Epic Battles: discussion, reviews, reports

[Kerait]

Crug Mawr (1136)
This is an asymmetrical match-up. The Welsh field a long line of Welsh spearmen, supported by a screen of light longbowmen and a couple of massed Welsh longbowmen. There are also modest cavalry wings on each flank, including non-lightly lancers and light javelin horse. The Anglo-Normans deploy a line of knights behind a mass of what are mostly raw spearmen, buttressed by a vanguard of armoured spearmen. I played this battle over a year ago so I’m not sure if there have been any updates but the Anglo-Normans literally have the high ground and that is what set the tone of the battle for me overall. Although the battle’s brief states that the Normans ‘have taken up a defensive position’ on a hill, almost implying that it’s the Welsh player’s role to advance on them, it seems to be a mistake to do so. My experience playing this battle as the Welsh was much the same as Snugglebunny’s in his video on YT. The Welsh spearmen, being medium foot, could not stand up to repeated cavalry charges or even, in many cases, the Norman heavy foot on open ground, let alone whilst fighting uphill. They were handily smashed and Wales defeated. A better Welsh approach, which led to my defeat as the Anglo-Normans, is to hang back between or even partway within the woods at the back of the map, play for time and shower the Norman knights with arrows to the point they break or disrupt and become unable to break the Welsh formation. With the Welsh having far more lights, they can force the Normans into advancing. The Anglo-Norman strategy should be to shield their knights as much as possible from Welsh harassment with the raw spearmen and close with and smash the enemy medium foot.

The Standard (1138)
The first thing that stands out about this battle is that the Scottish formation is divided between four formations, whereas the English are deployed in one solid line, wedged comfortably between impassable terrain. There is really nothing stopping the Scots from joining up and attacking as one cohesive force. The Scottish performance is unpredictable, given the Scots’ large number of medium impact foot, the Galwegians and Highlanders, who rely on a good result on the initial charge or can otherwise quickly collapse. I believe that overall the English have a slight edge, because their dismounted knights are dependable, and much of the Scottish manpower is soaked up by large units of Scottish spearmen who are vulnerable to flanking by the more numerous English raw spearmen once the battle inevitably devolves into a chaotic melee (I don’t have a high opinion of this unit). However, against a methodical Scottish player, the battle can easily swing either way with a couple of choice dice rolls.

Sirmium (1167)
A fun clash between two cavalry-heavy armies on open ground. Note that the Byzantine lancers are generally knightly lancers; the Byzantine force is heavier than a quick glance might initially suggest. A key challenge for the Hungarians is to leverage their archers effectively to disrupt the Byzantine cavalry without having them utterly obliterated on the bare plain. The Varangian Guard is scary but is actually fairly difficult for the Byzantines to make optimal use of, since charging Hungarian knights or horse archers are in their own ways often unproductive pursuits. I don’t remember this battle too well but it seemed balanced to me.

[cromlechi]

Fornovo 1495

Highly recommend this one. Superbly well designed. I am playing this on multi-player and it's going to the wire much like the real battle. It has a real atmospheric feel to it, including some scripted touches that add to the realism like a river that floods, rain. Good to look at and really well balanced for multi-player. Very impressed. Hat's off to the designer.