TTS AAR: Fanatical Berber vs Anglo-Normans
/Time for another game of To The Strongest: with the Fanatical Berbers played by me versus John’s Anglo-Normans.
The large numbers of Berber light cavalry meant that I won the scouting and, seeing that the Anglo-Normans had deployed in a compact mass in the centre of the field with Knights on either flank, I decided to shake things up and a bit and placed all my cavalry, light and heavy, on my left flank, intending to overwhelm the Knights there and then swing in to take the rest of his army in the side and rear.
As the game began, my horsemen thundered forward, and quickly got behind the Anglo-Norman line.
A unit of Berber light horse charged into the flank of the massed Norman Knights and, with the cards helping me out, sent one fleeing from the field.
With the Arab Jund cavalry and a unit of mercenary Christian Knights on the way into the action on that flank, the situation was only really saved for the Normans by the intervention of the Knights from the other side of the battlefield (along with Bishop Odo and a piece of the True Cross) who had quickly re-deployed across the width of the table.
This meant, however, that the Anglo-Norman left flank was left unguarded and, although a bit slow off the mark, the Berber Black Guard was soon forward and threatening there.
With the Berbers curling in from both sides, the Anglo-Normans desperately sent the Fyrd forward to try and cut through the main enemy line, but although they fought bravely, Berber light horse were all over their right flank/rear and the Norman spearmen who might have turned the battle in their favour were busy trying to hold off the Black Guard on the left.
It all proved too much for the Anglo-Saxon infantry, who were finally broken by more Berber light horse coming in from the rear. The main Anglo-Norman infantry line collapsed and the day was to the Fanatical Berbers!
A cracking game which actually felt a lot closer than the report, above, would suggest. Unit for unit, the Berbers were weaker than the Anglo-Normans, but there were more of them, and once the initial flank manoeuvre on the left had been successful, the Anglo-Normans were very much on the back foot.
Getting the Knights across to defend the right was genius, but that in turn allowed the more numerous Berbers to outflank on the other flank as well, and suddenly the Anglo-Normans were fighting in three directions as once. A gap was bound to appear somewhere, which allowed the Berber light horse to dart into a position where they could attack the rear of the heavily-engaged main Anglo-Norman battle line and that, as they say, was that.
Next game will reverse the sides and we’ll see how that goes…
