The Battle of Ucles 1108 Remote Requonquista

 I took part in another remote wargame last Thursday evening, again hosted by Jonathan Freitag of https://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com/. I am sure you will find a better after action report there in due course. I joined fellow Virtual Wargames Group members Doug Melville and Stephen Caddy for a recreation of the 12th century Battle of Ucles between the Almoravids and the Christians of Leon and Castile under King Alphonso VI. An outline of the real battle can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ucl%C3%A9s_(1108)

Stephen and I were the Christians and Doug the Almoravids. Would we do any better than the Spaniards managed in 1108? The short answer is….nope.

The Almoravid centre, composed of heavy cavalry, about faced and withdrew to ensure they were out of reach of our Christian men at arms. Both Muslim flanks advanced and engaged with our forces facing them while I threw caution to the wind and did what any God fearing Spanish man at arms would do and launched all five of my units straight at the enemy, led by myself as the king. This was quite a large battle but we skipped though it pretty smoothly.

A few photos now, taken off my computer monitor during the Zoom call. They give a fair idea of what went on.

To cut a long story short, our right crumbled, our left quivered and the centre, well the mounted elements at least, ran out of steam and were picked off and annihilated. The king died with his bodyguard as they were put to flight and it was all over in three hours of very enjoyable play. We used Basic Impetus again, which I am beginning to get the hang of and do quite like. Certainty with a master like Jonathan running the show we were always politely and firmly told what we could and couldn’t do.  A man of great patience indeed. 

I hope next time I am able to take part we might play an ECW game using Impetus Baroque. I have used them for my 1672 collection several years ago and seem to remember they gave me a headache but produced a really good game. 

Big thanks to Jon for hosting and herding us like cats, to my earstwhile compatriot Stephen and Doug the dastardly Moor.  Great fun. Now where are all my unpainted 3d printed Requonquista miniatures?

Remote Wargame in the Sumer(ian) time.

 

Yesterday evening I took part in a wargame hosted remotely by Jonathan Freitag of  https://palousewargamingjournal.blogspot.com/  along with three other members of the Virtual Wargames Group (set up using Zoom during Covid so numerous wargamers across the globe could catch up, chat, do show and tells and so forth). The group is still going strong and we ‘meet’ every Saturday at 16:30 BST for a chinwag. Jon has also taken to offering to run games remotely using Zoom, and I was fortunate enough to be invited to take part. Jon is in Spokane WA, I am on Teesside, and the other players were Stephen in E Yorkshire and Doug and Alan a bit north of Edinburgh or thereabouts.

The game this week was a battle between two Sumerian armies, using Basic Impetus on a hex cloth for ease of movement ent and reference. Once I was into the game the hexes were unobtrusive and certainly were a great help in keeping the game going. Even better for keeping it going was Jon, who as umpire applied his seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules in order to keep us on the straight and narrow. I’d never used Basic Impetus but have used Impetus Baroque (which worked well and provided an enjoyable game but gave me a headache).

Here a few photos I took off my monitor. Doug and I are at the bottom of the screen. Before anyone asks the cotton wool denotes a war cart in motion. Important as they take time to start and get up to full speed and to slow down and stop again. 

Doug and I faced Stephen and Alan. Very briefly, our side went storming forward. My sub-commander got stuck in and drove his mule-power war cart pedestrianaly fast through a couple of enemy units before coming a cropper when a flank attack against some enemy spearmen failed and he was destroyed. A similar fate lay in wait for Doug’s sub-commander, enough for our CinC to be heard to mutter that ‘there’s something wrong with our bloody battle carts today!’

It all got very messy and the fortunes of battle ebbed and flowed all evening with much cheerful sledging going on, until the enemy army gave way. We won, but I’m not totally sure how. Our dice rolling was probably not quite as bad as the enemy’s. This was a great game and a splendid way to spend a Tuesday evening ( or I guess morning for Jonathan?) and I look forward to the opportunity of taking part in another game soon. It may be even something I can take part in when I am next in India.

Again, a very big thanks to Jonathan for running the game. It was great!