A WRG "Levantcident" another AAR And a Question for you all.

       In another of our fairly regular collisions, Anton's Catalan Company and My First Crusade Armies clashed recently, with some startling results.  Anton's are the near, mine are the far forces.

 

 

       Anton outscouted me 48:15, so my army had to deploy first so Anton could adjust.  Here we see the situation at the end of the first turn as we again neglected to take a picture of the initial deployments.  

       Anton's Catalan Company as shown above are as follows

 

36 x Almughavars, IRG B, LMI, HTW & JLS are in the village

18 x Dismounted "Light Horse" (IRG B, LHI, JLS & Sh in game terms) and 24 x Almughavars IRG B, LMI, HTW & JLS are right and to the rear of the village.  Anton's CinC with a bodyguard (both HC, JLS & Sh) and P standard are joined to this unit.  The unit also carries the Army standard as well.

18 x Catalan Skirmishers IRG B, LI, CB are next to the village.

24 x Sailors IRG C, LHI, CB are next to the skirmishers.  

18 x Catalan Skirmishers IRG B, LI, CB stretch from the sailors to the woods.  

15 x Turcopoles IRG C, LC, JLS, B, & SH are in front of the second skirmisher unit.

 

       Finally, Anton deployed two of his units of Almughavars in the woods on his right, so I had no idea they were there.  Both of these units are 36 x Almughavars, IRG B, LMI, HTW & JLS

       Again going left to right across the photo, my forces consisted of the following:

 

36 x Sailors, all IRG C, 9 LHI CB, 3 LMI CB, 12 LMI JLS & Sh, 6 LMI 2HCW & Sh, 6 LMI B & Sh.

48 x Pilgrims, 16 IRG A IPW, 8 IRG C IPW, 12 IRG C JLS, 12 IRG C B

48 more Pilgrims, exactly the same as the unit above.  

48 x Frankish foot, all IRG C, 20 HI JLS & Sh, 12 MI JLS & Sh, 16 MI B

48 x more Pilgrims, exactly the same as the other two units are headed into the woods.

24 x Frankish Foot, all IRG C, 12 HI CB, 12 MI B & JLS are behind the third Pilgrim unit.

12 x Knights, IRG B, HC, L & Sh are in reserve to the left.

My CinC (HC, L, Sh), his bodyguard (IRG B, HC, L, Sh) holding a PA standard, a Senior Cleric (HC, L, Sh) holding "the true cross" Sacred Standard are standing in the rear to the right of the knights.  

       On turn one, both of Anton's skirmishers, his sailors and his Turcopoles all shot at my second unit of Pilgrims, they managed to kill three Pilgrims at long range due to some terrible dice rolling on my part.  As a result of this fire, my Pilgrims had to take a morale test and promptly went Impetuous.   

       The photo above shows what took place on turn two.  As Anton's troops in the open stood still and shot as fast as possible my sailors turned and began advancing on the village.  The first unit of Pilgrims, who had shot Anton's skirmishers closest to the village turn one, advanced on the same skirmishers shooting again as they approached.  My loony second Pilgrims tried to wheel to charge Anton's Turcopoles (easiest unit to reach).  The Turcopoles simply formed Cantabrian circle, threw JLS at my Pilgrims and moved out of the way.  

       Meanwhile, I ordered my larger Frankish foot unit to their right to cover the obviously forming hole in my battle line due to the premature "spasm" of my Pilgrims.  I also ordered my Knights to move to their left in order to actually deal with the Turcopoles.  The smaller unit of Frankish foot wheeled slightly and advanced to close the gap and keep the turcopoles from running freely in my "rear areas".  My third unit of Pilgrims and Anton's two units of Almughavars stumbled into each other for a "surprise sighting.  Anton's units both passed their tests.  However, running into Anton's units had prevented my third Pilgrim crowd from taking their full movement, this left the tail end of the unit outside the woods and thus able to see the advancing general and his standard, as well as the Sacred "one true cross",  the resultant morale test promptly resulted in the third unit of Pilgrims going Impetuous!  

       Speaking of morale tests, my first unit of Pilgrims were fired upon for the first time by Anton's skirmishers nearest the village, this also necessitated a morale test and the first unit of Pilgrims joined their co religionists in religious fervor.  Also this turn the archers from both of my Frankish foot units and the second Pilgrims all let fly into Anton's Turcopoles resulting in several casualties.  Anton's other skirmishers, sailors and Turcopoles all shot my second unit of Pilgrims again causing several more casualties.  

 

       Turn three saw things change a bit.  Anton could see that my first Pilgrims were drooling mad and surging forward so he had his Almughavars in the village lay a trap (they did not know my sailors were also approaching (nice bit of acting in "the fog of war" by Anton).  Anton also chose to have his sailors contract their frontage (no reason to have two units smashed by impetuous loonies), however this meant that they could not fire this turn.  

       Anton's Turcopoles made a break for the rear of my first Pilgrims as my Knights anticipated their move.  The second unit of Pilgrims veered toward the woods edge skirmishers as they were now the easiest to reach and my third unit of Pilgrims not caring that they were taking on two units lunged for both.  In the resultant scrum, my dice grew warm and my one unit of Pilgrims managed to push back BOTH units of Anton's Almughavars!  

       In the Morale tests which followed the turn, Anton's Turcopoles turned and fled.  In the Village my Sailors stumbled into Anton's Almughavars spoiling his plans for an attack on my second Pilgrims flank, forcing them to face the new threat.  So instead Anton positioned his sailors to attack my First Pilgrim's other flank.  

 

       On Turn Four, My Sailors and Anton's Almughavars charged each other in the village.  My first Pilgrims and Anton's large Almughavars units charged each other.  Anton managed to coax his sailors into charging my first Pilgrims in the flank and my Knights charged Anton's Sailors in their flank.  My Frankish Foot advanced toward the center as my second Pilgrims finally charged Anton's second skirmishers.  

       My sailors pushed Anton's Almughavars back in the village.  My first Pilgrims were pushed back, but not broken.  Anton's Sailors were crushed and routed off the board.  Anton's skirmishers attempted to evade the second Pilgrim charge but did not run far enough and were caught by the charge of the second Pilgrims, the evade turned into a rout and a third of the Skirmishers died in one round!

       In the woods round two of combat ensued.  Anton managed to roll down with BOTH of his units (they can only roll down 1 due to their morale grade).  Meanwhile, my impetuous religious nutters rolled UP FOUR, the highest possible.  The result was the shattering of BOTH Almughavars instantly!  

       With his entire center and right flanks routed off the table, his left flank starting down that same path, and more fresh units of mine were closing fast; Anton conceded the game.  

       My intention with this army was to see if the sacred standard was worth the cost in points. The answer is a resounding YES, if you have IRG A class troops to whip into a frenzy!  Otherwise, I also wanted to try out the IPW, or "Improvised Peasant Weapon".  If ANYONE knows what a "Cloddenbeadle" (listed as an example of an IPW in the rules) is please tell me, I would really like to see a picture of one!  

       In the rules, this weapon requires two hands to operate.  However, it counts as "other weapons" plus the "JLS bonus".  In effect this means that the weapon hits like a JLS every round of combat, but does allow your opponent to strike you as unshielded, so it has trade offs.  In the game the IPW played as a weak 2HCW (2 Hand Cutting Weapon), but this only worked because I was facing "medium infantry".  The weapon does not work quite as well against heavy infantry, and will work even better against Light Infantry.  On the good side, those are the most common sort of soldiers in all armies.  On the down side it basically useless against any heavier type of troops (and book three is full of such troops).  

       The weird thing is that in the rules it specifically states that "Only 'D' class troops can use an Improved Peasant Weapon".  However, in the Early Crusade army, the Pilgrims (half of whom are mandatory armed with IPW) are allowed to up grade up to 1/3 of the Pilgrims to Irregular "A" morale.  There is a second upgrade for the Pilgrims which specifically allows "All" Pilgrims NOT upgraded to Irregular "A" to be upgraded to Irregular "C".  Thus, there is nothing in the army list to stop a player from upgrading some of their IPW troops to Irregular "A", and the rest of them to Irregular "C". 

          There are other armies across the various lists that allow initially "D" class troops armed with IPW to have their morale upgraded, so this is an ongoing problem.  But since the company no longer really supports the rules I guess we will never have this clarified.  The good news is the trick only works against Heavy, Medium, and Light troops.  The bad news is that those three types are the vast majority of troops in the game.  If anyone has any light to shed on this issue, both Anton and I would appreciate your assistance. 

Until Next time!