Impetvs: Clash in the Levant

4x 300 pts commands- Armenians and Seljuks vs Hospitallers and Later Crusaders.

Stephen's new crusader army- I love the look of these guys the biege shields tie his army together very nicely.

 The Armenians mass, bows in the front, heavy infantry behind.

 And from the other end of the table, the Seljuks prepare to advance.

 My infantry advance across the bad going hill.

 Kent begins by double moving (and disordering all his Ghulums and Seljuk nobles)

 Which wasn't as bad as Simon who managed to disorder all the Hospitiallers and associated groupies, directly in front of the crusader infantry and thus screwing up his cunning redeployment plan. 

 "Get out of the friggin way you lot!" Glad they didn't get into combat really.

 At least the Turcopoles, and some Hospitallers managed to skirt round the bad going.

 As you can see Kent's Seljuks and Ghulums fell on the disrupted knights but they are pretty hard to slow down. I am doing a classic refused flank, mainly as I cannot advance more than 5cm per move over the hill.

 Kent's troops harrying the knights. Having been on the receiving end of light horse he was relishing the opportunity to make the knights into pin cushions.

 Meanwhile.. keep walking. We'll be there soon..

 Simon and Stephen's knights turn to meet the new threat- the PFJ?

 My Impetuous general decided to lead from the front. Charging and running down a unit of Turcopoles only to then follow up into a rather angry looking mass of Hospitallers. Oops.

 As Impetvs is wont to do the battle lines fragment into a number of individual skirmishes.

 What happens when you leave the bad going and advance towards some knights?

 You get run down and destroyed by said knights! Oops. So much for my much vaunted crossbows.

 The general eventually fought clear of the Hospitallers- the ran like girls!

 Meanwhile in the last turn Kent let rip with every composite bow he could muster and then charged home with a unit of Ghulums and destroyed the Hospitaller general!

Result: a bit of a bloody staemate unfortunately. Simon was in a spot of bother having lost about 1/3 of his force and was a bit fragmented. I'd lost 1/4 of mine and both Kent and Stephen's commands were almost entirely intact so it as just getting interesting.

Next week we are on for a rematch but will make a couple of changes:
1. Start another 12" closer (The table was 7.5 x 6 ft so quite wide and we started 18" from half way- or 36" apart)
2. Slightly smaller (250 pt) commands to make sure we get finished in time

A fun gun though, I really like the paint job done on Stephen's army. It is very colourful and tied together really well.

Craig