Battle of Dorylaeum 1097 : The First Crsuade

Another opportunity of a game this week and to change things up from WW2 we move back to the first Crusade with the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097.

A wonderful and totally inaccurate medieval depiction of the battle

No long history of the first crusade today, the Crusaders under Bohemond had come from the unsuccessful siege of Nicaea and to help with supply problems had split the army into smaller sections. As they headed south the Turks with their allies under the command of Qilich Arslan (spelt many different ways) looked to ambush the invaders. The battle taking place in July. Quite a few useful maps of the battle are available for wargamers. In essence the battle went as follows. Bohemond was in the lead with a smaller section of the army, following the course of the river valley south the Turks blocked the valley. Bohemond got his infantry to make camp before the onslaught. He assaulted the Turkish horse archers with his heavy cavalry holding them ‘only’ just long enough for the second section of the army under Godfrey to arrive. The final blow for the Turks came when a third element of the Christian army under Raymond managed to outflank them capture the Turkish camp and at this point Qilich Arslan and his remaining horsemen withdrew.

I have just enough figures to make a reasonable representation of the battle. We start the battle with Bohemond in camp and the Turks about to attack. Godfrey will arrive second turn in column and must advance down the valley to save the day ? A smaller force under Raymond will arrive later with some randomisation on the location. We also gave the Turks a small reserve force to balance things a little. As a bit of fun I gave the Christians some ‘god wills it’ bonuses. These in the form of monks (maximum of 3) who on a suitable D6 each turn can be deployed into units to boost their resilience. The setup fits nicely onto an L shaped board. So onto the battle…….

The bulk of the Turkish army are light horsemen/horse archers

They must get forward and destroy the camp before Godfrey and the reinforcements arrive

Bohemonds contingent forms up in front of the camp

The sky turns dark with arrows and there is little yet the Christians can do….except of course pass their morale tests which they do !

Bohemond starts to redeploy his heavy cavalry

Some of the infantry push forward, others pull back into the camp seeking cover

You can see the wounds building up on the infantry as they take casualties under fire….but still they hold their nerve

The heavy cavalry charge in on the left inevitably pushing some of the lighter horsemen back, in the confusion some are also trapped by infantry, but the bulk of the infantry is close to breaking……?

Godfrey has arrived at the head of the valley, the Turks have sent some detachments to delay them

Godfrey holds his force behind the river until they have all arrived (knowing that this will trigger the Turkish reinforcements to arrive !)

The Turkish spearmen are now involved in the battle

And despite their wounded state the Christian infantry still have some fight in them, 

Some of the Turkish infantry flees but still their light cavalry is gradually wearing down the Christian force

Finally Godfrey is ready to enter the fight and charges across the river

This triggers the Turkish reserve to arrive, with a ransom location they arrive we’ll demons the Christian camp, but may be too late to influence the battles outcome ?

Bohemonds heavy cavalry is still fighting back the Turks who are now looking very thin, his infantry is exhausted and heavily wounded but still they fail very few morale checks

With the arrival of Godfrey and then Raymond’s heavy cavalry the battle is as good as lost for Qilich

At this point we gave the battle to the Christians. In the end the Turks had pretty much wiped out all of Bohemonds force, his infantry is facing total collapse and most of the heavy cavalry is defeated as well. But it has taken too long to achieve this as the Turks are now overrun.

A fun battle which felt very close the balance of light horse against the tougher Christian infantry and cavalry was well balanced. By all averages the Christian’s should have failed a number of morale tests early on but again and again they managed to pass holding just long enough for Godfrey to enter the battle decisively. This is definately a battle worth re fighting at some point to see if a different result occurs. If the Turks had broken through the construction of the valley would have made it very difficult for Godfrey and potentially given a different result.

Finally a nice shot of the western Lake District and Crummock Water from the week

Thanks as always for popping by….plenty more gaming for come hopefully in the next few weeks

Matt😀