Cid Stuff

 

As I write it is very hot also I have been very busy. Not an ideal combination.  All the same I have finally found time for some Cid Stuff. Thinking about and writing up In The Days of the Cid. 

The key concepts are there. Fearsome charges, storms of arrows and dashing Jinete. The steady advance of the Berber spearmen. Basque javelin men skipping from vantage to vantage. Last stands by Nubians or Crusaders. Evocative.

Above Caballeros Hidalgos, look at that little pennon. Below, Christian Jinete. From Donnington New Era. I continue to warm to the brand of the broken hand. I only broke one figure this time.

In my Spanish Civil War Game I first introduced the key concepts here on this blog. As much for my own clarity as to interest others. I'm minded to do the same again.  

Let's start with Command. In the Days of The Cid the top dog commanding is you, the Player. The General.

Below the General are the Counts and Emirs and Mercenary Captains whose contingents form the Host. Like the General, the Mercenary Captains are exempt from the following table. They have been paid to do a job. Not so the Counts and Emirs.

Players throw a D6 for each Count or Emir and consult the table below for their Unique Quality and Epithet.

Dice Score	Quality
1.	The Cruel	If wounded or killed his contingent will immediately withdraw from combat without him.
2.	The Cunning	May successfully order his contingent to evade without testing.
3.	The Generous	May not be killed by a Mercenary unit regardless of combat result.
4.	The Valorous	May successfully order his contingent to charge without testing.
5.	The Pious	May excuse the first unit of his contingent required to test morale.
6.	The unbeaten	May double his personal combat dice if personally engaged.

Obviously, this approach requires some individual figures to personate the Counts and Emirs. 

Likewise there are some other special figures, famous banners, drums of war. 

You can see a selection above, Essex, Minifigs and Donnington Old Era.

A bit of Minifigs nostalgia here. Murabit Cavalry. I thought I had more of these and some Minifig Negro Cavalry too. Seemingly not. I wouldn't mind some of the latter.

You might recall recently seeing some exceptionally well painted Minifigs Late Romans of the same vintage. The result was splendid. Really first class. Anyhow, it inspired me to take my time with Minifigs in order to get the best result. I have a fair few more.

My unarmoured Basque cavalry have been redesignated as Caballeros Villanos. I had based them 3 to a 40mm frontage base. I was going to use the old spread them out technique to convince that they were skirmishers. It didn't work for me.

Instead we are going to have lots of these fellows on single figure bases sweeping in and out of the action. Above some Christian Jinete have caught some Moorish javelin men in the open. 

The plus side? I now have two units of Caballeros Villanos.

In The Days of The Cid is a Card powered game. Some units react to their own card being turned. Others need an order from their Count or Emir.  Each of those can usually get their contingent to move as a group. It gets trickier when individual units need special attention. Or start running away.

There is something else too. Some cards favour a specific side. If the opposing player turns such a card he may remove it from play. Denying his foe advantage. This is new to me. Will it go as far as Card Trading? Maybe.

Foot Skirmishers I’m doing 3 to a rounded edge base like these Africans above. From Donnington New Era. 

I did wonder about making the Andalusian crossbow men skirmishers. It is a nice idea with good gaming potential. I decided against it. 

Instead I envisage blocks of Andalusian Crossbow men relying on the penetrative power of their weapons to keep the enemy away. They had not been a great success as spearmen. Perhaps the crossbow would suit them better.

At this stage of the project I will also be doing some Basque and Berber Skirmishers, javelin men both.  More Cid Stuff as it comes.

Andalusian Warriors and Soldiers-El Cid

 

Today let’s consider the Andalusians. Those with more subject knowledge than I conclude the following. Above Slav Mercenaries.

The Andalusian nobility were well motivated and skilled warriors. Very well mounted and compared to Christian Hidalgo more lightly protected. More your swift javelin throwers who can hit and evade. Actually, many Hidalgos fought just like that. What gave them the edge and all agree they had it, was the Christian fondness for a decisive charge.

From this we might conclude that against Jinete of any kind the Andalusian nobles have a good chance of winning.

They might also ride down skirmishers or do something fast and clever to overrun missile men, formed or not.

Steady close formed foot could be reduced with missilery rather than immediately charged head on.

Unless numbers dictated otherwise Andalusian nobles shouldn’t expect too much if they met a Spanish cavalry charge head on.

This all makes sense to me. The lessons are easily absorbed.  Things to do, things to avoid.

Likewise, Andalusian Jinete are good light cavalry. Meeting their Christian or Berber equivalents on level terms. Form dictates function. Or, is function dictates form? Either way we are talking about good light cavalry.

Things take a turn for the worst when we consider the infantry of Al Andalus.  The skirmishers were not the best but they could and would skirmish. It was the close order infantry that everyone thought was markedly inferior. Their only edge was sartorial it seems. Man for man they seem to have been wealthier than their foes. Below Berber Warriors.

I don’t know why this disparity should have been so marked. It may be that the mounted element of the Andalusian Armies was descended from the professional soldiers of the original conquering Arab Army. Perhaps the infantry were comprised of the descendants those who arrived later or had converted for better conditions. I have a couple of books coming that may shed some light.

Whatever the cause, attempts were made to effect redress. The easiest was to employ steady mercenaries-expensive. The other was to adopt the crossbow. The Andalusians did both.

There was sound reasoning for the Papal Ban on the crossbow. It could kill better skilled and protected warriors from a relatively safe distance. In terms of the order of society promoted by Frankish Christianity the crossbow was a serious threat to the establishment. That was a world where Nobles Fought, Clerics Prayed and everyone else worked. Where would that World be if the peasants could kill the nobles before the nobles killed the peasants?

I’m going to give my Andalusians two crossbow units. They won’t have high morale but they will shoot hard.

The mercenaries could be Christian warriors, or Berbers or the Soldiers of the defunct Caliphate of Cordoba. The latter could be Slavs or Sub Saharan Africans who had been enlisted on the Mamluk model. All of the forgoing were capable fighters. Importantly, Christian knights could be and were hired to deliver the missing deadly charge.

Above, you see my Andalusians and their mercenaries so far.

More El Cid

 

Having returned to the Reconquista I find myself on a roll. Much had been done before the abandonment. Little was needed to complete new units.  There are re-enforcements for every faction.

Here are some Andalusian javelin men. Skirmishers or a second rank behind the spearmen.

Berbers from Donnington New Era and the very old Originals.

 

The new above, the old below. Berbers could be found on all sides.

 

The Andalusians get two new units of horse archers.

 

All from Forged in Battle.

 

As are these heavy cavalry.

These Andalusian slingers too.

Now to the Christians. 

 

They get some heavy cavalry. The elite of the Christian armies. Donnington New Era figures. The ones top of the page are Minifigs.  

Like the Berbers Christian soldiers fought for Andalusian and Berber armies. The Andalusians likewise for Christians and Berbers.

 

More Christian Jinetes. 

Some Basque javelin men from Minifigs.

Old Glory archers, perhaps Goths or some such. I think they will do for Spain.

In terms of rules I intend to co-opt Dan Mersey's Clerics and Heroes concept. 

El Cid Again

I had the beginnings of a Moorish Spain Project here a few years ago.  The tag was Tell Cid. Passible witty, if you got the reference. Perhaps puzzling otherwise. It stalled, the project that is.

Anyhow, now it is back courtesy of a War Hammer publication -El Cid. It is years old and I bought it from a lad in Germany. The El Cid book is great for inspiration and I’m pleased with it. Nice to get it from Germany and in a timely fashion too. Last week I got Brent Oman's Ancient and Medieval Battle Command from the USA. I also got Harman Murtagh's The Irish Jacobite Army. They arrived in the same post.

One of the many things I enjoy about the hobby is its international aspect. There was an international trade network in the Bronze Age too. Until the Collapse.

So where are we? I thought I should do a Billhooks/Lion Rampant size force for each of the contenders. A protracted rummage through the Lead Pile and its sibling the Box of Forgotten Projects produced the following:

The Black Guard of Yusuf Ibn Tashfin. These fellows will get a second unit and some archers. Donnington New Era figures, you have to drill the hands which sometimes works.

Christian Town Militia. A couple of Museum figures and the rest from Essex via Colonel Bill's. Note the flag of St. Pelagius.  There were two St. Pelagius, this one's the scholar. I like the simplicity of this unit.

Basque light cavalry from Baueda. I have a few of these and they aren't bad at all. Not very lively though.

Andalusian Cavalry from Donnington New Era. Nice enough, paw drilling necessary.

Berber cavalry with a jolly Berber flag. Also from the brand of the broken hand.  I like these.

Mercenary Caballeros from Baueda. Part of a job lot and sold as Sicilian Normans. I think they work for Spain. One can take a flag, I have yet to locate one.

Mercenary Crossbows from Museum. Much to like I think.

Andalusian Town Militia from Forged in Battle. Arabs, should you want some.  Forged in Battle are good. I have lots of their Arabs. I intend to add green stuff tassels to the larger shields suiting them for Spain.

That's it so far but the project is securely re-launched.

I'll put the next batch up when they are done. Handily, most units could fight on either side.

Berbers for Billhooks

 

There are of course Berbers and Berbers.  I’m thinking of Berbers in Spain.  Of course, Berbers are and were Berber, with Berber military traditions.  A quick look at Moorish and Numidian forces in ancient days shows the roots of that tradition.  Broadly speaking I’m going to end up with a list of units rather than a specific army list.   

 

This is my thinking so far.

When the ground was right, restrictive to cavalry and close formation troops, massed Berber skirmishers could attack in waves hurling javelins at close range.  On one such occasion they lured veteran Arab cavalry into dismounting to pursue them into difficult ground.  The Berbers then attacked destroying the Arab force.

 

On open ground other tactics were required and found. These revolved around the veiled spear men you see above.

Some tribes enjoyed a better military reputation than others.  Unfair?  Maybe.  It does allow us to vary the rating of units.  For example, we might have:

 

Veteran Berber spear men or Levy Berber spear men.  The veterans might be Retinue in Billhooks terms.   

Berber spear men might also be in a block with a second rank of archers.  The archers might be levy or might not.  A third rank of cavalry stood behind the archers.  Importantly, the cavalry could advance directly through both lines of infantry when the time came for a counter attack.

Sub Saharan troops loom large in Berber Armies.   

They might be mercenaries and so retinue.  Or, military slaves and so possibly not.   

They could be spear men or archers or a highly rated Black Guard unit. I've just ordered a unit of the latter because...El Cid.

 

Berber skirmishers were very good.  Fortunately, Billhooks already provides for such fellows.  I’ll use the Kern stat’s. Often such Berber infantry formed a second line behind the spear men and threw javelins over their heads.  The spear men leveled their spears, butts firmly grounded and knelt behind their shields to facilitate that.  This means we should allow our Berber skirmishers to form up to carry out that function.

That leads us nicely to Berber tactics in set piece battle.  The light cavalry deployed on the wings or in front of the army.  The light infantry was on the flanks.  The centre was formed of spear men with supporting archers or javelin throwers.  Behind this more cavalry waited.

The idea was to absorb the enemy charge and counter charge when they were disordered.  On occasion this was combined with a flank attack.

If you are interested in the Crusades, you might now be thinking “Just like the Fatimid’s battle tactics.” A moment later you might add "and Frankish tactics in Outremer".

This raises the interesting question were all Berber cavalry light skirmishers?  I don’t know the answer.  I can say that Berber cavalry in Fatimid armies did not skirmish but fought hand to hand.

Here is another thing, Berber armies could manoeuvre in response to drum signals. I think that calls for a special card.  My take is simple, the card will allow the whole army to advance or retire a single move.  It can be played once in a game.

That’s it so far.  More soon.