Well, tonight Dave T's Fatimids met my Early Crusaders in another entertaining near-historical match-up my army was from 1097, Dave's from 1101).

My army was roughly as follows:

Command 1 - General, 6 Irr Kn (F), 18 Irr Sp (I), 7 Irr Bw (I), 2 Irr Ps (O), 2 Irr Bg (O) behind TF;

Command 2 - Ally, 4 Irr Kn (F), 12 Irr Sp (I), 3 Irr Bw (I), 1 Irr Ps (O), 2 Irr Bg (I);

Command 3 - Ally, 2 Irr Kn (F), 6 Irr Sp (I), 2 Irr Bw (I), 1 Irr Ps (O), 2 Irr Bg (I);

Command 4 - Byzantine Ally, 5 Reg LH (S).

Delay Battle

Exaggerating Numbers

Scouts

I was the invader, choosing to invade in summer, and selecting the first two stratagems.

I selected a couple of patches of Rough Flat, while Dave selected 2 Dunes and a Built Up Area. The dunes went down on each of Dave's flanks, while the scrubby ground roughly covered my flanks. Dave placed the BUA on his left flank behind the dune.

I decided to send the two Crusader ally commands flank marching, Command 2 on the left and Command 3 on the right, relying on the Delay Battle stratagem to greatly increase their chance of arrival. On board, I put the Byzantines on the left and the C-in-C on the right.

The deployment dice determined that the weather effect was Thirst, with a start time of 0700. Not a problem for Dave, given he had the BUA near his base edge. And not a problem for me, you might think, given the five hours between the start of the battle and the start of the effects of Thirst at 1200.

Dave deployed a very straightforward army. In the centre, under a sub-general, was a block of supported Irr Sp (I), with some Reg Bd (I), a couple of Bd (X), and even a Ps (X), with a small reserve of Reg Cv (O) and Irr Hd (O). Each flank contained a balanced mix of Irr Bw (I), Reg Bw (O), Irr Cv (O) and Irr LH (O), with the C-in-C on the left flank and the other sub on his right.

I deployed my army, using the Exaggerating Numbers stratagem to add a third rank to my two ranks of Irr Sp (I) in the C-in-C's command. I didn't add a fourth rank because I didn't have the figures, but I wonder whether it might have made Dave suspicious. The Bw were on the left of the Sp and and Kn on the right, with the Ps beyond. The Byzantines were beyond the Bw.

I wasn't looking forward to the clash in the centre, and belatedly realised the problem of my deployment - if I waited back  Dave would move forward, away from where my flank marches could arrive (thanks to the dunes), but if I pushed forward to pin Dave in place, I'd bring on a fight I could easily lose quite quickly.

Then I rolled for the Delay Battle. Five hours. So all my troops were thirsty from the start.

Well, my main hope now was that my flank marches would arrive quickly - I had a >90% chance that at least one of them would arrive on table no later than bound 4. And the small command had troops which could quickly dive into the BUA and deny that water source to Dave's troops, making him thirsty too.

Dave averaged the two highest PIP dice for his flank commands, and gave the lowest PIP dice to his centre command which, after all, had little to do except move straight forward. My own PIPs in the first bound were good for the on-board commands, not so for the off board commands. I moved the main Crusader force forwards slowly, sending the Ps scuttling towards the dunes on my right, with the intention of grabbing the BUA if the flank march on my right was slow to arrive. I moved the Byzantines out to the far left, deploying into a line facing obliquely inwards to distract the Fatimid right flank.

Dave continued his steady advance, but rather unsportingly deployed a couple of LH between the BUA and the dune in front of it to protect against any tricky moves by my Ps. My own PIPs for the next few bounds were miserable, and for two bounds in a row I actually did nothing, using the 1 PIP my C-in-C rolled to hold the Kn, and seeing nothing useful to do with the Byzantines. Dave wheeled his right flank archers around to face the LH, whereupon a good PIP dice allowed me to move the Byzantines back to nearer the flank of the Crusaders.

Finally Dave's army reached mine, and my third rank of Sp evaporated in the heat shimmer. As did a couple of my Kn to the first round of shooting. My own shooting was enough to knock over one of Dave's Bd (I). Another bound of shooting saw two of my Sp die, while Dave lost another Bd (I). Further shooting in the next couple of bounds saw another dead Kn, and enough other casualties that the C-in-C's command became disheartened.

At this point, my left flank march finally arrived - it must have been  the 6th or 7th bound. Dave turned around the Cv and LH of his right flank to face the line of advance of the flank march, which crowded itself into the space between the dune and the back edge of the table.

I also had a wealth of opportunities for the C-in-C's command, with my Sp able to wrap the left end of Dave's centre, and the Bw the right end, my Kn to attack the Cv of Dave's left wing, with support from the Ps skulking in the dunes. But little of this could occur, thanks to another dismal PIP dice. The infantry were able to mount only a limited frontal attack, although the Ps were able to wrap a Cv for my Kn. The result of all this combat was one dead Fatimid Cv. I also sent a couple of Byzantine LH in to attack a Fatimid LH with the hope of uncovering the flank of his Bw, but this attack also bounced.

In his next bound, Dave sent his infantry in to attack mine, managing a series of 4 to 1 attacks with his Sp and Bd against my overlapped, thirsty and disheartened infantry. Not surprisingly, he stripped off most of the front rank of the infantry, enough to break that command. Combined with the non-arrival of the other Crusader command in what must have been past the 8th bound, my total losses were well over 50%, so my army broke.

Given Dave's losses were 3 elements, it would have been a 25-0 result to him. Thanks to Dave for a very entertaining and different game which was completed in about two hours.

This was definitely one in which the dice played a major part. Firstly there was the weather result - thirst is a 1/36 chance, but I chose to invade in summer in order to have sunrise as early as possible to allow the Delayed Battle stratagem. Then there was the high score on the Delay Battle dice roll - even one hour without thirst might have made a difference. Then there was my generally poor PIP dicing - such that despite my flank marches each having a 1/3 chance of arriving each bound, one took about six bounds to arrive, and the other never arrived at all. Finally, my combat dice were pretty poor - losing two Kn (F) to shooting from Bw (I) and (O) was a big disappointment.

Still, it was a fun game, and I think we both learned a fair bit from it.

Finally, a question which came out of the game: on page 25, the rule about thirst says: "Combat disadvantage...unless the army has a...friendly BUA..." What's the definition of a friendly BUA? It's nowhere in the rules that I know of. Or, to put it another way, what does the opposing player have to do to make it unfriendly?