Well, my Nikephorians took on an Early Crusader army.
I was the defender, and thought at first I was taking on the 1096 (irregular with Byzantine allies) version of the army. This was bolstered when Jason selected a sea, which went down on my left flank (Jason's used this army, with Byzantine boats, on a few occasions previously). I selected two 1FE difficult hills, two 0.5FE difficult hills (oops, should have been RH or CH I realise now), and two 0.5FE pieces of SF (oops, should have been RF).
One large hill went down as a promontory in the sea, forward on my left. One of the smaller hills was nearby, partly cutting off part of my deployment zone. The other two hills sort of cut Jason's deployment zone into three parts. The two patches of scrub went down on my right, one near the centre line, the other in Jason's deployment zone.
It was at this point I found out Jason's army was actually the regular version of 1098-1099. I'd originally chosen the terrain because I wanted to try to split up Jason's large army into parts which wouldn't be able to support each other. But as a smaller regular army, I think it would have been more vulnerable to open terrain. Oh well, I should have clarified this beforehand.
I lost the deployment dice roll and deployed first. My army is as follows (apologies to Lorenzo who asked about this a couple of weeks ago).
Command 1
Brilliant C-in-C
2 Cv (S)
2 Kn (X/I) DBE wedges
6 Bw (X/O) DBEs
21/5.5/7.5
Command 2
Sub
5 Cv (S)
4 LH (S)
21/5.5/7.5
Command 3
Sub
4 Cv (S)
1 LH (S)
4 Ps (S)
4 Ps (O)
20/5.5/7
Command 4
6 Bg (F)
3/1/1.5
Concealed command @ 0 (available only when invading as a Brilliant Stroke)
{Note - this list would be illegal under the current proposed version of the Nik Byz list, due to reduced numbers of Ps permitted. I'd probably take as many Ps as I can - half what I have at the moment - and use the spare 10 points to get another Cv (S).}
Command 1 went in the centre, and after some dithering, I put Command 3 on the right, where I could commit the Ps into the scrub, and Command 2 on the left against the sea.
Jason deployed three fairly similar commands. Each had 9 Sp in three ranks, and 4 Bw (O) in two ranks. The centre with the C-in-C had 8 Ps-supported Bd, while the flanking commands had 2 Ps-supported Bd and 3 Kn each. He also had 6 Regular Army Baggage behind TF. In the centre the Sp sat behind the Bd, but they were part of the main line on the flanks. Instead, the Kn were kept as a reserve on each flank.
We both gave the highest PIP dice to the C-in-C, the lowest to the baggage, and averaged the middle dice for the flanks. I'm starting to see a trend here.
Moving first, I gave most of the PIPs to the Ps on the right, getting them into the first patch of scrub on my right. My hope was to get them into the security of the second patch, from which they could make threatening gestures against the flank of Jason's army, and possibly occupy his Kn a little. Elsewhere I advanced more cautiously.
Jason then marched forward as quickly as he could, his Bd in the centre targeting my Skutatoi. Belatedly, I realised what I should have done in my first turn was column up the Bw and move them over to the right where they could face the Bw and Sp of Jason's left wing, leaving the Cv and Kn to face the Bd. I certainly had the PIPs to complete the maneuver in the first turn. I started the maneuver, and was still able to partially achieve my objective in the next two turns.
On my left, I turned the LH and Cv around and pulled back, in what I thought was a very Byzantine maneuver. Jason, half joking, asked if I was doing a feigned flight. On my right, the Cv and LH columned up to deploy in front of the Sp and Bd of Jason's left wing. The Ps moved out of the first patch of rough and began to hotfoot it towards the second patch. The baggage even got some PIPs, and were able to move over to my right, hopefully far enough away from the army that if something went horribly wrong, they wouldn't be too close to the victorious Crusaders.
Of course, presenting the rear of my LH and Cv to the enemy proved irresistible. Jason sent his column of Kn, general in the lead, into the rear of my column of LH. My LH element turned around, and thanks to excellent dice, survived although unable to recoil. In my next turn, the two rearmost LH peeled out, one of them able to provide an overlap, while the other struggled through the small difficult hill. The TZed element not in combat moved straight forward to get out of danger.
Over the next few bounds, this developed into a remarkable brawl, in which at one point I hit Jason's sub general in the rear, and which at another point we had elements in combat which were in rear contact with each other. By the end of it, I'd lost a total of 2 LH for no loss to the Kn, but at least it kept the Kn occupied.
In the centre, I redeployed the Skutatoi in time to get one shot at the Bd before they crashed into part of the line. Not a sausage. I've been finding this a bit with the Skutatoi - they're okay against other archers, but not that flash against fighting infantry. The combat proved that, with two DBEs dying in combat.
Of course, this uncovered one of the Kataphraktoi wedges, which charged in, while the C-in-C and the other wedge also charged into the Bd, supported by a couple of the surviving Skutatoi. Another thing I've found about the Skutatoi - even if they're facing troops who quick kill them, they seem to achieve more by charging into combat rather than shooting ineffectively. Some of the Cv of the left wing supported things by charging into the Crusader Bw of the centre command. The Emperor declared his first Brilliant Stroke for combat.
A minute later I was starting to swear. Crusader archery had killed a Cv providing an overlap, the C-in-C, one Kataphraktoi wedge and one Cv had recoiled, and a third Skutatoi DBE had died. The other wedge had killed a Bd and its supporting Ps, and the Cv had killed one Bw. Given that this was around the time Jason's Kn were monstering the LH on my left, I was wondering where I was going to get a win from.
Jason counterattacked, attacking the victorious Kataphraktoi wedge with Sp and flanking it with Bd, but the lads fought them off.
In my next turn, the Emperor tried his second BS in combat, and this time things started to work. I killed a couple more Bd, the Cv killed some Bw, and the wedge killed a Sp.
Jason tried a second flank hit on the wedge, and this time it worked. But he was starting to take losses in the centre, and was close to becoming disheartened.
Meanwhile, things took a bit of time to get started on my right. A couple of Skutatoi lined up against the Bw of Jason's left wing, and eventually knocked a couple over. The Cv from the centre command lined up the two Bd in the Crusader left wing, pushing them back a couple of times before some flank hits saw them dead.
The Cv from my right wing lined up the Sp block, and I happily charged in, having enough space and PIPs to get a flank wrap at one end. Jason didn't realise that the Sp only fought in a single rank against Cv, and didn't realise that the flanking element didn't need a full recoil space. Those two factors cost him dearly, with the combat showing just how good Cv (S) are against Sp (I). Jason killed one Cv by hitting it in the flank with a Kn, but I was able to kill seven of nine Sp.
Further out, Jason had detached a lone Kn to face my Ps. I had a couple of shots at wraps and rear hits on it, but the Ps just died to no effect.
Still, the losses were enough to break Jason's left wing, and the extra 2ME losses on the centre command were just enough, along with another dead Bw, to break the centre as well.
My total losses were 13 ME, exactly 20%, and no command was disheartened. The C-in-C's command was 0.5 ME away, and the others 1.5 ME. This would have been a 21-4 win to me.
Thanks to Jason for another bruising but entertaining game. I should apologise for my occasionally exasperated attitude during the game, but this is an army which promotes grey hairs. They're tough hombres - they've always gone into battle outnumbered, yet they have no alternative but to get into the enemy's face and take him on, relying on superior fighting qualities to win the battle.
