25 years of minis and counting: Kingdoms in East Campaign: Round 4

Delivering the Word of God to the Pagans (with a Sword)

For the 4th round I was challenged by Matti, the fearsome chieftain of Baltic Pagan warband. They have had several armies forcing christianity down their throat (and some Islam too), but still they continued to resist! Being a Finn myself (if not a pagan), I almost felt ashamed to fight my ancestors.

Battles on round 4.

My Medieval Russians vs. Matti's Baltic Bagans (battle report below) - Russian victory
Jaakko's Anglo Danes vs. Jaakko's Saracens - Anglo Dane victory
Marko's Taifa Kingdom vs. Mikko's Goths of Theodore - Minor victory for Taifa
Sami's Teutogen State vs. Tommi's Swedes - Victory for Teutogens

Map and status in the end of Round 4.

Battle Report: My Medieval Russians vs. Matti's Baltic Bagans

My force 801p

1+3 commanders (I think I only used 1+2)
6 Snr. Druzhina with barding (close order)
6 Jnr. Druzhina with bows
Polk Mixed formation 8 bases
Polk Mixed formation 6 bases
2 X Polk Axemen 5 bases
6 Skirmishers with crossbows
4 Skirmishers with bows
5 Steppe horse archers skirmishing

Battlefield

Deployment

Once again we used hidden deployment and draw maps. I tried to achieve a bit of refused flank in my deployment, but the 12” no go are on each side and large army kinda prohibits that. Unfortunately Pagans had a similar idea and our forces were basically facing each other!

Pagan centre

My left flank with Mixed Polk formations (50% archers) and xbow skirmishers, whom made their vanguard move

First phases

First two rounds pagans moved aggressively forward (my Rus not so eagerly) and skirmishers from both sides exchanged payloads of missiles. My first success with crossbows was to panic one of the enemy cavalry units!

On my right flank fire from Steppe Archers drove enemy skirmishers back and exposed their elite cavalry

Battle lines clashing

Scary pagans were now rapidly approaching my center in great numbers... and my battle line of Polk axemen wasn't even ready!

Junior Druzhina were maybe too eager to position themselves into a shooting position

Luckily I got my lines into order and won the initiative on the critical moment

and got charges in right and left: Snr. Druzhina charged the enemy elite cavalry in the extreme right, polk axemen in the middle and one of the mixed formations in the left, while another one drove the enemy skirmishers away and was now in a good outflank position.

Grinding melee

As is typical in this age and in Swordpoint battle lines then locked and started a grinding war of attrition... luckily I had a slight upper hand in momentum tokens due to more successful shooting and getting them charges in...

Advantage through momentum tokens and shieldwall gave me the

edge to break the first enemy unit in the left flank, huzzah! I didn't

even need to charge them into flank.

In the middle didn't look so rosy as my unarmoured axemen were rapidly dwindling under the pagan onslaught! Their great axes kept them in the fight as pagans didn't get any saves either.

Juniors caught up by the advancing infantry!

My Jnr. Druzhinas had moved to strengthen my battle line, but as my axemen were pushed

back, following up enemy caught up with Druzhinas. They obviously didn't stay there, but disengaged with skill and soon counter charged!

Trapped!

In the meanwhile my forces had completed the outflank and were now threatening enemy rear! Battle was anyhow decided by the Snr. Druzhinas, whom finally shattered the enemy elite cavalry in the extreme right. This brought them pagans to their army breaking point (9 breaking points)!

It was certainly in the nick of time as my axemen were now all but depleted!

Summary

when playing with 800-1000p. lists on a 6 X 4 feet table, there's very little chance to outflank with cavalry
whom typically ends up grinding with another elite cav and hence not even benefitting from their superior fighters status
Battle lines are very crucial, lone units are very vulnerable to breaking quite fast
Shieldwall is very strong