Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Medieval Adventures => Topic started by: James Morris on August 01, 2021, 01:56:03 PM
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Yesterday I met up with old chums TWD and Scrivs for a large El Cid era battle, reuniting our 28mm collections of medieval Spanish. After getting over the hernia caused by lugging metal cavalry armies around (thank god for plastics nowadays) we settled down to fight a scenario based on the Battle of Graus, fought on 8th May 1063 between Zaragoza and Castile and one side and Aragon on the other. We tried out my own Midgard rules for this period and it worked pretty well, with the battle swinging from one side to the other and exciting single combats.
Here are some picture highlights - you can read a full battle report on the blog here: https://mogsymakes.net/2021/08/01/battle-of-graus-1063-ce-enter-el-cid/ (https://mogsymakes.net/2021/08/01/battle-of-graus-1063-ce-enter-el-cid/)
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Wonderful stuff James, Tom and Scrivs :-* :-* :-*
One of my favourite theatres of war circa 11CE 8)
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I really like the full battle report.
What is the difference between the: 1 household caballeros hidalgos (knights), 3 units of caballeros and 1 Andalusian heavy cavalry? Are they all heavy knights with the same stats?
Same as for Aragaon: 2 household knights – caballeros hidalgos and 4 caballeros? Are those all heavy knights with the same stats?
"Although all my Midgard games to date have been played with units on a 12cm frontage, we mostly had pre-existing 16cm movement trays for our El Cid collections (based for WAB), so we used bigger units than usual. Midgard is measured in ‘Spear Throws’ (the width of a base) so that meant we also increased our basic measurement to 16cm for the game."
So a unit for Midgar is a base of 12 cm wide and how deep? And how many figures per base?
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I really like the full battle report.
What is the difference between the: 1 household caballeros hidalgos (knights), 3 units of caballeros and 1 Andalusian heavy cavalry? Are they all heavy knights with the same stats?
Same as for Aragaon: 2 household knights – caballeros hidalgos and 4 caballeros? Are those all heavy knights with the same stats?
"Although all my Midgard games to date have been played with units on a 12cm frontage, we mostly had pre-existing 16cm movement trays for our El Cid collections (based for WAB), so we used bigger units than usual. Midgard is measured in ‘Spear Throws’ (the width of a base) so that meant we also increased our basic measurement to 16cm for the game."
So a unit for Midgar is a base of 12 cm wide and how deep? And how many figures per base?
Glad you enjoyed the report! To answer your questions...
The knights (caballeros) are fairly standard heavy-charging types with a shock cavalry bonus; the household knights (caballeros hidalgos) are the same but with a higher armour value - a minor difference, but one which saved Sancho's bacon on at least one occasion yesterday. I'm working on the theory that the kings/ princes would have had the best-armed followers across the army.
The Andalusian heavy cavalry were slightly less fighty than the knights, but had good armour, javelins, and the ability to evade charges as well as a higher move rate - so they could potentially fight the knights toe-to-toe, but are better off shooting off javelins to weaken them before charging.
Every unit in Midgard has the same frontage. Our standard games have involved 12cm frontages with warriors on 12 x 6 bases with 8-12 minis; skirmishers on 12 x 6 bases with 4-6 models; heavy riders on 12 x 10 bases with 6-8 models; and light riders on 12 x 10 bases with 4 models. As long as you can easily tell what's what, number of models on a unit base isn't critical. If you're interested in playtesting, stay in touch as I may be looking for some more playtesters soon.
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Superb looking game
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Lovely figures set off by wonderful terrain - inspirational
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Great looking game, James.
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Fantastic looking game. The blue on the figures is really eye popping.
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Another great looking game, James.
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What a lovely looking game / table. Really nice to see the bigger figures playing in this sort of space.
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Beautiful looking figures and table! Thanks for sharing!
Chris
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That looks great. This is such an interesting period to game.
Steve
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NICE! :-*
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Inspirational. Well done.
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Glad you enjoyed the report! To answer your questions...
The knights (caballeros) are fairly standard heavy-charging types with a shock cavalry bonus; the household knights (caballeros hidalgos) are the same but with a higher armour value - a minor difference, but one which saved Sancho's bacon on at least one occasion yesterday. I'm working on the theory that the kings/ princes would have had the best-armed followers across the army.
So the other knights could be i.e Caballeros Villanos or not?
Caballeros Hildagos are the best, than regular Caballeros and than Caballeros Villanos? Or couldn't Caballeros Villanos not be equiped with mail?
The Andalusian heavy cavalry were slightly less fighty than the knights, but had good armour, javelins, and the ability to evade charges as well as a higher move rate - so they could potentially fight the knights toe-to-toe, but are better off shooting off javelins to weaken them before charging.
So these could be exactly the same as regular Caballeros, mail and etc.., but could have the option to have javelins?
Every unit in Midgard has the same frontage. Our standard games have involved 12cm frontages with warriors on 12 x 6 bases with 8-12 minis; skirmishers on 12 x 6 bases with 4-6 models; heavy riders on 12 x 10 bases with 6-8 models; and light riders on 12 x 10 bases with 4 models. As long as you can easily tell what's what, number of models on a unit base isn't critical. If you're interested in playtesting, stay in touch as I may be looking for some more playtesters soon.
That's interesting. I am working on a army using only Caballero Miniatures, but as I am slow painter and easly distracted ;) it goes slowy and the fact that I am working on retinues for skirmish and also painting the same mini's for ranked bases makes it even slower. lol Although I am going to use your size requirements for bases. It lookz good :-D. But just to be certain it is 12x10cm?
About playtesting, while I would love it. I will probably manage to have a complete army when you are on version 2 of your ruleset. :D
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Nice as always!
The battle in the TV show El Cid lately on Amazon Prime was a absolute disapointment.
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Nice as always!
The battle in the TV show El Cid lately on Amazon Prime was a absolute disapointment.
Cheers!
Most TV/ film battles are disappointing, I think, especially if you know anything about the period (which is most wargamers). I enjoyed the spectacle of the armies and the wide views but, as ever, everyone just runs at each other yelling, people throw down their shields and grapple each other indiscriminately and there’s no real attempt to depict tactics because most viewers don’t care. But that doesn’t really stop me enjoying the fact that someone’s had a go at filming El Cid, flawed as it may be.
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Tonhel - brief answers to your questions to avoid quoting everything! :)
Caballeros, caballeros hidalgos and caballeros villanos are all various labels for knights that I used for game purposes in the El Cid WAB book. They’re not exact historical terms. From memory, the term caballeros villanos appears later on during the Reconquista from when the Christian kingdoms needed more knights to defend the conquered territories - social mobility produced by practical necessity, if you like. Therefore I felt that caballeros villanos could well be ‘nouveau riche’ and might not have all the equipment and training that you might associate with knights drawn from the established hidalgo noble families.
As regards basing, I would never recommend that you base figures especially for one rules system (especially if that system has some unusual conventions). You can play Midgard with any figures as long as they can fit on a movement tray (and yes, 120 x 100 mm is likely to stay as a standard cavalry unit, but that’s just a recommendation, not a rule). I would recommend that you base cavalry on 25x50mm pill/ oval/ rectangular bases as that’s pretty much standard for most systems and then just use movement trays for any unit games you wish to play.
Cheers!
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Aha, that explains it.
So you could see the Caballeros Villanos as German Ministerialis who were more or less none noble knights.
As I am still thinking about what ruleset to use and don't want individual bases per mini. I think 120 * 60mm for infantry and 120 * 100 mm would look great and could be used for MeG, as that ruleset looks also interesting. :)
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And a big thank you to everyone who has viewed the blog post and left positive comments here - it’s great to see the love for medieval Spain! It was a great pleasure to see the figures back in action. Will have to do some more soon. I’ve been looking at other battles from the period to game.
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it’s great to see the love for medieval Spain!
I can't see that ever dying out James - it's just such a colourful period and jam packed with different troop types and potential scenarios.
Kind of whish I hadn't dropped out of the Midgard playtesting now (but at the time it had to be done :) )
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And a big thank you to everyone who has viewed the blog post and left positive comments here - it’s great to see the love for medieval Spain! It was a great pleasure to see the figures back in action. Will have to do some more soon. I’ve been looking at other battles from the period to game.
Looking forward to it! I would love to see even more background about the army / units :D
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Looking forward to it! I would love to see even more background about the army / units :D
Do you have access to a copy of James' El Cid WAB supplement Tonhel?
There is a nice background section and some very well balanced army lists for the Almoravids, Almohads, Andalusians, Taifa Kingdoms and Christian Kingdoms in the book which make it a fabulous starting point.
Also, the WAB El Cid army lists transpose nicely into other rule systems.
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El Cid and Age oft Arthur are still my favourite supplements!
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El Cid and Age oft Arthur are still my favourite supplements!
You will find that you're not alone in thinking just that. It was telling and interesting that in the waning years of WAB, that the events that tended to be put on were Age of Arthur or El Cid. With the lists being so well balanced (our club SESWC took part in the extensive playtesting) both books just lend themselves to a campaign type event.
However, we're getting a bit OT (sorry James :) ) as the thread is concentrating on Midgard, a very promising set of rules :)
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Inspiring stuff James! I'd love to drag my El Cid models out again at some point soon.
I'm glad the WIP Midgard rules worked well with it too. It seems to be shaping up to be a great little rule set for a number of ancient/medieval and fantasy periods. I'd be very keen to have another bash at it in the not too distant future - Covid willing and all that...