Some shots here of battles I had today as a member of the Khergit Khanate. After a reasonably long period of peace with all factions, we have gone to war with the Swadians and Sarranids in quick succession. The first group are from a large battle with an outnumbered Swadian army. I apologise in advance if this slows page loading down too much; there are a lot of images.
We Khergits enjoy the advantage in numbers, though I was concerned that my fellow lords were racing too eagerly towards the enemy, rather than letting them come down onto the plain first.
It soon became clear though that our advantage was more than numerical. The Swadians rapidly became swarmed by clumps of mobile warriors. However, in some places on and near the steep slope the Swadians were more evenly matched (the dashing horse archer in the first shot is Urghan Noyan, blessed by the Gods (me!)).
A Swadian Crossbowman prepares to let loose. Some of his comrades are under greater pressure, especially the Man at Arms being targeted by three bowmen and two chasing horsemen.
The age old problem that melee cavalry has against horse archers, that of chasing too far and becoming isolated from their fellows, was again a difficulty for the Swadians today. Here we see a Swadian lord, Count Clais I think, dismounted and struggling to survive.
A Man at Arms is in combat with numerous lightly armed Khergits; a more evenly matched band of Swadians tries to hold out on the slope; the final tally of dead and wounded shows that the men of the steppe suffered modest casualties considering the size of the two forces, though at least 3 Khergit lords were put out of action, probably during the initial charge when the Swadian host was still much together.
The battle report showed that the Swadians had only one knight and eleven men at arms, which perhaps explains why we so rapidly became dominant in this battle.
After this devastating blow to the Swadians, I set off for nearby Halmar to deposit my loot and sell off prisoners. However, a modest Swadian army was nearby and I decided to engage alone. Big mistake! They had a high proportion of heavy cavalry, and seconds after they had engaged with us we were suffering losses, and whilst trying to put some ground between myself and the knights I was struck in the head by a bolt.
My men recovered my stricken form from the field and regrouped some distance away from the enemy, the Swadians gathering themselves together also and almost ready to charge once more. Having lost half a dozen or so men and inflicted zero losses, I took stock of the situation. The enemy had a lot of heavy cavalry and many of my troops were new recruits fighting on foot, thus the balance of power was strongly in Rafard's favour despite my edge in numbers. No one disagreed with my brief assessment of the situation, and we fled the field for the safety of Halmar.
The next day, we caught up with another Swadian lord with few men. I forget which Swadian lord it was, but I think we had another Noyan to aid us, and they were rapidly laid low by our bows and lances, the Swadian lord bravely fighting until he was clubbed to the ground with a Lancer's mace.
A caravan is caught by my ferocious band and their cavalry, foolishly charging straight into our well equipped and experienced horsemen as if the petty mercenaries were seasoned knights, is quickly surrounded and decimated. Peppered with arrows before they reached us, they lacked long lances to do us harm before we swarmed around them and outnumbered them with well armed and skillful men, firing arrows into them from close range and hacking through their meagre jerkins and often uncovered heads. Maybe they can see off brigands, but not a Noyan's seasoned army, many of us wearing good metal armour.