Battle Repot - Art de la Guerre - 200 Points

Hello All,

Time for another Wednesday war gaming battle report. This week we got the chance to try out a full Game of Art de Guerre at 200 points. Same armies Triumvirate Romans for me vs Komenan (hard to spell!) Byzantine.

I ignored the terrain set up rules and just set it up, this game has a bit of an unusual table size, so the mountains mark the border on one side and we just measured back from the center line.

My There commands were:

1: Lots of Legions and a good genera;
2: Medimum foot with Elephant and Mediocre Legions
3: 3 Cav and a light Horse

I was expecting to see one command with lots of knights, one with spears and bow, and one with light troops. So I thought I would guess on the spears and bows being one the right by the forest and the knights in the middle. So I put my legions on the right medium troops in the middle, and cavalary on the left. Basically hoping to refuse the flank and fight the troops I want.

Sadly the Byzantines brought only 2 knights, some heavy cavalry, and tons of light foot and light horse???

Here you can see the deployment, big horde of light horse on the left, I don't really want to fight that. And a big line of light foot that will just run away! Argh

The Byzantines Moved up all the mounted troops very fast, with the foot just sitting.

I moved all my mounted back to delay any fights, and my legions wheel around, deeply regretting not being in the center. The Byzantines then advanced again, chasing back some light foot. They brought forward some of their foot and sent more into the woods.

I turned my mounted guys back into the fight to protect the rear. We lost track of the edge of the table, but oh well I just moved it. Other wise my legions advanced again.

Next turn the fighting happened, all the mounted troops charged in.

This went alright for me, the light horse guy routed, but I got 2 in return. The other fight was not decisive with both of us taking a disorder.

On my turn I sent some Elite legions to fight the guard. I brought my line in on the cavalry, using a foot to flank and the Elephant to face the knights. I thought I would be able to roll up the Byzantine cavalry at this point, but they refused to die!

The fighting continued, I got one of the cavalry units, but lost one of mine. The battle with the Varangian Guard is not going great either, and a light horse is heading for my camp.

This is the last picture I have, but I lost my mounted general and the camp and failed to get many more units. So my army was demoralized. The Byzantines were about half way so it was not a total loss thou.

Thanks;
Mike