s centre, but I now had fresh knights, still with their lances, coming in from the left…but then a unit of veteran Irish javelinmen were thereatening the rear of my line.

Adrian had, however, gradually been losing coins throughout the game: in particular losing light infantry to crossbow fire and one, or perhaps it was two, generals in combat: as I said, he was having a particularly unlucky day.

The three coins lost when the spear in the centre routed took him close to the edge, and a final charge from my Knights into disordered Irish javelinmen on the right broke his army as a whole, although it took a Venetian hero to do so.

So a big 14-1 victory for the Venetians to open proceedings…although I was glad that the battle ended then as too many of my units had fallen into disorder and, of course. that Lady Luck had shunned my opponent throughout!

TTS AAR: Arab Conquest vs Scandanavian Leidang

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I’ve been trying to get friend John to try his Vikings using the new non-deep options in the lists, and finally managed to get him to test them out using my 15mm figures. At the same time, I wanted to get my early Arabs onto the table again…as I didn’t spend all that time painting deep units just to let gather dust in storage! The result: a To The Strongest spectacular featuring an Aran Conquest army versus the Scandanavian Leidang (effectively Vikings on their home territory).

The Arab cavalry won the scouting and immediately set off on a quest to outscout the hairies on both flanks.

This worked well on the left, but the Scandies quickly moved a couple of units over to block the Arab advance on the right. Meanwhile, the main body of Vikings thundered forward, axes at the ready!

The Vikings managed to get the initiative in the centre, but suddenly found that they couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag!

The Arabs, however, were not…and one Scandie warband was soon sent fleeing from the field by a combination of fanatical infantry and their Daylami mountain-men allies.

Meanwhile, both Viking flanks were now suffering at the hands of the Arab cavalry…

Back to the centre, where the second line of Viking warriors were proving much harder to break for the Arabs, and it was only the intervention of the Jund cavalry that had been harrassing the Scandie left that made the difference.

This was a much-needed intervention, as the Viking wings had rallied and were proving impossible for the Arabs to crack!

The by-n0w-much-reduced Vikings continued their success by breaking the right of the Arab line…

…but it was too little too late as the last Scandie coins disappeared as the rest of their centre collapsed. The victorious Vikings heading for the Arab camp, along with the rest of the surviving invaders, slunk off the table, leaving the Arabs to claim the win!

A great game which I hope, despite the result, has given John a renewed enthusiasm for his own Vikings hordes. As a final note, it has to be said that he had the worst luck possible throughout the game, but especially at those critical moments that can decide who wins!

TTS AAR: Dead Cid Rides Again!

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Time for the re-match, with the Al Andalus forces smarting from their defeat last game and the Early Feudal Spanish busy tying dead El Cid’s body* to his horse!

As Arab commander, having learnt my lesson last time, I deployed my men in a much tighter line: stacking my cavalry on one side rather than splitting them between the flanks.

*he’d been killed in the last game!

Advancing forward strongly, I thought I saw the chance for an overlap on the left, but the Spanish moved quickly to counter and, in a decidedly unsporting move, manoeuvred to actually outflank me there themselves!

Meanwhile, in the centre, I had sent the light horse forward to generally harrass the advancing Spanish infantry, hoping to soften them up a bit before the main melee began.

Back to the left, where the Spanish had now managed to turn my flank, forcing me to try and pull back my infantry to avoid my line being rolled up.

Despite my best efforts, I had to leave a unit of the Black Guard vulnerable to a flank charge, and could only watch with horror as the Spanish cabelleros, led by El Cid himself, took the corks off the tips of their lances and charged in.

Unfortunately for the Spanish, they had forgotten that El Cid was actually now dead, merely a corpse tied to his horse, and the move into charge distance and then the charge itself didn’t make contact with the very relieved Guard!

This enabled me to stabilise the situation, my spearmen ready to hold the Spanish horse at bay.

One weak point, however, was the green-pennant unit of Arab infantry, who had been disordered previously. In went another unit of Spanish cavalry, again led by Dead Cid. This time they actually made contact, but gloriously failed to do any damage even with Dead Cid’s extra replays.

Do the Spanish still not realise he’s dead? Leave the man to rest in peace!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, some of my light cavalry had a narrow escape after failing to do any damage to some Spanish shieldwall.

At risk of being pushed off table, they watched with glee as the hapless Spaniards foundered around in the rough ground: eventually even managing to kill the Spanish general and disorder the unit.

As the flanks weren’t working for them, the Spanish then sent everything they had left forward in the centre.

This was another decidely worrying development for the Al Andalus, as there were far too many lights holding my line, with my formed cavalry (including the mercenary christian knights that you can see bottom-centre in the pic below) not really in that much of a position to help.

Fortunately, it turned out that the money I’d invested in the mercenary unbelievers was money very well spent.

In an extraordinary series of events, they charged over the hill in front of them to smash the end unit of cabelleros from the table…

They then turned and did the same thing to the next lot of enemy horse: hitting them in the flank to devastating effect!

With Rob’s men pinned in place by my infantry line, it was Rob’s turn to look on in horror as a flank charge went in…but fortune smiled on him as the mercenaries paused to renegotiate their fee:

Fee safely doubled, however, they went in again…this time securing the Al Andalus the last two coins they needed for victory!

So a glorious victory for Al Andalusia helped, it must be said, by cards that were decidely in my favour for once: the poor Spanish learning that you can’t rely on a dead body for inspiration and that gold sometimes means more than faith!

TTS AAR: Reconquista Action!

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Rob and I really fancied some Reconquista action, so played a game featuring Rob leading the Early Feudal Spanish (with El Cid in command) and me playing an Al Andalus army.

Losing the scouting, I formed my men into one long line: confident that my superior numbers would overwhelm the upstart Spaniards!

My cavalry on the left could see the Christian knights stacked against them and were therefore not quite so sure of the outcome and initially refused to advance. Opposite me, El Cid found he had the same problem, even with his superior Great Leader command ability!

Despite these teething troubles, battle was soon well and truly joined on the left, with superior numbers of Christian horse generally mullering the Arabs until almost half my coins had gone and I was forced to bring infantry over from the centre to help.

Meanwhile, on the right, I was hoping that the gold I had spent hiring some mercenary Christian knights would prove a wise investment, but they got stuck dealing with some pesky light infantry and would take no significant part in the battle!

Back to the mass Christian assault on the left, where my troops were fighting on bravely…even if the writing was now firmly on the wall!

I had a moment of hope when El Cid himself was killed (just like the film!) but, in the end and despite a card-induced temporary reprieve (the photo, bottom left, above), my last coin went and the Christians were victorious!

A great game which, I think, I lost in the deployment phase: Rob stacking his knights against one end of my line was a genius strategy that paid off in Spades!

Now on to the re-match…presumably with Dead El Cid now tied to his horse!

TTS AAR: Early Crusader versus Arab Conquest

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More To The Strongest action in 2mm: this time I would play an Early Crusader army against Neil’s Arab Conquest force.

I lost scouting so, wary of being outflanked, I set up my camps in one corner of the battlefield, put my infantry in front of them, and then placed my two commands of Crusader Knights on the right. The Arabs responded by placing all their light cavalry opposite my camp, their large contingent of mobs in the centre, and all their cavalry opposite my right.

A plan emerged: my infantry would cover the left flank, with my crossbowmen aiming to shoot down any enemy lights that came within range. My religeous-order knights on right would attempt to contain the enemy cavalry, using the patches of rough ground to try and fight one line at a time rather than being swamped by Arab horse. Finally, my other knights would wait until the Arab army was sufficiently battered, and then attempt to win the game by targeting the raw Arab mobs, looking to take batches of three coins of poor quality troops off the table at a time.

As the game began, the enemy lights swept forward towards my camp, the Arab cavalry on the right cantered towards the gap in the rough ground and, excellently, the Arab mobs resolutely stayed where they were: consecutive Aces for a group move pinning them in place. Phew! My plan might just work!

On the right, the Arab horse came forward and, misere de misere, smashed one of my religeous-order knight units right off the table! This was definitely not in the plan but, as the mobs had remained pinned to the Arab baseline, I was able to redeploy some of my normal knights to plug the gap.

The cards then helped me out again, refusing to let Neil’s Arab cavalry turn to face my knights…but although I charged in successfully, the nimble Arab horse evaded and would eventually leave the table.

That Ace also stopped the rest of the Arab horse coming forward, which was a bit lucky as the mobs had now finally got moving…

Meanwhile, on the left, my foot had done an excellent job in containing the Arab light horse, killing half of them and their general for no loss.

This meant that I could move some Crusader spearmen over to the centre to help the knights face the mobs, hopefully preventing them from getting overwhelmed by sheer numbers as the raggedy crowd closed for combat.

What was really worring me was all the Arab horse on the right. Yes, I’d knocked one unit off the table, but if the rest got moving before I could kill some mobs, it was actually here that the overwhelming might actually happen as I was effectively outnumbered five to three.

Fortunately, the cards came to my aid again, keeping the enemy from moving forward. Once they did get moving, however, my Crusaders were soon under huge pressure as, having retreated to avoid being outflanked, they just couldn’t seem to win a melee once contact had been made.

One unit did push forward but, again, soon found itself a bit isolated and at risk of being overwhelmed.

By now I’d taken a tidy pile of Arab coins, so it was time to see if I could break some mobs and take the rest. If I didn’t, I hasten to add, I could see my knights being beaten on the right and then waves of Arab horse sweeping round to roll me up!

Fortunately raw mobs don’t save for toffee, and soon my knights had sent one lot screaming for their baseline!

This was good, but my religeous order knights on the right were now in some trouble: another unit being destroyed and the third disordered.

To their rescue came some normal Crusader knights: the same ones who had dealt with the Arab cavalry that had initially smashed through my line.

This unit (the blue ones) were definitely the men of the match as they quickly polished off two units of Arabs - one with a flank charge, one just head on! - giving me four more coins and the game!

Exciting stuff and a glorious victory…but it has to be said that Neil didn’t have much luck throughout the game, particularly in terms of movement at key points in the battle. My religeous-order knights might not have been able to fight their way out of a wet paper bag (and it’s hard to find one of those in the desert!) but too often Arab units just stood there doing nothing when they desperately needed to move forward.

Another great game of TTS!

More Celts

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With the decision made to create a core Celtic force, it was now just a question of following up on the first warband by creating the other two warbands that could be fashioned out of a single bag of Victrix figures.

These actually took a lot less time to complete than the original warband: mainly, I think, because I sort of knew what I was doing now!

I used the same combination of Victrix plastics for the figures, LittleBigManStudios (now part of Victrix) for the shield transfers, and Weave of War for the cloaks. Full details can be found in the original post about my first warband: https://www.vislardica.com/blog/2026/3/4/first-of-the-celts

The only pain was the command figures: technically the 48-figure Victrix pack contains enough for two units and I was producing three, but I managed to bodge together a suitable leader, standard bearer and musician for each of the second two even if one of the two leaders isn’t wearing armour, one of the musicians has a horn not a carnyx, and one of the standard bearers has a shoulder built out of green stuff and an extra hand on the bottom of his pole!

So that was one bag of figures done…and I almost went straight into the second…but then I thought “well, I’ve got the Celtic infantry I need for a Carthaginian army: why I don’t I paint the Celtic cavalry I need for both a Celtic army and a Carthaginian army…and that way I don’t need to absolutely commit to one or the other for another four units”.

And that’s what I did. Here’s the first unit of Celtic horse:

I’m really pleased that the Weave of War cloaks fit nicely onto the cavalrymen as well as the infantrymen, although I think that for the next unit I’ll have the cloaks streaming out behind…like the horses’ tails!

To The World's Strongest, Game 4: Venice Abroad vs Normans

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My final game at this year’s world championships was against old friend Matt’s Normans.

Matt won the scouting, and deployed his massed cavalry in two chunks facing my wings:

The game began,, and I was almost immediaely in trouble on not one but both wings: my Knights having dressed, as is often the case, in their ceremonial cardboard armour instead of the proper metal kit!

Let’s start on the right, where I then repidly lost the Later Knights and was forced to withdraw right to the table’s edge to regroup and send infantry over from the centre to help.

Although the Knights on the right rallied and pushed forward, I was now facing a roll up from the right as the Norman cavalry pivoted through 90 degrees and headed for the centre.

The infantry I had redeployed to stabilise the situation succumbed to attacks from their flank and rear, and it was only by throwing in the Alabardiers and some desperate fighting from the Crossbowmen and Lights that I managed to stave off disaster.

Meanwhile, on the left, I had managed to rally the Later Knights and push forward to drive the Norman cavalry back, but had had the Knights become disordered and was threatened by enemy infantry lapping around the flank.

At this point we were starting to run out of time. My first thought was that this was a relief, as I had really felt that I was only just holding on throughout the game so far.

Then I looked at the table again and thought, hang on, I’ve killed everything threatening me on the right and am actually now chasing disordered Norman units to finish them off…and actually the same is true on the left. With each of us down to our last few coins - helped by the fact that I had killed two of Matt’s generals - I could actually win this game despite the fact that I had nearly crumbled into defeat in turn two!

Unfortunately it was not to be.

On the right, in the last turn of the game, my Knights and Alabardier units, each led by their command’s generals, failed to break units of already-disordered enemy cavalry…

And on the left, a desperate melee involving three already-disordered Norman units also failed to result in any coins heading my way.

Time was called, and we had both taken nine of our opponent’s coins, so a technical win for the Venetians so something like 90-82 points in my favour…and what a game!

I honestly thought the game would end after about three turns as my Knights crumbled and the Norman army lapped around both my flanks, but a great fight back ensued until the Venetians were within Ames Ace of victory: just failing to secure a win mainly due to some outrageous saving cards from Matt, probably deserved as his officers had fallen like flies earlier in the game.

So what did all this mean for the competition as a whole?

Well, I came eighth overall—a considerable improvement on the 19th place I managed last year, when I had a real mare! - with two outright wins and two winning draws…but if you look at the results table below, you can see just how close the competition was. Not so much for first place (with four wins out of four, Peter was well ahead of everyone else), but for the other top spots: the extra 25 points from one more outright win, rather than a winning draw, would have given any of the next eight players second place—including me!

A cracking tournament all round, and I really would encourage people to enter the To The Strongest competitions that are run just about throughout the year: great fun, great sportsmanship, great gameplay…just great!

To The World's Strongest, Game 3: Venice Abroad vs Eastern Latins

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My third game at this year’s To The World’s Strongest tournament was against Andrew and his Eastern Latins: a ferocious army with lots of good quality cavalry.

The terrain placement had been kind to me, with Impassable ground narrowing the battlefield in my deployment zone, especially on my right. I therefore determined to hold the right back along with most of my infantry, and send the Knights and some of my Spearmen forward to win on the left.

As the game began, a bit of luck came my way, with my mounted crossbowmen on the left disposing of some enemy Lights and perhaps leaving a path for an outflanking manouevre. Andrew wasn’t falling for that one, however, and soon a mass of enemy cavalry had moved to block my advance.

Latin Cavalry took out my mounted crossbowmen, but fortunately some of my just-successful Knights were in a position to turn back to counter their threat. The Byzantine horse didn’t fancy mixing it with my Knights, so evaded away in some disorder, ending up on the edge of the table pursued by the Knights and some lights that I had brought up from the camp.

Elsewhere on the left, my other Knights and their supporting Spearmen had pushed the Latin cavalry back and killed the cavalry’s commander, but that flank was now at a bit of a stalemate, with the Venetians having just tipped the strategic balance in their favour five coins to one and with the Byzantine horse very vulnerable.

Meanwhile, I had sat waiting for the rest of the Latins to come forward into crossbow range…although I had moved more of my Knights forward on the right to see if they could snatch a cheeky victory against some enemy cavalry who fancied a go.

Latin missile fire gradually stripped my Lights from the table, but in the end, I managed to fight his cavalry on the right with my Knights, knocking both units and their commander off table.

That gave me eleven of the twelve coins I needed, and I think it was then the Byzantines being pushed off table on the left that gave me the final one to give the Venetians a 12-5 victory (all my losses were Lights), but it might have been killing another Latin general that did it - Andrew was very unlucky with his officers!

A good game against an interesting army that I haven’t encountered before. All that cavalry on my left did worry me quite a bit at the beginning, and I was pleased that Andrew never managed to combine them and his infantry in a more general assault.

On to the last game of the day…

To The World's Strongest, Game 2: Venice Abroad vs Early Imperial Romans

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Game two at the World’s, and it’s another Roman army: Principate or Early Imperial commanded by friend Dave.

I have an EIR army myself, and I know that one potential weakness is the fact that you only really have enough cavalry for one command…so assuming that would be on one flank, my plan was to smash it off the table with one command of my Knights and then loop back into the centre. The rest of my army would pin his heavy infantry in place.

I duly advanced forward and, before long was in range to charge.

For once my Knights had their metal as opposed to cardboard armour on, and soon the enemy cavalry was beaten back and I could turn to face the Roman flank.

Unfortunately, poor follow-up cards and Roman manoeuvrability meant that it took me a bit of time to actually finish off the enemy horse, by which time I was facing a wall of Legionary steel that wouldn’t be easy to break through.

Meanwhile, on the right hand side of the table, both Dave and I deployed our stratagems: Flank March for me, Lost Unit for Dave.

My flank marching light cavalry failed to dent the Roman infantry they appeared behind, and were then shot down by the Saggittarrii archers: disappointing in the extreme.

Dave’s Lost Unit however, ended up arriving right in one of my camps: highly annoying, and although I did manage to evict them fairly easily, they went on to threaten the flank of my other Knights, meaning I had to spend some time and sacrifice some territory to redeem the situation!

Back to the left, and I was still trying to bash my way through the Roman troops on that flank, but nothing I did seemed to work. Dave made excellent use of the terrain and the ease with which his Legionaries could manoeuvre: add to that a run of poor attack cards for me and great saving cards for him, and I was making little if any headway at all!

Then a crisis developed in the centre. My now-disordered Alabardiers were forced to retreat back to the camp, and those pooping light cavalry were back: sneaking through my lines to add to my problems.

Fortunately, the Alabardiers were made of stern stuff and resisted all attempts to break them and, as you can see in the picture above, I had reinforcements available to sort the situation.

I was also now in a position to essay an attempt on the Roman infantry on the right: a bit of manoeuvring would be required, but I ought to be able to get a decent flank charge in somewhere!

Unfortunately at this stage we ran out of time. The first morning session had overrun, and combine that with all the time spent failing to break the Roman left flank (despite multiple flank charges) and then dealing with the situation in the centre and on the right, and Time’s Winged Chariot was upon us and the game was over! A technical 8-6 victory to me, but not the Total Victory I was looking for.

Very frustrating after the initial success on the left. I only needed to break one more Roman unit (maybe take a Light as well) and the game would have been properly mine, but congrats to Dave for managing to stabilise the left and then come right back at me elsewhere.

A great game of To The Strongest.

To The World's Strongest, Game 1: Venice Abroad vs Later Western Romans

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My first game at this year’s To The World’s Strongest tournament (held in Blewberry on 28th February) was against Chris and his Later Western Romans.

Although terrain placement had been in my favour, I had lost the scouting, so was quite pleased to see Chris open the game by advancing his cavalry forward on my left flank: my plan, you see, was to smash his horse from the field there with my superior Knights and then roll him up whilst the rest of my troops pinned his line in place.

Unfortunately, my Knights seemed, as is so often the case, to be wearing their ceremonial cardboard armour rather than the real McCoy, and I was soon having to pull back and consolidate before heading back into the fight.

Net gain: three coins from killing a unit of light cavalry and, more importantly, the Roman cavalry General…despite the fact that a glorious flank charge from the balestrieri montati failed to even scratch the armour of one of the Roman squadrons, followed by a narrow escape when they turned and tried to charge me back!

Meanwhile, on the right flank, two units of Roman Infantry (Legionaries have red/yellow shields, auxilia have blue or yellow shields) faced off against my other command of Knights: neither side willing to risk a frontal clash.

A hail of missiles followed from both sides (the Romans had archers and some chaps with plumbatae - darts - mixed in to their heavies) with one unit of Roman lights killed as a result.

A bit of action in the centre followed, as the Romans sent their light infantry there forward, only to have one shot down by the Venetian’s mercenary crossbowmen, and the other impaled on the spears of some lancieri. That was another two coins, which made nine when added to the two that I had won on the left by finally killing one of the Roman cavalry units there (the cataphracts I believe) and another for Chris rallying a unit on an even number: two more to go!

The Romans, now realising that they needed to get their infantry into action if they were to save the game, advanced one unit of Legionaries forward, but the Venetian Alabardiers met them in the middle and disordered them with their halberds.

The disordered Legionaries retreated back into their line in order to rally, but this was the opportunity I had been waiting for: a disordered infantry unit in range of my right hand lancers.

Sliding the left side unit of Knights across with a ‘4’ put me needing a ‘6’ or more to charge diagonally forward and then in. I drew a ‘6’ (phew!) slamming into the disordered Legionaries with a mighty crash.

First attack card was an Ace, but then I used a Hero to convert that to a ‘7’ then drew a ‘10’ for my lance: two hits, at least one of which the Romans failed to save…and that was Chris’ last two coins and game!

This was quite lucky, as in the meantime the last unit of Roman light cavalry had killed my right hand mounted crossbowmen and snuck through my lines to threaten my camp…bottom right in the picture below.

Anyhoo, a good start to the day with a 12-2 victory and, more importantly, a fun game with a very congenial opponent!

TTS AAR: Aghlabids versus Gauls

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Time for some more To The Strongest, and a clash between my Aghlabids and friend John’s Gauls: not exactly an historical match-up, but would hopefully give a good game!

As the Gallic horde was quite infantry heavy, my plan was to use my superior numbers of mounted troops on the right to smash the enemy horse from the table before turning and rolling the Celts up from that flank. This was helped by the Take the High Ground stratagem that I had drawn.

A good opening card saw my troops get into the perfect position to charge, but then the Card Gods punished me for hubris and my attack stopped dead. This gave the initiative to the Gauls, but it seemed that John had earned the CG’s wrath as well, as he forgot Trevor’s Law - “Always start with the General” - and also failed to charge home.

With my move on the right stymied, I tried the same thing on the left, with almost exactly the same result!

With the flanks getting nowhere, I move my infantry up to try and weaken the Gallic warbands with bowfire.

Back to the right flank, where my Arab cavalry finally charged home. An initial success was followed by multiple turns of frustration as the disordered Gallic horse in front of me just wouldn’t break, John saving time and time again.

Here’s an overview of the position so far:

Things continued to go wrong for me on the flanks. On the right, the Gallic chariots managed to send my other unit of Arab cavalry flying from the field…leaving me with a tactical advantage but not the crushingly dominant position I had hoped for!

And on the left I lost my Arab lancers and would spend the rest of the game with my two units of lights dancing around trying not to be killed as they harried the flanks of more Gallic cavalry and chariots!

The Gallic infantry warbands now started to move forward in the centre. I sent volley after volley of bowfire into them from my infantry, but John was saving and/or rallying like a demon, and although I did earn four coins from the Gauls drawing even cards for the latter, the writing was now firmly on the wall for the Arabs.

A last attempt on the right to save the day failed to deliver:

And although the Gallic chariots failed to take my camp, left unguarded courtesy of another Ace…

…the relentless wave of Gallic warriors (half veterans, half fanatics, all big and scary!) eventually smashed enough of my infantry from the field to capture my last few coins.

Despite the loss, this was a brilliant game of To The Strongest, full of action and Aces!

John played the Gauls masterfully: absorbing my early cavalry attacks and then advancing his warbands inexorably up the field to drive my infantry back and then off. Good fun and, hopefully, this will have used up all my Aces prior to the Worlds next weekend!

TTS AAR: Aghlabids versus Italo-Normans - The Return Match

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With the Italo-Normans victorious in our first game, there was still plenty of time for the Aghlabids to have a go at evening up the score before I had to collect Mother from her event and start the four-hour return leg of my trip to Huddersfield.

Deployment was similar to the last game, but the Italo-Normans put even more of their cavalry facing my left flank.

The Italo-Normans moved first, and almost immediately I was in big trouble again as the enemy heavy cavalry shot down towards my flank and forced my light horse back into the camp.

Fortunately, my heavy cavalry were able to partially recover the position, but it was all looking rather cramped in that corner!

Sticking with the action here in the corner, things got worse again when the Italo-Norman horse broke the rear unit of Arab lancers and, further up the table, managed to get a two-to-one advantage on my other cavalry unit. The situation was only partially rescued by deploying my reserve infantry (purple flag, behind the rock) to support my beleaguered troops.

My light horse, in prime position to charge the corner unit’s flank managed to fail to do any damage whatsoever, and I watched with huge misgivings as Geoff pulled a card to turn his cavalry to face my lights. Fortunately, luck was with me, and I was able to use Someone has Blundered to force the enemy heavies into facing the wrong direction.

My lights then remembered which end of the javelin goes in the enemy, and sent the Italo-Normans flying from the table with a hail of javelin-fire (they can’t evade that!) including, again, killing the enemy general.

Elsewhere on the table, my infantry had formed two lines, hoping to shoot the deep enemy spearman units to pieces before contact was made. There was also some action on the far right, where more of my Arab lancers had squared off against more Italo-Norman heavy cavalry.

Geoff also had a unit off-table carrying out a flank march. He now drew a card to get it onto the table and succeeded. I checked the diagram in the rulebook and confidently told him that he could bring it on anywhere in the central sector of my right flank.

This was wrong: it could come on anywhere on the right hand table edge…and my only pitiful excuse is that a quick glance at the diagram does seem to have just the central sector highlighted…but if you look properly, it’s the central sector and the single strip along the right hand edge of the tabletop. Mea culpa and all that, and we’ll count the Arabs as having lost again as a heavy cavalry unit in my right rear could have been very unpleasant indeed.

As it happens, I did get it wrong, and his cavalry entered the table just behind the melee that was already going on (it’s the unit with the Nine of Spades next to it).

This, of course, left the newly-arrived Italo-Norman horse in a prime position to be charged by my black-flag lancers, provided my lancers could get through the other Italo-Norman cavalry (the disordered unit)…needing only a 3+ to get their charge in.

Well, I had two turns to try and make the charge, and failed both times: the cards obviously aware that I had made a mistake with the table-entering position!

Which meant that it was on the other side of the table that the battle would be decided, as the two infantry lines had still not made contact.

In the end, the Italo-Normans lost their last couple of coins when their last remaining cavalry on the left was overwhelmed by numbers: the use of my reserve infantry meaning that I had three units versus one. Hit in the rear after evading, that was that!

So another closely fought battle, with the Arabs coming away with a victory overturned on a you-got-the-rules-wrong technicality. I also think Geoff captured more medals over the two battles combined than I did.

My thanks to Geoff for being such a great opponent, and to Gemini Games for their hospitality. I look forward to hitting Huddersfield again some time in the future.