Map: Pine forest
Duration: ~50min

Background:
After their Parents moved from the foots of the Liptauian Alps to the north-western part of Hispania, the Suebians have found their destined land: a little farming, a little looting and a little hanging at the beach - live is good for the Suebians now. But the good times are in danger now, because the visigoths in their unsatisfiable greed for "gulth" even after pillaging the splendid city of Rome became mercenaries of the Empire. Their goal is simple: Spill the blood of all free people of Hispania. When the Suebians hear of that threat, they hastly gather their army even their best proven warrior used their cool headgear for Fastnacht and so are not available now. In a dense forest both armies clash.

My setup: I devided my warriors into 3 groups: The riders position in the back to exploit a weakness of the enemy, the Slayers fist position at the side, it´s their task to block the enemy attack and the berserkers (with the Chief and the Youngsters) become a strikefore/ reserve to force a breakthrrough
The lone archer does not really count, he just stays behind the Battleline and shoots at key enemies.

Enemy setup: The enemy has a big Main Line of Battle (MBL), on left side mounted archers are positioned to skirmish, on the right side reserves consiting of a rider with company of some lance-fighters position, probably to archieve a breakthrough
Behind the enemy line some archers are positioned



Development: The goths advance very fast with the mounted archers on my right flank, the reserve-group meanwihile moves far left of my front, perhaps overstretching their forces. On the opposite side, the Suebian forces are more concentrated, waiting for the opportunity to strike and keep the advantage of the inner line.

The Clash Nr.1 : Wichmann, the experiancesd Suebian leader realizes the situation very fast: The Mounted archers are too far away from the main group that they cannot be supported, the Riders are positioned to ambush them, meanwhile the rest of the force moves between the enemy Rider/Spearmen group and the MBL to break through. The enemy sees, that and tries to close the gap between the MBL and the Spearmen, which exposes the mounted arcers even more. The first Rider Charges into the unsuspecting mounted archers and strikes the first wound, the others follow and surround the enemies. Some warriors from the Enemy MBL-Group approach to try to save the situation

The Clash Nr. 2 :The Slayers indeed are wedging the 2 remaining enemy subgroups, meanwhile the strikeforce has positioned near the left edge of the enemy MBL to nibble the line

The Progress of the Battle: On my right side I had hit-superiority, while on my left flank I stopped the enemy. One after another the foes fell.







Man of the Battle: Theodart, the Berserker. Origially he did want to stay home, there he heard Manowar (what else music a Berserker could hear ?) "Whimps and Posers - Leave the hall" - Since he is a "Whimp" (What a beserker !) he left home and joined the warband just in time to release his fury, onehitting an enemy "To the left and to the right - half a goth did slide". Here a video from his village.

The end: many of his warrios slayn and now heavly outnumbered, bleeding from many wounds, the Goth chief Sigmar decides to surrender. When held for ransom at the Suebian village, he is often heard mumbeling "why my left flank is where my right flank should be, and where is my right flank"




Aftermath: Meeting fierce resistance by the Suebians (and their Vandal Barabrian-Buddys) the Visigoths decide that it is better to enjoy the spoils of sacking Rome in the warmth of Southern France. 4 Generations later, they returned, but this is another story.

Map: Pine forest
duration: ~1 hour

my set-up:
Basically the same as in the last battle (Gastikapoinnan stop the enmey, Archers to the damage, Jinetes can do both if demanded, they screen my battlelline against flanking); I had very little melee-units, so I first worked on his shildless units to gain numerical superiority before risking melee. I tried to use the big rock as a cover for my left flank, which was vulnerable when going after his beridden left flank.





edi's set-up:
Very classical: Footsoldiers form a shildwall in the center, cavallery on the flanks, archers and a commander as reserves in the back; looks by the book ... Luckly for me, he did not amass his forces against my small battle line; he told me, that he planned to uses his riders against my archers (which would have caused much trouble for me), but I managed to stop them with my battle line.






on the run:
I kept distance between the batllelines (Less euphemistic: I ran away) and let my archers work on his archers (as intended), while his Aihwudrauhtai charged in, I quickly surruonded them and cut them down, then I ran away not to get rushed.








clash:
Finally (meanwhile I had numerical superiority) I decided not to run away anymore and to go to melee. (The Jinetres used all their javlins, so they had to stick to melee, which lowered the damage output of my ranged attacks, also now all enemy warriors had shelds, so I had to flank them to maintain pressure.



the end:
Even with numerical superiorizy, I had problems cutting down the enemy, since the damage-output of the Basque melee-units is quite low. The Thiwadus cut through my warriors like a hot knive through butter. In the end I used one of my archers to flank certain enemies from 3 sides and allow his buddies to shoot them down.

Map: pine forest
Duration: ~45 min.

my set-up:
My band consisted of 3 groups: a main battle line (Gastikapoinnan + Guru Buruzagi) to stop and localy flank (to make shields useless) enemies, a archer/ slingshooter group to do the damage and a group of Jinetes as a mobile reserve.









jonathas' setup:
He did split his band basically into 2 formations: melee and ranged; he tried to wide flank my battleline with his axethrowers, then charge in with them










after regrouping:
He continued with his plan, I regrouped a little: I planned to use the Jinetes to prevent the Galikakus/Heerbaan-group from approaching my archers. I decided to work on his riders first, since they were seperated from the rest. I hoped to destroy them, before the rest of his warband moves in ...



first clash:
First all worked as I thought; the Franks wasted most of their throwing axes on shields, I started working on the riders and taking them out one by one. Since the Frankish melee-group was split into 3 parts, I had upper hand on my right wing. Unfortunately, the destruction of the riders took too long with the calculated forces, so I sent the jinetes to this clash to throw their javlins to speed things up, so they were withdrawn from their original task ...

the decisive mistake:
While working on the riders I became to greedy: I did not move my archers out of the way of his Axemen (Which now had to relay on melee, since the ran out of amunition). In the region, where the Franks come from, the area marked blue might be known as "Autobahn" ... For all who read this: The AI does not run, Human players do ! If I simply went away (black lines on the screenshot) with the archers and did not go for bonus from aimed shot, it is quite likely, that I would have destroyed the last rider and the trustimannes before the new units come into battle ...

until the end:
Since the Basques strongly relay on combined arms, they are lost, if their archers don't do damage anymore. The melee-units only do little damage (In comparison to the other tribes in game), so if it comes to total melee, they lose ...

Lesson learned: If playing Basques, keep your archers on the run !
Word learned: Porrot ;)

Map: Visigoth village
Duration: ~1/2 hour

Deployment of the troops:
My plan (which did come together :) ) is explained below.

Edi probably read this guide and wanted to use the tactic I used against him in the "Defense of Elliuovsbourgh".
He brought many archers and intended to stop me with his shildwall and shoot me down.



What did I do against it:
My line progressed straight at the enemy; I had high level Galikakuses so I kept them near the frontline for concentrated support; luckyly the Heerbaan are Galikauses with shilds, so they are versatile for flank use of the main battle line.
Look, who is hiding behind the tree ! My Hundsridan did a wide flanking maneuver, with their "cavallery in be(e)ing" they distracted some of the enemy battleline to protect the archers.

II worked on his thinned out battleline: I flanked key enemies from 3 sides and used concentrated franziskas (the frankish warrior's best friend) on them, so they went down in 1 turn. Edi hoped, they would hold for several rounds and stop my warband at best range of his archers ... But I broke through on my right flank.

He counterattacked and killed my Baro Megfinhard and my supposed "Man of the Match", Wilbert the blocker (sure they crossed the rainbow bridge !), as you can see on the screenshot I did let them too exposed, but I exploited the breakthrough and encircled his remaining forces.

The key to victory was to fight the enemy in 3 portions; at the beginning of the battle I used more attacking-power (only the 3 riders only fought at the end of the battle, but they made 5 enemies run around and not fighting in the beginning, helping me to flank and cut down the rest) and my attacks had more effect, since I did not waste attacks on blocking enemies, which renderes Edi's archers useless in the beginning of the battle.

Nice side-effect of the battle taking place in the center of the village: My men did not have to walk far to "shop" italian designer stuff ;)

Map: Pine Forest
Duration: ~1h (Battle ended by disconnection)
Note: in Version 1.1.9 balancing between both adversaries was not guaranteed, what affected this battle.

Prelude (inspired by the song of Roland):
Some months ago some run down messangers appeared at the court of King Merovech in Tournai. They told, that the villages of poor, innocent Basque people are currently harrassed by the greedy Suebians, crops are stolen, women defiled and peasants tortured. As cancellor Ganelon suggested, King Merovech selflessly decided to send a warband under the lead of Evroult, one of the best Baros of the Frankish Army to cross enemy territories and to succor the helpless Basques against the Suebians, whose evilness and greed the Franks experienced in the times of King Richimer some years ago, when the brave Franks defended their terretories from the united Vandal, Alan and Suebian plundering horde.

When the small band arrives in a strange far away land, they spot a rider on a distant hilltop waving with his sword. It is Ganelon ! On his sign some ragged mercenaries step out their hiding places in the bushes and close in against the fankish band with weapons drawn ! All was a set up ! Ganelon only staged the "massenger" to make Merovech send Evroult away, that Ganelon can kill him with no (Frankish) witness and desecrate Evroult's beautifull wife Aude afterwards. Evroult quick evaluates the enemy: obvious it was a wise decission of king Merovech to keep the salary of his cancellor low; Ganalon was not able to pay more and better equiped mercenaries, so the Franks excel them not only in bravery and fierceness, but also in numbers (luckyly Evroult has taken more than 12 men with him) and material. He yells some commands and the glorious Frankish warriors swarm out like bees the teach the incomprehensive talking Basques that treason is wrong in the only language they will understand: bare steel (from Solingen)....

My setup (after 1st move):
Because I was to fight Basques I thought much about working on their ranged units, the idea was to use my riddanmannes against lighter units (as slingshooters and archers) and the hundsridan against jinetes or to roll up the flank of the enemy, if there are not many jinetes. Both groups had been intended to use galloping to cross the area of effect of the ranged weapons without being shot at. I thought my grunt-units would be stronger than their basque counterparts, so they would slowly but surely crush the risistance if the basque footmen have no support from their ranged units.

Eromes setup (at deployment):
After seeing my setup his hope was to isolate the hundsridan and destroy them, then to turn with all remaining forces against the rest of my warband. Against my suggestion, he did not deploy a large swarm of archers and slingshooters.





As intended I moved in against the smaller opponent warband, first my Hundsridans clashed with the enemy Jinetes and my Riddanmannes reached the ranged units ( Interesting side-fact: Samo can be translated to Polish as "self" or "alone", here you see the reason why ... - think of him when planning to gallop into enemies: trees and bushes can stop your charge !)

A few turns later also my main force arrived on foot and completed the enciclement, the galikakuses began to throw their fraziskas at the flanked enemies.






Like the spiritual father of this tactic and leader of a team said: "I love it, when a plan comes together !"







Aftermath: (battle ended due to disconnection)
When the enemy is nearly encircled and the first enemies are fallen, Evroult blows his horn for a battlecry. The Basque mercenaries see, that their cause is lost and flee the battlefield. Evroult decides not to chase them in the impassable terretory unknown to him, but to travel home to Tournai as fast as possible to inform King Merovech about Ganelon's treason.

Map: Visigoth village
Duration: ~1hour

Prelude:
After a biblical time of 40 years of wandering (which all chosen people have to endure), the Visigoths finally have found good land to settle. Farms are buit up, grain is sawed and all seems to come to a good end. In one of the northern villages, 3 boys have ridden to the nearby forrest to practice swordmanship like it is custom among Goths since all time and to hunt some game (yes: gaming was big fun also in that times ...) to enrich the villagers menu until harvest is brought in and here starts our story:

While stalking for deer, the boys hear harsh laughter and the sound of rattling chainshirts. Cautious the sneak nearer and see through the bushes some armed strangers, talking while marching to the village of the boys. Their dialect is hard and difficult to understand for the boys, but what they comprehend strikes them with terror: "children ... sacrifice to Wotan ... good heists ...beautyfull blonde women ... (evil laughter) ... me too (from a very ugly man, more evil laugher)". When the boys have overcome their shock, they run to their horses and ride back to the village as fast as they could. One of the stangers tries to chase them, but he is slower than the 3 boys, since he is clad in thick iron.

While approaching the village the boys already call "Enemies are coming". The women and children hide in the houses, while the gothic men gather their gear (luckyly not all swords and battleaxes have been converted to plowshares yet) and assemble on the village catcher and pray together: "atta unsar thu in himinam ... ak lausei uns af thamma uibilin, unte theina ist thiudangardi jah mahts jah wulthus in aiwins. Amen!" Then Ebrimuth, a all time victorious veteran of countless battles and now bartender of the village, shouts some short commands and the encouraged goths line up for the defense of their belongings and beloved. Meanwhile also the Franks have reached the vicinity of the village. Greed and bloodlust in in their eyes. Edirock, the notorious Baro cries like mad "Hail to Wotan ! Burn them all !"

I deployed my troops like this (after 1st move):
basic ideas:

• my Faragumen and Thiwaduses form a defensive line
  
• my Hundrafahs and the Aiwudrauthai are mobile for an flank attack or are reserves (Hundrafahs to shout his battlecry in decisive moments)
  
• the bowriders take out one enemy after another ( I served at artillery :) )

(I call this formation "snake", because it forms a long tail for defense and a head that kills)

Edirock deployed his troops like that (at 1st move):
what did he do:

• his cavallery attacked against my left flank
  
• his infantery attacked against my right flank
  
• he kept the Baro and 1 Heerbaan as reserves

according to Edi, his plan was to simply charge in, break through (and then loot my village, even if it is really difficult to plunder a burning village ;) )


It came to the clash:

What happened in the battle:

• While approaching I already worked a little on the Galikakus (since he has no shild; I also suggested, he would be used as ranged unit and I wanted to keep ranged superiority); I took him out first.
  
• In the situation shown I thought about charging in with my rider not engaged yet against his left Riddanmanne to take him out quick and support the right flank; Edi prevented this movement by moving the Heerbaan next to the Baro up.
  
• so I massed my attacks on the left flank (Snakehead), I transferred my archers there (luckyly they were on horseback) and took out the Riddanmanne there and then the right Hundsridan.
  
• meanwhile Edi organized a counteratack against my right flank, breaking through there in the end. My both fighters defending the right flank survived with <10hp left one round and I am happy they inspired some bards from a remote island to the west to a song about their uncompared bravery: Honour to Sigeric !(both)
  
• When Edi had taken out those 2 brave warriors, I already had taken out 4 of his
  
• from here desync possible!
  
• due to my numerical superiority combined with the ability to shoot down one enemy with concentrated arrows, I cut down his men one after another.

The End (in my reality - desync possible, since Edi claimed most of his men were still alive):
(more battles to come ...)