It is 9 months since I last played an opposed wargame, so it was with great pleasure that I was invited around to Ian’s for my first game in 2021. We were playing Sword and Spear using his nicely painted Seljuk Turks versus early Crusaders. A dice roll determined that I would take the Seljuks, which would be interesting because I have very little experience with predominant light horse armies.
Ian narrowed the battlefield by placing a river, cutting off a quarter of the table, a placing a large gentle hill on which to sit his infantry. Otherwise the table was fairly bare. It was clear to me from the start that I would avoid mixing it with the Crusader spears and crossbows, instead I would manoeuvre on both flanks and utilise my better movement and archery. The major problem I faced was his heavy knights whose impact could be crushing! The initial turns saw his knights advance against my harassing horse archers, who were gradually forced back on to my supporting cavalry reserves. The Crusader knights followed up, but I had allowed a gap between my horse archers which enabled a single unit of Turkish cavalry to charge the knights. The Turks survived and effectively pinned both units of knights in place. My flanking horse archers could now swarm the knights and first one, then the other Crusader units were destroyed. At this point the battle seemed to be going to the Turks.
Ian now advanced his infantry forces to support the remaining unit of knights, who were now able to attack the Turks before they could reorganise themselves after the melee. A few units of horse archers were effectively trapped and destroyed, and some supporting Turkish infantry also died. The victorious Crusader knights pursued and were halted by the remaining Turkish heavy cavalry, and then destroyed by a poor quality Bedouin cavalry I had in reserve. At this point both armies passed their demoralisation points (i.e. a third lost), but my Turks were in the stronger position because a single unit of horse archers had finally circled the enemy and was attacking the Crusader camp. In the next couple of turns they destroyed the camp and a supporting unit of peasant pilgrims, which took the Crusaders over their defeat point total.
So, victory to the Seljuk Turks! This was a close, hard fought game that took almost 5 hours to complete. The light Turk forces have to manoeuvre carefully and avoid head-to-head conflict in order to allow their heavier supports to intervene at the correct moment. On reflection I think I did this well and I did not allow Ian’s knights to benefit from their ‘impact’ ability. I was concerned about the Crusader infantry moving forward and for this reason I sent a couple to light horse units forward on the other flank, beyond the river, to ‘pin’ at least some of the infantry. I think, with hindsight, that Ian should have moved his infantry forward earlier, holding back his knights for a turn or two, because I had nothing to counter such a move. Crossbows can be deadly!
Overall, I am pleased with a victory and really enjoyed this game. Hopefully a rematch can be arranged soon. Thank you Ian for providing a great game, lunch and photos.
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