The Battle of Olivento, 1041

 For the last game in our current Lion Rampant dark ages series we fought Olivento, 1041. The switching of sides from Roman to Rebel Normans of a Lombard compelled the Romans send a force to crush the rebels alliance.  William Iron Arm commanded the Normans with Harald Hardrada, future king of Norway, leading the Varangian Guards.

Romans - CinC = Blessed

• Left = 2 x heavy Cav, 2 x heavy spears, 1 x light spears, 1 x bows
• Centre = 2 x light cav (bow), 3 x heavy cav, 3 x heavy spear (Vet), 1 x Elite foot
• Right = 2 x heavy Cav, 2 x heavy spears, 1 x light spears, 2 x skirmisher

Normans - CinC = Strongarm

• Left = 3 x heavy spear, 1 x crossbow, 1 x elite foot
• Centre = 5 x elite Cav, 1 x light Cav (jav)
• Right = 2 x heavy spear, 1 x bow, 1 x elite foot

The only special rule was that the Normans had to remain on the defensive for 3 turns, after which they could attack. This was to reflect the Normans approach to the real battle. The stream was purely for visuals with the marshes counting as flat difficult terrain.

The game began with the Romans advancing across the line and pushing their horse archers forward to harass the knights. The activation dice proved fickle and the Romans did only limited damage, whilst their skirmishers were roughly handled by the crossbowmen in the east of the field.

Roman horse attack the knights

Roman left attacks the Norman right

The Normans retried to avoid combat on the flanks as they were out numbered and focused on a central attack with the knights. This crashed through the Roman heavy cavalry and bit deeply into the Varangians forming the third wave of the attack.  

Norman knights counter attack 

In the west the Romans managed to vanquish the Norman and begin to move troops to the centre to support the Varangian Guard. In the east the Romans got drawn away from the centre and suffered loses to the Norman spearmen.

After about 2.5 hours play the game ended with the Romans having lost about 2/3 of their point and with only the left flank (west side) having broken the Normans. So a Norman win.     

Another fun game and the rules held up well with about 75 points a side. The game ran close to history with the Normans largely resisting the Roman attack before before their knights punched a hole in the centre.