Loot the Houses

Having given some thought to Byzantine tactics last week I was able to put some theory into practice with a pair of games against Mick and his Norman hordes. Following standard procedures only a few pictures of the second game survived long enough to be uploaded. The Normans fielded the same force each game :

1 Mounted Leader
2 units 6 Mounted Hearthguard
2 units 4 Warriors on Foot
1 unit 8 Warriors with Crossbows on Foot
1 unit 12 Levy with Bows on Foot

The first game was a voyage of discovery as we both tried to work out what was the best way to use our boards and ended with the Norman Leader being killed and the Normans lacking the Saga dice to play on. The second game was our first playing anything other than a straight kill scenario and battlefield featured two buildings with the aim to be to protect the building in your half of the table and loot the one in your opponent's half.

The Normans started with all the Hearthguard on the right flank and then the Levy archers in the centre with a good field of fire and the rest of the Warriors deployed to protect the building.

The Byzantines started with a unit of Warrior spearmen and archers on each flank and the unit of eight mounted Hearthguard deployed in the centre.

The Normans have a useful ability that allows them to double the range of archery so the Levy would pretty much stay put whilst the Norman knights pushed forwards towards the Byzantine house and the crossbowmen advanced towards the cover of the woods on their left.
The Byzantines pushed up to occupy the wood on their left flank with the archers and the gap between that and the house with the Warrior spearmen. The Hearthguard made a cautious move across to the table towards the Byzantine house being careful to stay out of range of the Norman levy fire, On the right flank the warriors pushed forwards towards the Norman house.
At this point one of the Norman Hearthguard units unleashed a devastating charge that wiped out the Byzantine spearmen by the house and then pushed their tired horses on into the archers in the wood inflicting heavy casualties and forcing them to retreat.Unfortunately for them this left them tired and without support and a decisive charge by the Byzantine cavalry wiped them out without the loss of a single Byzantine.
On the Byzantine right the two infantry units advanced steadily and exchanged some fairly ineffective fire with the Norman crossbowmen who stayed hidden in the woods.
On the Byzantine left the second Norman cavalry unit had advanced but was again wiped out by a devastating Byzantine cavalry charge, this time however they managed to take half the Byzantines with them.
At this point the game was drawing pretty much to a close ( after 6 turns ) and neither side had managed to claim any loot. A last ditch attempt by the Byzantines to clear the woods of the Normans only managed to inflict minimal casualties and could not clear the gap they needed to reach the house.
With no Victory Points for looting being scored we did a quick count up of the slaughtering points and even though the Byzantines had killed 12 Hearthguard for the loss of only 4 ( 1 point each ) the Normans had killed enough Byzantine Warriors ( 1/2 point each ) to win a narrow victory.
Playing a scenario really helped to spice the game up so we agreed to do the fighting over the bridge/ford scenario next.

I have also made some more progress on the Milites Christi troops this week with the crossbows and the first unit of warrior foot being completed.

The basing method using the Polyfilla worked well and for the moment I have not added any extra grass effects to the base.

Again this army has no Levy troops so I have eight more Warrior foot to complete and then twelve mounted Hearthguard and a Leader to round off the whole army.

This week I also played the second of the Artefacts of Kyron Campaign battles as my brother came over. I even managed to take some pictures of that one so it deserves it's own post which will be coming up in the next couple of days.