Last Tuesday Trev Allen and I dusted off my El Cid collection and had a cracking game of Warhammer Ancient Battles, I used the Almohavids and came out a clear winner.
This Tuesday we left the army lists the same, but I would play the Spanish and Trev had the Almohavids, would the result be the same?
The deployments were very different this time, Trev had a a solid line of Berber foot with the skirmishing horse on his left flank but the formed cavalry hung around behind his centre. I put the two blocks of Peones in the centre, my left was a unit of Caballeros Hildagos supported by the Jinetes while my left had my Reys unit of Caballeros Hildagos supported by the Caballeros.
Last week the Caballeros Hildagos had not really done anything useful until charging late in the game, my plan this time was to get them engaged at either end of the Berber line, incidentally where Trev had deployed the lighter armoured spearmen while trying to hold on as long as possible in the centre with my Peones.
The Caballeros went to play with the skirmishing Berber horse on my right in an attempt to skirt the woods and fall on the Berber rear. The Berbers came on and the Caballeros Hildagos crashed in at either end. On my right, supported by the Rey and Arminger the Berbers were forced to fall back, but on my right we did terribly, inflicting only a single casualty and taking none in return, fortunately though we held.
In the Almohavid return phase the Rey and his bodyguard were charged in the flank by a block of Berber foot, panicked they broke and fled. Things in the right went even worse, my big block of Caballeros that were making their way into the Berber rear were charged in the back by some puny Berber skirmishing horsemen who punched well above their weight, killed two for none in return and broke the Caballeros.
It did not all go so well for the Berbers though, on my left, the previously beaten Hildagos laid about them with great fury and the Berber foot were almost broken. The Rey soon rallied his troops and threw them back into the fray.
In the centre my two units of Peones were doing well in a fighting withdrawal against the much better Berber foot, but the odds were against them and they eventually succumbed, the unit causing a failed panic test on their Ryes Hildagos, while the other Hildagos panicked again from a flank charge, these boys were skittish today.
However both Hildagos rallied again, on my left they were charged by the formed Berber horse and after a protracted and very ineffective combat did manage to see off the Berber horse, hoorah! at last a broken unit of Berbers, the first in two games.
As the game drew to a close the Caballeros were still both battling hard while the Jinetes were mopping up some Berber foot.
We did a tally of the points and the Berbers had scored about 1100pts while the Spanish scored 600pts, still a loss, but much closer than last weeks whitewash.
Enthused by all this recent El Cid action I came home and started painting a few more Berbers that had been languishing in the lead pile for months!
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