Crusader battle report

Yesterday I brought my miniatures to the club and press-ganged a friend to throw some dices in an Crusader game of Hail Caesar.

The armies is composed of what I got painted but are roughly based on the Crusader list and the Ayyabid list from the book "Hail Caesar Army Lists - Late Antiquity to early Medieval" but we played with small units instead of standard sized ones and skipped the whole procentage ratio of troops. We just gamed with what was available.

Im sure the gaming balance with close combat and ranged combat as well as the balance with unit types is somewhat altered with just using small units but it works.

I used my Saracens and my friend Johan took command of the Frankish Crusaders.

I nice set of ruins that would make for a defensive position.

My right flank, skirmishers and Turcoman horse archers.

The Crusader army, an rather straight battle line with cavalry in rear to fill in on any gap or if an opportunity reveal it self.

My right flank is sent forward in an atempt to outflank him. Sending the light horses in an big circling move.

Crusaders swing their line to counter the coming threat.

His archers fled taking casualties in the stamped. The order to counter one unit of my skirmishers on the left flank resulted in an blunder on both the archer units. 

The forces close in on each others.

 The crusaders tries to assault the skirmishers but they fail to catch them as they fall back.

Spears and arrows are exchanged but to no real effect.

Seeing one of the enemy units flanks exposed the Saracens take advantage of this and manages to wipe it out.

The Franks fall back and form a new line.

The Saracens try to swarm the Franks and winning by sheer numbers.

And a all out attack is sounded. My Egyptian mob is able to attack one of the Frankish unit in the flank. The centre unit didn't look as promising but I thought that I couldnt leave them free so I engaged them with a skirmish unit in an lose hope of the added bonus for the charge and some luck would be enough.
This did of-course not happen and the centre got smashed, my right flank was shattered but at least the added bonus of the mob was enough for the left flank.

My opponent finally manages to move his cavalry and my Egyptian mob was shattered. The cavalry pushes forward and attacks a small unit of skirmishers that tried to find shelter behind a fence. Attacked in the flank and in front these guys was in big trouble.

My skirmishers didn´t stand long but I did manage to take out one of the Frankish foot units with my spearmen.

The enemy cavalry uses it superior movement and attacks my flank while Im still stuck with an Frankish foot unit.

Somehow I managed to survive an flank charge of cavalry and this meant that my Turcomans that have been playing hide and seek with some enemy archers the whole game and a skirmish unit could make a jointly attack on one of the crusading units that resulted in that they could follow up their attack onto the next unit.

End moment. My spearmen unit was finally broken but in the same round of combat the crusader lost a unit of footmen.
The loss of both units meant that both armies where broken and resulting in a very tight draw.
Intense game that was lots of fun.


Im sure we did all kinds of things wrong, both tactically and  rule wise but it was a really fun game non the less.

Charging enemy units in the front with skirmishers is not recommended...