A look at Field of Glory II: Medieval - The Battle of Crug Mawr
Like Six Nations Rugby, but with more stabbing.
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Been a while, and I apologise. I've been itching to post an AAR of something, anything, but I've been going a mile a minute. It's pupillage application season in the UK (and likewise articling application time in Canada and the US). It's the key step in the long, pagan-ritual that is becoming a Barrister in England & Wales. It's a time that often means one long, unbroken string of sorrow, stress, rejection and liver damage for aspiring lawyers. Huzzah! Enough about my life, though - let's get into some much needed escapism. Since I've discussed how to become a lawyer in England & Wales, let's cover a time in these two country's histories where disputes were settled with a bit more pepper.
FOG II Medieval released earlier this year in February, a bit surprisingly as a completely separate game, but it has been great and if you are a fan of FOG II, Pike and Shot, et cetera this will be well worth the investment. As usual with Byzantine Games, the developers have shown themselves to be interested and involved in the continuing development of the game right away. They have already announced the first DLC, which has recently concluded beta testing. They have also thrown red meat to the pack of baying hounds that are their fanbase by allowing for ancient and early medieval armies to clash. So, in short, pretty great stuff.
The game will generally be pick up and play for veterans of any of Byzantine Games' titles, as the rule sets again remain largely the same. However, the nature of the fighting has changed somewhat, as it did historically*, to really favour Western European mounted troops. We already began to see this somewhat with the final DLC of the previous game, but here it becomes very obvious, very quickly: do not let the Knights touch you. Anecdotally, I've noticed a bit of a difficulty increase and have had to dial myself down to the dev-recommended difficulty level of III.
As usual, the game comes packaged with several historical battles, playable from either side. I decided to fire 'er up and play the Battle of Crug Mawr from the Anglo-Norman side. Historically, they lost to the Welsh. Asides from that, we don't actually know anything about the battle. That's typical for a lot of of the historical battles and the game uses its artistic licence well in every single one.
Crug Mawr is particularly interesting because it demonstrates this change in the zeitgeist of the game quite well. This scenario pits the Welsh, who have very good, if lightly protected, offensive infantry against the Anglo-Normans, whose only real offensive troops are knights, mounted or otherwise.
Deployment and Plan
We have taken up positions on the slopes of Crug Mawr, a giant, barrow-like hill. The Norman centre is held by armoured Flemish mercenaries. The flanks are held by feudal foot and levies of decidedly mixed quality. The powerful Norman knights, mounted with their sergeants (e.g.: servants, valets, etc) form the reserve.
The Welsh are formed in two lines, with their longbowmen and skirmishers in the first rank and spearmen in the second. Cavalry screen the flanks of that second line.
As usual for historic scenarios, I have a limited control over how I wish to deploy. FOG II gives you a pool of points, which varies with difficulty levels, to purchase pre-placed units. I put most of them into shoring up my infantry on the left flank and cavalry on the right.
So, what's the plan? The Welsh have a fairly decisive infantry and ranged advantage, but their Cavalry and indeed infantry are no match for my mounted knights if I can keep the numbers relatively even. More on this in a moment.
I'm expecting a fairly conventional advance from the AI on a broad front, behind a shower of arrows and javelins. I'm hoping to save my infantry some suffering at the cost of my paltry skirmishers, while drawing them in to the congested ground on my left. One unit of mounted knights, if supported by the skirmishers, should be more than enough to deal with their own cavalry and infantry on the left. On the right I have every intention in going on the attack immediately, slipping into the open ground to defeat their cavalry. With that done, I can better threaten the flank of any strong infantry push. In the centre? Well, I'm going to just have to pucker and hope to hold, with a strong reserve of 4 Knights in ultimate reserve as a final insurance policy.
In short: I may be on the defensive initially but I hope to go over to the attack as soon as practicable.
A brief look at the armies
The Welsh and Scots have, in my view, some of the most versatile unit rosters in the game presently. They have solid, offensive infantry, good ranged capabilities and middling cavalry. The Scots are a bit better off than the Welsh in everything save the ranged category, and later benefit from proper knightly lancers. There's an interesting asymmetry between the factions in this battle that I think warrants some exploration.
Crug Mawr happens in 1136 and was suspected to be one of the earliest combat uses of the Longbow, and fittingly the Welsh have them, both en masse and in skirmisher formation. Longbows for the purposes of the game bridge the gap between regular archers and crossbows. They have above average armour ignoring stats and get more 'effective' shots per turn than crossbows to signify a faster rate of fire. Unlike the later longbowmen of the 14th and 15th centuries, however, they remain utterly useless in a melee.
That's offset somewhat by the fact that all my infantry are 'defensive spearmen' - meaning they get no 'points of advantage' on a charge. That means even longbowmen have about a 50/50 chance (further modified up or down based on other stats, such as relative armour, experience levels, etc) in this case of repelling any opportunistic charges. If we can get past that initial charge, however, they should get shredded in a prolonged melee with my spearmen. Deploying the massed archers in the skirmishing line is a potential mistake I could exploit to get my Flemish infantry out of bowshot and into a relatively safe melee.
The Welsh spearmen are deployed in a phalanx-like formation. They're offensive infantry and in addition to getting a flat points of advantage bonus from that fact alone, they are a plus-sized unit, three ranks deep. That gives them a 'deep' advantage that reflects their ability to use their mass to push forward. At least, that is, until they sustain too many casualties to maintain that third rank. They have two key weaknesses: they're only classified as 'medium' infantry and are only lightly protected. They will get basically no armour points of advantage, even against my levy foot, and are a lot more likely to lose cohesion if something goes wrong in their own unit, or if a neighbouring unit breaks. It's all very nuanced and can appear daunting to neophyte players.
What it means ultimately is that, for me to win an offensive victory, I'm going to have to absorb the enemy's first attack and get my cavalry into the fight. Classic hammer and anvil tactics, really. My Knights are by far and away the best unit on the field and the Welsh cavalry are, by contrast, almost a non-factor.
Rapidly defeating their flank security with my own horsemen will allow me to turn about and smash their flanks. In theory. There's a caveat to all this: Knights are basically an ill-disciplined bunch of blood-soaked-maniacs. They are very hard to reign in from a pursuit once they break a unit, and so dogpiling a fraying enemy unit with multiple units of my own knights, simply to hasten a breakthrough, may be counterintuitive. It can leave me holding a bag as half my knights chase refugees to the edges of the map. Very tight control of when to commit them to a charge will be needed. Luckily, if their wild chevauchee puts them into contact with a new enemy unit, they're likely to shift their attentions to that one. There's a lot of scope to create a disastrous chain of charges if I play my cards right.
I would love to go into more detail about how 'points of advantage' work in Field of Glory II but that would likely warrant an entirely separate post.
Initial Moves
The first thing to do is to shuffle my cavalry reserves to make sure they are placed more centrally, on high ground and directly behind the Flemish spearmen.
Likewise, several units of Knights are moved to the flat ground on the right, arraying them across from the Welsh cavalry. As expected, the AI just advance generally.
Equally as expected, the Welsh skirmishers make their presence immediately felt - my own skirmishers hold out for a few turns and generally spare my main line infantry from the absolute deluge of longbow volleys.
On my left, the Welsh cavalry begin to outpace the rest of their advance. This allows me to, as desired, begin harassing their lightly protected horsemen with skirmishers and pave the way for the single knight unit there to lay into them.
Lastly, as the Welsh right closes up on my left, I bring all my feudal infantry up to the crest of the hill to give them that sweet, sweet, uphill advantage when the melee begins.
So far, everything has gone more or less as I expected.
The Cavalry Actions
Let's turn our attention to the flanks, where we get to grips with the enemy first. On the left, the lightly armoured Welsh lancers, bereft even of shields, let alone hauberks, are disrupted by my archer fire. This sets them up splendidly for a charge by the single unit of Knights on that flank, with predictable results.
A Rain of Arrows and initial infantry engagements
Things aren't so hot in the centre. My own skirmishers have been driven back in some disarray and the Welsh longbowmen and javelin men waste no time in lighting up the Flemish mercenaries. Casualties mount and one of the units is disrupted.
Things get even worse when a unit of Welsh Longbowmen attempts to crest the hill and, thinking they've made a mistake, I launch a cheeky counterattack with some levy infantry. The odds were generally in favour of a draw but the charge is received splendidly and my unit immediately fragments. Joy. At this point in the battle I'm desperately ripping through the drawers in my desk, looking for some paracetamol for the throbbing headache I anticipate the Welsh infantry are about to cause me.
The neighbouring unit of levies has better luck, however, and their chances at winning the melee against the Longbowmen is very good. It's probably the best use of these raw spearmen as I can make. More importantly, they can't be shot up once engaged in a melee.
I'm already worried about this part of my line and judiciously move forward two reserve units of Knights to a position where they can contain or counterattack any breakthrough which may happen.
Luckily, I have a good turn: yes the fragmented levies break, but on the right flank my Knights draw off a unit of Welsh spearmen, who are promptly disrupted when they see their own cavalry break ranks and flee.
Things go wrong, things go right.
Or perhaps, things continue to go wrong and right. On my left, the Welsh skirmishers pepper my infantry, disrupting them. Repeated charges by the Welsh cavalry in front of them causes two units to fragment. My entire left is now on the verge of collapsing. The remaining two units of Knights which were in reserve are placed closer to that flank to shore it up. I'm not a fan of reinforcing failure but I see no other option.
The right continues to present a rosy picture. My cavalry have cleanly broken through on the right and I hope to reign them in from their pursuit soon and turn them about to menace the enemy's rear. The infantry on the extreme right of the line have received two charges from the Welsh spearmen and have managed to so severely disrupt one that it dropped straight to fragmented (recall the problem of medium infantry being prone to this).
The two spare units of Knights that didn't extend outwards are now being fed around the Welsh left flank, so I'm reinforcing success for a change on this flank. Its basically a race, at this point, for who's left flank will collapse first. Whoever wins that race, wins the battle in all likelihood. I also start to push back with my infantry, here. While they lack any real offensive bonuses, even a raw spear unit can push downhill against a disrupted or fragmented unit.
The Welsh for their part have continued to push into the centre of my line and while the situation seems stable, the 'weak link' in the chain (a Flemish unit which received much attention from the longbows) is likely to break.
However, in one fell swoop, the entire left flank of the Welsh line gives away in a headlong rout, so at this point I'm putting the paracetamol away and thinking everything is gravy.
Disaster strikes?
The Welsh immediately return the favour in the centre and on my left, as a chain reaction leads to headlong retreats of my spearmen on both those flanks. Oh shit.
Two units of Flemish spearmen give way, worse than I expected, leaving a gaping hole between the centre of my line and my right flank. Even worse, my extreme left has also given way, the raw levies running scared. I put my generals into the retreating units to try to rally them, a risky move, but I need to create some breathing space in the 'percentage of routed units' if I want to win.
The situation at this point:
Finishing off
In actuality, while the breakthroughs were frustrating, they were not really a problem - I had managed to keep enough knights in reserve to deal with them. The melee in the centre, thanks to the uphill advantage and units on the right turning into hammer the flank, was also starting to swing my way. Time to attack on all fronts!
Pushing a feudal levy off the hill to cover the cavalry, the knights are thrown in to roll up the flanks of the pinned Welsh spearmen.
These pinned Welsh units break in quick succession as the Knights chain a series of devastating charges into their flank. Any hope the AI would have had of making something of the breakthrough on my extreme left flank is dashed by a counter charge of my final reserves.
The situation had begun to reverse itself in any event, as my routing units start rallying thanks to the intervention of my generals. These rallies tip me over the edge for difference in routed units to win the battle! So here's the end of the situation when victory was achieved:
I was poised, and in the process, of swinging in a giant right hook to roll up the remaining Welsh units on my left. By the end of the battle, the Welsh spearmen were forming squares to prevent themselves from being flanked charged (a feature I did not realise, until playing this battle, that they had).
All in all, a satisfying and challenging little scenario even with the massive advantage provided by Knights. Thanks for reading.
*I know this is a loaded statement and a generalisation with many, many caveats and evidence to the contrary. For the amateur Medieval historians that may be reading this, don't hurt me.
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