First Crusade Game

I played a First Crusade game this evening with an Early Crusader army ranged
against a Seljuk Turk force blocking the progress of the Christians to Antioch.

The Commander of the Crusaders, Lord Tancred had at his disposal a hardened
force of three mounted and two dismounted knight units supported by a couple of
units of solid infantry, sporting some crossbows aswell as spears and a massed
rabble of pilgrims.

The Seljuk Caliph had a far more mobile force of Cavalry and Turkoman Light
Cavalry with a couple of heavy archers. Loads of missiles.

The tactics seemed clear but got a bit blurred as the Seljuk Caliph decided to
press forward a bit too much and allowed the Crusaders to engage with their
shock troops. This is exactly what the Christians wanted. All their units were
heavily armoured and with elite status and for the mounted additional first
round impetus, really started to carve up the Muslim forces.

With the collapse of the Caliphs heavy cavalry and elite troops and the mowing
down of the remaining archers the game was up. The Crusaders in contrast were
largely intact having only lost one unit surrounded by Turkomans. This, however,
was a risky tactic for the Muslim general to allow their fast and mobile horse
archers to be lured into close combat.

Overall a convincing display of the power of the Crusader lineup. It proved to
be a bit one-sided as the Crusaders had some remarkable dice rolls while the
Muslims were only favourable in the use of activation dice - I took the idea of
2D4 rolls to activate units for movement at the start of the turn. It generated
some interesting initial moves and choices over which unit to activate.

Next on the list of to do's is the Great Northern War - I still haven't tested
my Ga Pa rules yet.