Robert 'Guiscard' Hauteville defies the balance of probability........and William 'Iron-Arm' Hauteville fights the battle of his life.

 We are at this point in our Normans in Italy campaign:

1)  The Pope is about to attack William 'Iron-Arm'
and
2) Robert 'Guiscard' has landed safely in Sicily. 

So in our campaign Year 1048 Anno Domini Pope Leo IX raised an army of Lombards, Byzantines, Italians and Swabians and went south to rid the Italian Peninsular of the Norman menace: primarily William 'Iron-Arm'!!
(Historically this happened in 1053 and the battle was fought at Civitate....our campaign is running ahead of the historical version!)

But before we could sort out the Pope and his campaign, our first engagement was Robert's invasion of Sicily and his attack on the Ahlgalabid Muslims.

William "Iron-Arm" at it again, causing trouble in southern Italy.

Our campaign was back on!
In the next move, after successfully conquering the Duchy of Amalfi ( in the colour Burgundy below) William launched his reinforced and rested army against the Duchy of Benevento (white). The Lombard Duke of Benevento was having none of it and a battle was fought in the province of Benevento. 

Lombards on the left - Norman freebooters on the right.

Robert 'Guiscard' Hauteville takes on the Byzantines ...again....

 In the next phase of our Normans in Italy campaign,  Robert 'Guiscard'  decided to hit the Byzantines again after his disastrous defeat. He regathered his forces, called on reinforcements from Norman freebooters from Normandy and went after the Byzantine province of Rossano again. Another defeat could see him facing serious trouble - ( 3 defeats in a row and I'm out of the game).

Robert's Norman psychopaths.

William 'Iron Arm' is the Green pins. Robert is the yellow pin.

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.

William "Iron Arm" strikes again.

 Well William did it again......got his butt kicked ...but managed to pull the fat out of the fire...

In his second move he launched his army deeper into Lombard territory (Duchy of Capua) to fight a 'step 2' battle. In this case, after defeating the main Lombard army in a (step 1) encounter battle between 'equal forces' he advanced and had to fight a Lombard army in a defensive position.

The defending Lombards. The Lombards anchored their flanks on two large woods and had a row of hills in front of their position. A solid defensive spot that was going to be a tough nut for William's army to crack.

The Norman line. On the far left all the cavalry.
In this battle William had a lot less cavalry. He dismounted much of it as he needed the extra 'punch' to smash the Lombard defensive line.

Normans in Italy - Move 1 - William 'Iron Arm' Hauteville

 Game 1 has been played! 

Ross has taken on the role of William Iron Arm and has launched his first attack on the Duchy of Capua - attacking the province of Amalfi. 

The Lombard defenders ( played by yours truly) were waiting. 

As a 'Step One' the battle is an encounter battle with 'equal' points forces. 
William weighted his cavalry on one flank- the sight of 8 units of Normans on one flank was intimidating!
Naturally they came forward in an attempt to swamp my right......

The Lombard center- spearman and archers holding a hill

This was one of the toughest and closest fought games I have played in years.  By turn three it looked like it was going to go one way.....but the game finished on a very surprising set of die rolls!!

Normans in Italy

 After our last Norman vs Norman punch up I was reading the book by John Julius Norwich about that other Norman conquest; the conquest of southern Italy in the 11th Century.  Ross and I both had Norman armies, I have the core of a Lombard force, he has Byzantines and we both have Arabs that can easily be used as the emirates of Sicily at the time.

I came across a website dedicated to DBA campaigns and borrowed the map (with a few small changes) and realised that all these things had the making of a great little campaign. Rather than have every 'side' represented, our campaign was to focus on both regular players being Normans competing to conquer areas. They don't fight each other, but various opponents in an attempt to conquer 'the fastest with the mostest'. This way it can be run as a two player campaign, but able to accommodate other players who can pop in to play the Normans' opponents.