Robert 'Guiscard' Hauteville takes the field against the Byzantines....

 In his first action to begin carving out his new fiefdom, in imitation of William 'Iron Arm', Robert 'Guiscard' sent his rampaging Normans to the south and got into a big fist fight with the armies of the Roman Emperor...the EASTERN Roman Empire.....or the Byzantines if you prefer.

The first line of the Guiscard's force.....lots of Norman cavalry..hard charging, hard fighting lunatics!!

The opposing byzantine left flank.

THE DEPLOYMENT

THE PLANS: Orange was the main Norman thrust- Blue was the Byzantine movement.

Byzantine right wing.

The Byzantine infantry

Normans

Crossbows firing.

View from the Norman line.

Norman center.....the cavalry right wing just visible and the infantry left resting on the wood.

Turn two....both armies moving forward on their right flanks...holding back on the left.
Normans on the left, Eastern Romans on the right...although the main western chroniclers of the time called them 'Greeks'.

Norman sub general on the left waving his troops on.

Two of my heavy cavalry chasing those Byzantine light cavalry....no I didn't catch them....and I wasted 20% of my cavalry on this flank trying to get them!!

This shows Robert- at the center of his charging Normans...hitting the Byzantines everywhere.

Lombard cavalry - allied to the Normans hitting some Byzantine super heavies.

Normans vs Tagmatics!

The melees, the charges, the countercharges, the pursuits.......the casualties..

Can anyone see what is wrong with this picture....?......One guess....alright....a second guess then.....besides Robert...there are no Normans....some big gaps in the Byzantine line.....but the Norman line doesn't exist.

The Normans doing a bit better with their infantry.

Robert Guiscard....on the Norman right flank.....alone....his men dead or fleeing....he was not happy......neither was I.

In the end, despite some initial success, The Normans found themselves pulverised. Robert's cavalry on the Norman right were destroyed. It was heavy casualties for the Byzantines, but most of their units survived- despite being very depleted. But they held on long enough to defeat Robert.......who was forced to retreat...rebuild.....and will be attacking again.