Byzantines vs. Normans WAB Battle Report

Some time ago Conscript Greg told me he was planning a trip back to Winnipeg, and wanted to set up a game. "What would you like to play?" I asked. The answer was Warhammer Ancient Battles with Greg's Byzantines against my Normans. Wow, what a blast from the past! And a couple weeks ago Greg was here with his beautiful Byzantine army and we played a game of WAB - here is the report!

Greg proposed the battle of Montemaggiore, 1041 as the scenario. Basically this was a pitched battle between the Byzantines (led by their Catapan, Michael Dokeianos) and the Norman/Lombard rebels led by William "Iron Arm" d'Hauteville. The place of the battle was near Cannae, itself the site of not only Hannibal's victory over the Romans in antiquity, but also of a Byzantine victory over the Normans some 20 years earlier. The Normans had been mercenaries in the employ of the Byzantines and served their masters well, but the factions had fallen out over (what else) pay, and William et al decided that seeking their own destiny was preferable to serving under the penny-pinching Byzantines. So Dokeianos seeks to put the Normans in their place and re-establish the authority of his own boss, Emperor Michael IV (the Paphlagonian) over southern Italy, once and for all. 

Greg and I each created army lists of 2,350 points (nice round number eh?) - a sizeable battle by WAB standards, but Normans and Byzantine troops (especially Normans) can be crazy expensive - a Norman mounted knight is something like 35 points! Above you see some of the Byzantine host.

More Byzantines.

Some of their Norman opponents, seen from behind the Norman lines.

Very annoying Turkish horse archers in Byzantine employ. Hope they got paid in advance.

Byzantine heavy cavalry.

One of the Norman mounted milites (knights) units, screened by skirmishing archers. 

Opening moves, view from the Norman table edge... the Normans fielded three units of mounted milites center left, center, and in reserve at center), three of dismounted milites (two in the center and one at far right), a unit of skirmishing archers (at left) and one of skirmishing crossbowmen (barely visible at far right). 

A sturdy unit of mounted milites (containing William Iron Arm and his younger brother Drogo, the army standard bearer) stakes out its position, waiting for the other mounted unit in support to arrive. 

It faces off against the Byzantine heavy cav unit. Typical of the Byzantines, it incorporated a rear rank of archers that continually loosed off arrows. Super annoying.

The kataphractoi advance in support. Even scarier than the heavy cav, these guys rocked a 2+ save on their barded mounts, PLUS had archers in the rear rank!

Action shot here from behind the Byzantine line. Byzantine skirmishing javelinmen are about to get swept by the main unit of Norman mounted milites who crash into the heavy cav (center). After a (brief) moment of consideration, the second milites unit (led by Bishop Hugh of Eu) charges the Varangians to the left.

How wouldja like to see this coming at you! Norman milites are super-scary - good saving throw of 3+, lances give +2 S on the charge, and most terrifyingly of all, "Ferocious Charge" ensures that as long as they win the combat in which they charge, the enemy automatically fails their morale check and runs. And this includes counter-charges against enemy cav who charge the milites!

And that's what happened - main milites unit evaporated the Byzantine heavy cav, swept through and reforms to charge to their right. Second milites unit (led by Bishop Hugh) ran over the spearmen facing them, took two turns to blow up the Varangians (they were Stubborn so Ferocious Charge only works half the time) and swept on into the spear block behind.

Meanwhile over on the Norman right flank the axemen get stuck in.

Propaganda shot for "Byzantium Today" - this was about the only part of the battle that went right for Greg. His kataphractoi absolutely levelled a unit of dismounted milites spearmen but in doing so, took themselves out of the main fight... just as well for them, they could legitimately disavow all knowledge of the disaster unfolding behind them. 

And with that, we called the battle as a Norman victory - even though the axemen on the Norman right would likely be overcome by the large Byzantine spear units it faced, the Byzantine centre and right flank had largely evaporated. While the scary kataphractoi still were hanging around, they were only one unit and there were still three Norman knight units milling about in the Byzantine backfield.

This result certainly wasn't inconsistent with the historical one - although outnumbered by the Byzantines, the battle was a Norman win, attributed largely to the fighting prowess of their heavy cavalry. In WAB, these mounted milites are indeed game-breakers - 3+ save, +2S on the charge with their lances, and most importantly, Ferocious Charge. They are a point-and-shoot weapon though - while they're likely to take out whatever they hit, it'll take them awhile to get themselves oriented for another assault. Of course it's best if you can wipe out the first target and sweep forward into their supporting unit, as happened both at the real Montemaggiore battle, and on our tabletop.

I'm thankful to Greg both for proposing the WAB game and for bringing his beautiful Byzantine army all the way to Winnipeg. The game looked fantastic and was super-fun to play; WAB (and its inspiration, Warhammer Fantasy Battle) were long-time favourites of our group and it was great to get back to some square-based wargaming. Hope we can do it again soon!