Battle report(s) - 14 Oct 2012 - El Cid at Eye of the Storm

After a frantic couple of days painting and basing (note to self, I am never buying cheap PVA again!), Andy, Grahame, Carl and I piled into the Andy-mobile at 0-dark-15 on Sunday for a trip to the Eye of the Storm gaming centre in Mansfield, where Tom had arranged an El Cid WAB campaign day.

What can I say? I had a ball - my Christian Spanish army (replete with two units of very tough Caballeros Hidalgos) acquitted itself pretty well for a first go, barring a few bizarre dice rolls!

My knights commence their roll up
of the opposition flank.
The ASB (c'mon, he's the bloke
with the mahoosive cross on a stick)
 is a Fireforge mounted Sergeant.

After a duel to determine who was king (Grahame won for us) our first game was a doubles match - a pitched battle. We (the forces of Aragon) won quite handily, largely due to a spectacularly bad failed Feigned Flight roll from JamesM's light cavalry, which basically allowed my knights to roll up one flank.

So far so good.

My Caballeros threaten some
Andalusian crossbowmen.

Next up, I got to play Bob on a Raid scenario - this was Castile vs Aragon, and he had a very light infantry/shooting heavy army, of which I completely failed to grab any photos.

Spot the ASB again, as the Cabelleros
go haring across the rear of the
Andalusian forces.

As a tactic it was interesting - their low morale made for a lot of running away, and my hitting a formed unit with a bunch of knights didn't help that. Surprisingly, though, I actually lost the battle after winning a humongous four unit brawl - we were down to about two units each at the end!

How many Feigned Flight rolls
can those lads make before the
Cabelleros and their BIG
standard catch them?

The last fight was a Dawn Raid against Keith's tricksy Almoravids. It... should have gone a lot better than it eventually did. I got stuck in early, despite the random (fog of battle) deployment, and wound up chasing around the back of the opposition army with a bunch of Caballeros Hidalgos.

The Peones making faces from
the alleged safety of the hilltop.

That bit went well. In the end, it came down to my Peones on a hill, facing down two groups of infantry including the scary blokes in black robes. The Peones, quite understandably, lost the fight and ran off, so I decided to clear the hill by smacking a large group of Caballeros Hidalgos, including my King, into them.

Run away! Bravely run away!

First round was a loss to me by one (bad dice) - leadership roll made, no worries. Second round, I lost by one (the one for having lost momentum last time). No problem, King is LD 9. Dice... rolled a 10. Oh, that's all right, I can reroll for the big and highly visible army standard within 12". Rolled a 9. Ooops.

Knights and King flee. All units within 12" test for general fleeing. Armiger and other unit of heavy knights, LD 8.... roll a 9. Other unit of Caballeros? roll a 10. Mercenary archers need a 7. Roll, yes, you guessed it, an 8.

I had one turn to rally them. I managed to rally 2 out of four. And lost the ensuing victory points calculation by... four measly points!

Having said that? Huge thanks to Tom and Scrivs for organising it, Andy for driving, everyone else for taking part. I'll be back!