Band of Wargame Brothers: Siege of Acre

Siege of Acre

Our usual Christmas stoush brought together all the combined Norman/Crusader knights and foot sloggers that we could lay our hands on (Ralph's , Ross' and Richard's) to fight every Turkish spahi and Arab fellahin ( mine, Ross' and Nick's) that just happened to be lying around. There were six of us on the day and we were aiming to recreate the attempted relief of Acre by the armies of Saladin in 1191. Ralph took the command of the forces of Outremer as Guy de Lusignan, holding the right flank. Richard commanded the forces of Conrad de Montferrat in the center. Phil commanded the Holy Orders and other assorted knightly rabble on the left. Opposite him, commanding the Muslim right wing Nick led the hordes of Taqi al Din. The center was held by Ross who played the great man (Saladin) himself and I was given the Muslim left wing commanding the Egyptian troops of Asad ed-Din Shirkuh!
The Battle was a long drawn out affair with the Muslim forces launching initial attacks on the flanks but staying clear of the Christian center which had a lot of crossbows! On the Muslim right Taqi ed Din’s forces (Nick) substantially outnumbered those of the Grand Master of the Templars (Phil) who put up some stiff resistance. On the Muslim left the quick attack of the Egyptian Mamluks of Shirkuh(me) came to a grinding halt when they collided with Guy’s (Ralph) household troops. As the battle of attack and counter attack swirled on the flanks, wide ranging Muslim light cavalry began to harass the extreme end of the Christian line and then Saladin sent forward the main Muslim body in the center.
Under Armati each side has 'Key Units' and when a certain number of those are broken/destroyed then that side is defeated. The game went for the best part of 6 hours. There were over 500 cavalry and 260 infantry. It was a lot of fun and the game went down to the wire leaving Saladin the victor by a very narrow margin. However, our esteemed umpire and designer of the scenario decreed that due to the massive losses suffered by Saladin's forces, the Muslim forceas were unable to break Guy's grip on the city! In other words...it was an historical result! Nice one lads!

OVERVIEW OF THE BATTLE FIELD