A battle report set in the seventh century added some novel challenges…

War. Not the idiot war of modern machines and numbers and plebeian panic but the divine war, the war that calls the self beyond the self. 

The Tolosan Visigothic Army sits across the battlefield from the Arab Conquest Army led by James Churchill and myself. We had agreed a to play a 15mm “To the Strongest!” Battle with 200 points each on Sid Bennett’s rather nice 8’ by 4’ mat. Sid laid out the terrain and indeed deployed the Visigothic army while Mr Baldwin was carrying out family taxi driver duties.
A river was deployed on our right and, aside from a Flank March Stratagem with some Visigothic light infantry, no one strayed over to the far side of the river.

I had planned to place my best cavalry over there but, as we had outscouted the Visigoths, I saw all the Visigothic horse was on our left facing my weaker cavalry wing so I changed my mind and placed my stronger cavalry wing behind the first to match the enemy.

The Dailami Javelinmen were already stationed facing rough going next to the river while our Arab warriors lined up in the open ground in the centre. Massed Visigothic foot faced us, some with bow armed support.

I commanded the Arab Horsemen supplemented by some Persian Asawira bow armed cavalry. James commanded all our infantry.
On my flank the action was dominated by two steep hills and the Roman villa (a very nice MDF model supplied by Sid).

My two commands managed three cards only in their first move allowing Sid to get his men forward and indeed he was unlucky not to get a card to charge my two Arab Camel Scouts with his cavalry when they were unable to evade. That was a close shave. I was able to line up my Arab fanatic lancers and the cavalry who had failed to charge my camel scouts were soon a victim of our counterattack.

On the extreme left my Bedouin light horse were eventually chased from the field by more Visigothic cavalry. Persian bow armed cavalry then shot the Gothic light infantry who had taken one of the steep hills. Visigothic cavalry seized the other steep hill but charged off it to, ineffectively, attack my Bedouin camel scouts. That allowed me to turn two Jund cavalry ready to charge the Visigoth Cavalry in each flank. One of my units managed the turn and make two charges! Sid’s men withdrew back up the hill with one disorder and a wounded general.

We tried to charge up the hill and indeed finished off the general but suffered disorder on both my own attacking units. I did manage to rally them, that plus 2 on rallying fanatics being helpful.
Meanwhile in the flatter ground between the steep hills and the infantry battle, Sid launched an onslaught but our Stratagem, “ Where in Hades?”, protected my Persian Asawira with some rough ground. My General, Malik Al Azwar hurled himself and his Jund cavalry at the enemy cavalry, disordering them. His men were disordered in turn and rallied (plus 1 for the General and plus 2 for Fanatics was even more helpful) while Sid moved his horse back but they proved not to be too keen on rallying.

The cavalry surprised by the sudden appearance of the rough going were disordered by Persian shooting though they shot back and eventually my Persians were disordered in turn.
Meanwhile my Bedouin camel scouts readied themselves to harass the Visigoth cavalry who had chased our light horse off the table. The other Persian Asawira took the chance to turn left and shoot at the by now rallied, but General-less, cavalry on the steep hill. However my general, Khaled Ibn Al-Walid, had threaded the Arab City Cavalry through the gap between the steep hills and proceeded to cause grief among the Visigothic cavalry with flank charges. Sid managed to evade but Khaled’s pursuit allowed Malik to charge more Visigothic cavalry where Khaled’s horse prevented an evade. Another Visigothic cavalry unit perished.

However, though I was succeeding in overwhelming the great El Sid, the Visigothic cavalry hung on long enough for the late arriving Mr Baldwin to achieve the defeat of our Arab warriors. James put up a great resistance but was increasingly fettered by the loss of, first, his general, Abu Ubayda, and then his general, Zubayr Ibn Al-Awwad, and eventually, in the end, all three of James’s generals had perished!

By then a hole had been torn in the centre of our warrior line when one unit of Arab warriors was destroyed and another already with two disorders failed the resulting rout test. The left of our infantry line had been turned but on the other end of the line one of our Dailami units had burst through the Visigothic left by the river.

By then each side had six Victory Medals left. Then Ubadah Ibn Al-Samir commanding our Dailami, and the last of James’ generals, died and then another Arab warrior unit was lost. At the end of that Visigothic turn, we had one Victory Medal left when our Bedouin light horsemen returned to the field. They still had six.

James started our next turn with no generals and deep units so activations were penalised by a plus two to activate his out of command deep units. James attacked with his Fanatical Arab warriors but, sadly his attack was unsuccessful, and Mr Baldwin struck back in his inimical style and our unit, already twice disordered, was broken.
Very sadly and rather grudgingly I handed over the last of twenty of my lovely new Arab/Sassanian Drachma coins just purchased from the BigRedBat Shop as Victory Medals. The curse of newly painted troops even extends to new coins!
We had lost an excellent game, once again “To the Strongest!” gave us a close and enjoyable game.

Michael El Lane

 War as awakening, war as initiation, war as the kiss of the sacred upon the forehead of the one who dares. The battlefield isn’t chaos. It’s cosmos inverted, made molten, purified. And the hero walks through it like a priest through flame, untouched by soot, because his soul is already ash.