Dark Ages Campaign Round 3

Here is current map as the move portion of turn 3 is under way and the games that will dictate the results of these moves will take place this coming Tuesday. So far the Campaign using Warlord's Hail Caesar rules has been great. We are playing either Pitched battles or picking from a handful of scenarios. As I mentioned as great many battles are fought each turn and it abstractedly resolved thru the one game week. This campaign system , something I cooked up based on trying to solve numerous things that went wrong with many, many Campaigns I've run over the years. Pairs are simply round robin, the only caveat being that if the majority of your battles are against someone in particular then you play them regardless if its two weeks in row. being our third week that isnt a problem yet, and because I got stomped last week by the Caliphate (more on that in moment) My turn hasnt happened yet, and since the Caliphate has repelled and the Saxon invasion, counter invaded and is now sitting in Ireland ( Arabs in Ireland in 1000 AD, my Ancestors are cursing me)
Rich has decided to put the pressure on his neighbors the Normans. Whether I make minor strikes against my neighboors or go for a viking-esque raid on the Byzantine Empire I don't yet. One the benefits in being the weeks loser (ye with least number of Armies on the board) means you get to last, so you can see what the other players moves are. This mimics the "Risk" type board game mechanic I was going for.


As for my game last time around The Saxons invaded, Northern Spain, Rich and the Caliphate counter invaded Ireland.. I made some  small moves againt Neutral Armies and the Normans. The scenario we play was a "Camp Raid" where each player had camps in opposite corners of the board and deploy toward each other (for the short edge long ways) the kicker is one of your three divisions is in reserve and must roll to come on.I had one of my Divisions stupidly near the enemy reserve deployment, and of course fail orders on my part had them not get out of away before Rich got his reserves on first time and roll right over one divisions flank standing at the edge of my camp. Luckily I had some good performing units although not my Huscarls who for once seemed not at all the indestructable tanks they have been. mainly due to getting engaged with cavalry. My Second Division performed well keeping two division of Arabs at bay outside my camp, until my reserves finally came on (3 turns later) and started toward the Arab camp. The pressure from my reserves made Rich have to split his offense force to have some of it go back and support the camp..
There where a few turns where the battle actually started to drift back to my direction but its was not to be and I suffered enough early losses and didnt get the breaks I needed late to really flip it the other way.
As result, Rich got major victory ( or Conquer III as our scoring metric calls it) It was a fantastic and dramatic game.  I did score enough points in our game  to keep from getting totally creamed in some of my other battles on the map many of those resulted in draws or minor setbacks. I still lost enough amries and territories to be in last place but not by a ton. A good week could flip any of us to the top, but right its clearly the Caliphate of Cordoda expanding across Dark Age Europe. Lets see if anyone can stop him this week!>