Seljuks (& Armenians) vs Later Crusaders

A rematch of last weeks game. We started 12" closer and had 3x 200 pt commands  per side. Kent and i fieled 2 Seljuk commands (each of 2x medium cavalry, 4x light horse and 2x skirmishers) and a solid Armenian command to hold the centre (6x heavy infantry, 2x crossbow, 1x bow, 1x knight).

The Crusader commands all were quite infantry heavy

The Seljuk command holds our right flank. 

 Across the table the Crusaders assemble.

 Stephen and his Templar knights await our first move.

 As for can see at the top of the picture Kent's light horse command is about to find out why I hate crossbows!

 Steady boys! The Aremenians await developments.

 Sin sends his turcopoles forward to engage the Seljuk light horse.

 Composite bow armed turkomen make a mess of the turcoples but the last turcopole, almost dead does a suicidal charge, killing a unit of light horse that could not retreat and this causes panic in the Armenian ranks (3 units all take a permanent loss due to proximity)  a nice move from Simon.

 With the turopoles gne the light horse are free to run riot.

 Simon sneds his foot sergeants and skirishers foward to slow them down.

 Meanwhile on our left flank Kent is in all kinds of trouble trying to deal with those crossbow armed Franks. He charges a unit of crossbow with his Ghulums and is soundly beaten twice! While the Frankish skirmishers are also adding to his problems. As you can see from this picture there is still quite a lot of uncommitted foot sergeants and somewhere eben further back (out of shot) are two units of templar knights!

 Dave's fot sergeants also advance and my shooting does little damage.

 Things have gone form bad to worse for Kent and his command is about to crumble. He has been soundly defeated.

 Dave has manged to wear down a unit of Armenian knights which are thrown in at the bowmen but are forced to retreat! We won't mention ho has now taken over this command, will we Kent. All I can say is never have I seen such combat shy knights in action!

 End game. Just as it was getting very interesting. e had managed to break Simon's command leaving Dave to face most of the Armenians and Seljuks. Stpehne was also stilla ctivve (and barely scratched) but given his lcoation on the far left (for us) flank was unlukely tobe able to edeploy fast enough to interfere Still with those knights oof dave's ready to get involved the game was still very much up in the air.

 Great game guys. the smaller commands and starting closer to the enemy worked well, and it was a hard ofuhgt game that could have gone either way

Same again next week apparently.

I think tonight Kent encountered the dilemma I have always faced: how to deal with crossbows. They are lethal if they can get into point blank range and you can't afford not to deal with them but doing so means that you open yourself up to taking losses (something the Seljuks can't afford too happen) and should you manage to get lucky, you end up with a single victory point for your troubles. He's got a week to ponder a plan to deal with them.

And a few pictures from Kent:

Armenian infantry hold the centre while the Seljuks do what they do best.

The battle lines close.

Crossbows adcance templar knights are avoiding trouble early on.

"I think I will kill this one!"

One of the Seljuk commands

Craig