Having travelled from the dusty northern plain of India in 1857, our man was quite looking forward to an assignment to the beautiful island of Sicily in 1040AD. Despite having signed a peace treaty with Fatimid Egypt in 1037, the cunning Emperor Michael IV has sent troops to Muslim Sicily to fight in the civil war that has erupted between the Fatimid Governor and the rebels backed by the Algerian Zirid dynasty. Could George Maniarches recapture Sicily which had been lost to Christianity for over one hundred years?
Tony and myself took the Byzantines, with Chris and Phil the Fatimids. The deployment by both armies was quite traditional with infantry heavy centres and cavalry and lights on the flanks. However close inspection did reveal subtle differences. The Byzantine infantry were “deep” with extra bow, the Muslims elite Auxilia and separate bow, plus the Byzantines double armed with lance and bow.
The Fatimids advanced rapidly using their bowmen to pepper the Byzantine infantry with arrows, but to little avail. With slightly more units as “deep” are quite expensive in points, the Fatimids also managed to slip light cavalry around the flanks.
Tony reacted with a light infantry attack which forced the Fatimids off the table. First coin to the Byzantines, and Tony was able to follow up with his own flanking breakthrough.
My forces were fixated on the enemy to their front, plus were determined to use up their allocation of arrows. They rather ignored Phil’s lights creeping towards the flank. Eventually my cavalry did manage to kill a Muslim cavalry unit, plus their General. Tony killed some more cavalry and swept away light javelinmen. All was looking good for the Byzantines with the Muslims down to five coins.
However “ones best plan never survives first contact with the enemy”, and that assumed we had a plan. Whilst out making coffee I heard plaintiff cries as one of my cavalry units died, and the loss of the General had little effect on a Fatimid force now comprised solely of light troops. Tony was unable to capitalise on his flanking attack, being frustrated by the Muslim veteran light javelinmen, whilst in the centre the Muslim infantry finally scored multiple disorders on a unit of spear and bow. Both Byzantine camps now fell to Phil’s rampaging light cavalry, with my attempt to turn and face them being “too little too late”.
Tony lost a cavalry unit and finally, following some deft handling of the veteran Auxiliaries to move a disordered unit out of the line and replace with a fresh one, the resultant Islamic charge killed the “deep” unit of Byzantine infantry which saw the final three Byzantine coins surrendered to the forces of Islam.
In the post-match interview I had to admit the loss of the camps was down to me, although the camps were behind Tony’s centre. Command confusion and bickering in the Byzantine high command? How historically accurate! Back in the real world of 1040 the Byzantines were more successful but fell out with their Norman mercenaries who rebelled and most territorial gains were lost. Michael IV became ill, retreated to a monastery and died in 1041. His son and successor Michael V lasted only a year before himself being blinded and packed off to a monastery by his mother-in-law. No mother-in-law jokes please!
Next week our reporter takes a well-earned break having been invited to dinner by a Frenchman...
No doubt a report on the 1940 Abbeville game scheduled for December 11th will follow in due course.
Simon
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