(v2.0, Aug. 4th draft, 200 AP, the Order invading in winter, terrain essentially irrelevant)
The background was briefly this: the Livonian master and the archbishop of Riga disagreed about just who was in charge in Livonia - and that's something that it would be well to know when one has to juggle rebellious Livs, invading Russians, hostile Samogitians, devious Lithuanians, and unreliable Danes - so they decided to find out the old-fashion way.
The Order's army was entirely mounted, with the brethren themselves in the centre, lighter cavalry (turcopoles) on the left, and assorted vassals and volunteers on the right. The much larger, but qualitatively inferior, army of Riga had knights in the centre, a horde of mercenary infantry (mostly crossbowmen) on the right, and the city militia on the left. The mercenaries were supported by a standard wagon to improve their morale.
The archbishop had hoped to use his wider line to envelope the Order army, but command-and-control problems (low PIPs) prevented this. Instead, the battle became a largely frontal affair, where many of the Rigaer mercenaries never got to grips with the enemy. Those who did make swift work of the turcopoles facing them, but the Order brethren made equally short work of the Rigaer knights, altho not without losing a fair number of the their own.
The battle would thus be decided by whether the city militia could hold off the vassals and volunteers - if they could keep their line for a while, the remaining Order brethren would surely be swamped by the mercenaries, which would break the Order army. In the event, however, the militiamen proved brittle, and the archbishop's army was the one that broke. The Livonian master could count himself victorious, albeit at considerable cost. (15-10)
A picture at the situation at game end can be seen at
my blog (in Swedish). Click on the image for a larger version.
