Sagrajas 1086

Last Saturday we met up at Noble Knight Games to re-fight the Battle of Sagrajas 1086 using the Hail Caesar rules.

Kevin and I would play the forces of Aragorn, Castile and León while Drew and Bruce the Almoravids with their Taifa kingdom allies.

Most of the figures are from my collection, and Kevin contributed quite a lot of Christian Hildagos from his collection, rather more than he had expected as I managed to leave a whole box of Hildagos of my own at home!

The forces were.

Christian Spanish

Alfonso VI, King of León and Castile Ld8 (Fervour 2)

• 1 unit Caballeros Hildagos
• 2 units Caballeros
• 1 unit Guard spearmen
• 1 unit Jinetes
• 1 unit skirmishers with slings

Álvar Fáñez, of Castille Ld8

• 1 unit Caballeros Hildagos
• 1 unit Caballeros
• 1 unit Jinetes
• 1 unit Mercenary spearmen
• 1 unit Crossbowmen
• 1 unit skirmishers with javelins

Sancho Ramírez, King of Aragorn Ld8

• 1 unit Caballeros Hildagos
• 2 units Caballeros
• 1 unit Jinetes

The Count of Ribagorza Ld8

• 1 unit Caballeros Hildagos
• 1 unit Caballeros
• 2 units Peones with archers
• 1 unit Peasant levy
• 1 unit skirmishers with bows

Almoravids and Andalusians 

Yusuf ibn Tashfin Ld9 (Fervour 3)

• 1 unit of Black Guard
• 2 units of Berber spearmen with hippo hide shields
• 1 unit of Berber archers
• 1 unit of skirmishers with javelins
• Command arrives on turn 3

Al Mu'tamid ibn Abbad of Seville Ld8

• 1 unit of Andalusian Nobles
• 3 units of Andalusian Jinetes
• 1 unit of Andalusian spearmen
• 1 unit of skirmishers with bows

Umar ibn Muhammad al-Mutawakkil of Badajoz Ld8

• 1 unit of Mercenary African spearmen
• 2 units of Berber spearmen
• 1 unit of Berber archers
• 1 unit of skirmishers with javelins
• 1 unit of skirmishers with bows

Abdallah ibn Buluggin of Granada Ld8

• 1 unit of Hasham Guard cavalry
• 1 unit of Berber light cavalry
• 2 units of light camelry
• Command arrives on turn 3

Ahmad ben Muhammad of Almería Ld8

• 1 unit of Berber spearmen with hippo hide shields
• 1 unit of Berber spearmen
• 1 unit of Berber archers
• 2 unit of skirmishers with javelins

Tamim of Málaga Ld8

• 4 unit of Berber light cavalry

We had the private room at Noble Knight and this allowed me to set up a good sized 10ft x 6ft6in table with plenty of space for a couple of side tables holding reinforcements and cavalry.

The battle lines were drawn up as below, about 40% of the Berber forces were being held off table for the killer blow.

We modified the units and added an extra special rule for fervour, the details are at the bottom of this post. I did want the Christians to struggle with the Berber spear blocks, so all were equipped with Long spears, while the hippo hide shields would count as stubborn.

As expected, when the numbers were even at the start of the game the Christians made good progress, breaking through the Berbers in some places only for these rash units to be broken on the second wave of Berber foot

The African mercenaries performed particularly well initially forming a solid bulwark against the Caballeros and then pushing on into the Peones behind.

The arrival of the main force of Berbers soon saw the battle swing back in favour of the Almoravids as the Spanish forces weakened.

After a very hard slog and almost consecutively both forces had lost three of their commands, fortunately for the Berbers this was not over a half of their army, unfortunately for the Spanish it was.

Much blood had been spilled and life lost, az-Zallaqah would live up to its name.

Thanks to Drew for taking extra photos, I did not get very many at all.

A few extra shots from the game.

Hail Caesar lists for the game, no points as: "pah! who needs points?"

Christian Spanish
Unit	Clash	Sust.	Short	Long	Morale	Stamina	Special	Pts.
Guard infantry with spears	7	7	3/0	-	4+	6	Tough fighters
Heavy infantry with spears	7	7	3/0	-	4+	6
Peones Medium infantry with spears and/or javelins and rear ranks of bows	6	6	3	1	5+	6
Aqueros Light infantry with crossbows	4	4	3	3	-	6
Levy	4	4	3/0	-	-	6	Levy
Skirmishers with bows	2	2	2	2	-	4
Skirmishers with slings	2	2	2	2	-	4
Skirmishers with javelins	3	2	2	-	-	4
Caballeros Hildagos Heavy cavalry with spears and/or javelins	9	6	3	-	4+	6	Tough fighters
Caballeros Medium cavalry with spears and/or javelins	8	5	3	-	5+	6	Feigned flight
Jinetes Light cavalry with spears and/or javelins	5	3	2	-	6+	4	Marauders Feigned flight

Almoravids
Unit	Clash	Sust.	Short	Long	Morale	Stamina	Special	Pts.
Black Guard Heavy infantry with long spears and javelins	7	7	3	-	4+	6	Tough fighters Stubborn Elite
African Mercenaries Heavy infantry with long spears and javelins	7	7	3	-	4+	6	Tough fighters
Berber spearmen with hippo shields Medium infantry with long spears and/or javelins and rear ranks of bows	6	6	3	2	5+	6	Stubborn
Berber spearmen Medium infantry with long spears and/or javelins and rear ranks of bows	6	6	3	2	5+	6
Berber archers Light infantry with bows	5	5	3	3	-	6
Skirmishers with bows	2	2	2	2	-	4
Skirmishers with javelins	3	2	2	-	-	4
Hasham Guard Heavy cavalry with spears and/or javelins	9	6	3	-	4+	6	Tough fighters
Berber light cavalry With spears and/or javelins	5	3	2	-	6+	4	Marauders Feigned flight
Berber light camelry With spears and/or javelins	4	3	2	-	6+	4
Andalusians
Unit	Clash	Sust.	Short	Long	Morale	Stamina	Special	Pts.
Andalusian Nobles Medium cavalry with spears and javelins	8	5	3	-	5+	6	Feigned flight Tough fighters Parthian Shot
Andalusian Jinetes Light cavalry with spears and/or javelins and bows	5	3	2	1	6+	4	Marauders Feigned flight Parthian Shot
Andalusian Spearmen Medium infantry with spears	6	6	3	-	5+	6	Levy
Skirmishers with bows	2	2	2	2	-	4

Fervor: Expend a Imam or Priest marker to re-roll a Break test, the re-roll stands