The original Dust Tears & Dice - Outremer Campaign - Turn 1

I was reflecting on where the original title of the blog came from. Back in 2011 when I kicked this blog off I had an interest in the British in the Sudan and the Crusades with a plan to run an online campaign at our local club - Ironically neither of these projects every made the table top or blog, roll on 14 years and the Crusades finally makes the table top and the Dust & Tears Campaign finally lands on the blog.

In the Cry Havoc supplement - Outremer in the back of the rule book was a very useful scenario generation system which it allows you to generate and follow a group of 'Pilgrims' as they travel from Antioch in the North to see wondrous sites of the Holy Land in the South.

I adopted the table to Lion Rampant to give me the potential force map up for each Pilgrim party, the idea being each party will set off in the top left hand corner and attempt to reach Jerusalem, as each party runs out of troops or money they are likely to have to stop to await further pilgrim parties to bolster their number culminating in larger games. (driving me to paint the rest of the plastic and metal.)

Lucky me I rolled on the chart and my first party is a Knight & Retainers I adapted the table to model the forces available within Lion Rampant ignoring the 24 point limit and basing it on unit types as the scenario dictates.

Each Hex on the map is 20 miles roughly one days travel. Each time the party enters a hex on a roll of 50% or less and an encounter occurs. More on the type of encounter in future posts.

No more than 20 miles on the road and a small cluster of buildings emerge out of the heat haze, horsemen ride out of the village to confront the party of travellers.

It's easy to get carried away in the first encounter with the following forces available on the first encounter, 3 Knights, 1 Heavy Cavalry, 1 Light Cavalry, 2 Spear Units, 2 Warriors, 2 Missile & 1 Skirmish unit. The Christian forces heavily outnumbering the Moslem defenders felt pretty confident in winning the engagement and sacking the village for potential loot and valuables to fund their onward march.

The Christian forces had enough for 2 commanders with circa 24 points in each wing. The Christian cavalry forces swept left to be countered by the Moslem light cavalry clouds of arrows peppered the heavily armoured Knights.

With a wild charges of the Christian Knights drove back the light cavalry who fired off their bows in a skirmish move dropping back out of charge range, but occasionally the Knights caught them before they could evade and the defenders were put to the sword.

In the centre the pilgrim foot advanced into the centre of the field. The aggressive warriors were ready for the fight.

The Moslem archers were unable to slow the charging warriors, they left off a single volley before the Christians advanced.

The first unit of Warriors crashed into the unarmoured missile men.

The archers fell backwards to be replaced by a wall of spears only for the warriors to charge again. The Warriors continued to win each melee but their numbers were thinning.

With the infantry pinned to the front the Moslem cavalry were unable to find a gap in the Christian lines and the boxed in with the mounted knights driving home their advantage.

The Moslems took flight leaving the small settlement in the hands of the Christians.

Losses 1 Light Cavalry & 1 Warrior Unit.

But already the loss of the sole light cavalry unit and one of the warriors might prove telling.

The Pilgrim's press on - 3 Knights, 1 Heavy Cavalry, 2 Spear Units, 1 Warriors, 2 Missile & 1 Skirmish unit. 

Next up Turn two and an overview of the Arab force generation together with details on upkeep and the hiring of mercenaries.