El Cid: The opening moves

This is a blogging race to get my version of events up before Tom does.

Tonight my Christian Spanish for the Age of El Cid had their first outing. Tom and I are going to Hot Lead at Gripping Beast this weekend and I wanted to have at least one game under my belt.

As Tom did not plan to arrive until 7:30 I thought I would lay out the troops and take a few images:

Here they all are

And again

Close up with banners flying

And from the other side

 Of course Tom arrived much earlier than I expected so it was onto the game. We randomized the scenario and are going to play the Miraculous Shrine. Another dice roll and I am the attacker.

My 1500pt list comprises Infante General and Arminger ASB in a unit of 10 Caballeros Hildagos, a Infante in a unit of 11 Caballeros, a unit of 8 Jinettes, a unit of 21 Peones and 7 Aqueros, a unit of 9 Peones Light Infantry with throwing spears, a unit of 9 Aqueros and a unit of 8 Skirmishers.

I deployed from left to right: Skirmishers, Jinettes, Hildagos, Peones, Aqueros, Peones Light Infantry, Caballeros.

The Glory of Espana

 Tom was using his 1000pt Almohavid list and had two units of spear one with Sayyd and ASB and one with an Imam, a unit of bows a unit of Berber cavalry and a unit of skirmishers. The spear unit with the general and ASB would be the temple guard.

Tom deploys his North African scoundrels

 I took the first turn and sounded a general advance towards the Almohavids

Sound the advance

Disaster strikes the Berber Cavalry and skirmishers counter  my Caballeros, three are shot down, a panic test is failed and they head back towards Castille.

Run away!

 In the same turn I also lose a couple of Hildagos to stray arrows, it does not bode well, paper armour and all that.

Some Berber Spear dudes

 My Caballeros rally and face off against the Berber Cavalry who account for another with javelins

Hold fast lads

My Peon light troops soon clear away the Berber Javelinmen and the Caballeros charge into those pesky Berber Cavalry.

Clear those dogs from the woods 

The Berber cavalry elect to feigned flight but are still caught by the Caballeros. In a brilliant display of martial incompetence my Caballeros manage to draw the combat for two rounds in succession and lose the momentum roll off - donkeys

Eye-ore

 In the center we pepper each other with Javelins and bows.

I am not moving if you aren't

 The Hildagos clear out the Berber bowmen on the hill then turn around to take the spearmen in the flank.

That is the archers cleared.

 I charge into the Berber spearmen and they fall back in good order from the charge

Add caption

 The Imam gets into a challenge with the Infante

Not a fair fight, I also have a horse, a dead Arab and a bloke with a trumpet on my side. 

In another display of martial incompetence in the Hildagos kill the Imam and four Berber spearmen but take four wounds themselves. What can go wrong on a 3+ save, oh dear, four failed saves lost combat, under 5 models and they are off taking the Infante and Arminger with them.

In the center it's a land grab with both players vying to get as many troops around the shrine as they can. The Berber spear try to push away my Caballeros but fluff the combat.

This one went better than expected. 

Rally round the sacred column thing.

At the end of the game, I had lost about 900pts of troops to Toms 500pts, however I did have more troops within 6" of the shrine than Tom so it made the final score 987 to 1007, a small 20pt win to me.

A top game, and checking Toms blog I won the race :)