Well, last night Ioannes Tzimiskes and his Nikephorian Byzantine army invaded heretical France.
The terrain included a river down my right flank, a hill either side of the river on the right of my deployment zone, a wood on the left of my deployment zone, and another wood on the right of Karl's deployment zone. Weather and time of day played no part in the game.
Karl placed a Swiss command on his right, with Ps in the wood and Pk (S) next to it. In the centre was a bunch of Bd (O), with Bw (O) and WWg (O) beyond them. In the rear, but quickly deploying to the left, were some Kn (S) with the C-in-C, some Cv (O), and some Bw (I) lurking in the rear.
I deployed Ps facing his, with Cv facing the Pk. In the centre were the Bw (X/O) Skutatoi. Behind them were the C-in-C with a Kn wedge either side, and some more Cv. On the right were Cv and LH.
Karl wheeled his Swiss Ps outwards to make it a bit harder for my Ps to face him, and also wheeled his WWg in front of most of his Bw. The Pk and Bd advanced, and the Kn and Cv deployed onto Karl's left wing. I advanced the whole line, deploying the LH onto the top of the hill on my right, and sending the Cv from the centre command over to support them.
The Skutatoi shooting broke up the Bd line, but Karl pressed forward, and his Bw and WWg were able to shoot down one of my Cv. I charged the C-in-C and one Kataphraktoi DBE wedge into the Bd, supported by Skutatoi, and declared a Combat Brilliant Stroke. The C-in-C killed his opponent, but the DBE failed. On the left, I charged the Cv into the Pk, where I killed one element. On the right, the sub-general and one other Cv charged into Bd and Bw, being recoiled. For the first time in many games, I had all three generals in combat simultaneously.
Over the next few bounds, the centre command gradually knocked over the French Bd, although Karl's sub-general attacked the DBE wedge and killed it. On my left, the Cv slowly pushed the Pk back, losing one Cv spent in the process. I filled the gap with the second DBE I'd earlier shifted over there. Karl pulled a couple of Pk elements back to shift left to cover the holes left by the dead Bd. On my right, Karl moved up his Kn and Cv, and eventually charged up the hill at my LH and Cv. The first contacts did a little damage each way, but holes soon began to appear in my line.
Finally I managed to kill a couple of Bw in the centre command, breaking it. This allowed the C-in-C and a couple of Skutatoi elements to swing around onto the Swiss, and these guys and the DBE deployed there earlier started to kill a few more Swiss. But on my right, Karl quickly finished off the Cv/LH command, though the last couple of Cv elements took a bit of killing. Meanwhile, the broken WWg on the left of the centre command hung around, keeping some of my troops occupied for several bounds, and covering the inside of Karl's left wing. Likewise, the Swiss Ps started knocking over mine an element at a time.
But finally, however, the pressure of frontal and flank attacks proved too much for the Swiss, and they broke, breaking Karl's army. My losses were 43% plus one general of a broken command, so that would have been 16-9 to me. Thanks to Karl for an interesting and fun game.
Karl's PIP dice were generally good - his C-in-C had the high PIP dice, and seemed to get 6 PIPs most turns. The centre command got the 2nd dice, the Swiss the 3rd, and the baggage the 4th. The Swiss sometimes got too few PIPs, where more might have caused me more problems. I gave my C-in-C the highest, averaged the 2nd and 3rd for the Cv commands, and also gave the lowest to the baggage. This cost me a few PIPs through the game, but it also ensured both commands got at least 2 PIPs every turn (plus the sub's PIP). There were a couple of bounds in the middle of the game where I could have done with a couple more PIPs, but I generally had enough, and occasionally had a couple to spare. Karl was convinced the combat dice betrayed him, but I don't think it was so bad - he only really lost a couple of elements to bad dice, as did I, but he lost quite a few more to quick kills and flank hits.
The only major rules problem we had was when Karl's Kn/Cv were approaching my Cv/LH at an angle. We were a bit unsure how he might wheel and contact in one go, as the extreme outside of the line was probably unable to make the distance. The problem is hard to describe without a picture, which I won't attempt. In any case, Karl resolved the problem by advancing short, and attacking in his next bound.
I had intended to keep track of how long bounds took, but forgot to do so. I know that my deployment and a couple of early bounds were a bit slow, but once we got into contact, things sped up. I'm not sure how many pairs of bounds we played, but I think it was about 10, and the game lasted about 3.5 hours.
