So on 6th december I met Huub's Nikephorian for another test battle . I had a good norman army, a sound plan but had forgotten one important fact . Huub uses a Byzantine army on Santa Claus's day, and Santa Claus was a bishop of Smyrne in Byzantine territory ..he had a Saint for Him (In europe Santa Claus if on 6th december ) .
Terrain was mostly open with some forest ..one piece right in the middle . You can see Huub's deployment ( with some wise Prophet's advice ) His right flank is composed of skutatoi, tagmata and kataphraktoi . Some armenian mercenaries want to visit the woods and some russian infantry will hold his left flank ( but on the right when you look at the picture )
Norman deployment , my right flank, some average milites and a small breton unit , why hold the woods and the sup milites and famillia ready to go for the tagmata + some infantry, 2 TUGs of 9 , to go forward .
I did put some pressure rather quickly even being the defender
The varangians just looked ready ...they are not equiped with heavy axes but some short spears ...hurray
My infantry fearlessly advances ..;with a feeling of being sacrificed ..;forlorn hope
Look at the beautifull picture
The mercenaries are feeling secure in the woods
So the Milites did charge and it went rather well ( Ok during melee we forgot the infantry had shieldwall so I would not have melee expert...but impact was rather bad for him ! and I will pay for my sins later )
And I disengaged not willing to be charged in the flank by the armenian long spears .
I came back latter and killed that unit . Onde TUG dead, 3 more to go . All went as planed .
Another point of view
My infantry went forward and engaged his skutatoi . This will be a fight to remmember !
The Tagmata will engage the other infantry TUG . The melee vs his skutatoi does not go well .
My infantry is in a bad shape but his tagmata is also loosing a base .
2 of my best units are targeting the other tagmata unit and I must also engage the kataphracts . I aim to kill the Tagmata and keep the real heavies busy long enough ..
Trying to kill another inf unit but nothing will happen there ..
As you can see we are heavily engaged I am winning vs the skutatoi ( on the left of the picture ) , the kats have not done real damage and his tagmata unit has lost 2 bases . The other tagmata unit is still fighting my infantry .
The came Santa Claus ...I did break his skutatoi unit but after that we went to the mounted melee ...he dolled a wound and 4 skulls to nothing ...broke my units , lost nothing when I broke the skutatoi ...Ok Game over as I could not stop the Nikephorian wall from rushing towards my last sup mounted unit ...and my 2 inf units would have died there ...Never face a Nike army and 6th December ...Glory to Huub for his dashing victory !
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