A lethal combination of unfriendly terrain and formidable shock cavalry rendered the feudal English a nightmare opponent for Saladin. The only clearings in the heavily terrained English defense were covered by large units of irregular FMC knights, supported by longbowmen. The young Sultan did not acquit himself well. So far in my somewhat limited career as a MW devotee, I've faced two styles of play: "straight up and have at 'em", and "beat around the bush". The former is predominantly my style of play, which is suitable for attack cavalry armies, and entails mostly taking a quick look for an inviting target and throwing one's army at it. The "beat around the bush" style of play makes use the full gamut of terrain-based ploys to eke out whatever advantages one may, and waiting for the other guy to stumble on the attack before pressing a vigorous counterattack.

Alex Aimette's Feudal English (Edward Longshanks methinks) employed a very interesting hybrid style, first presenting as a bush-rat, but quickly switching to a hard-nosed aggressor in the early stages of the game. The English set-up featured a significant amount of light woods, rocky outcrops, etc, clustered around a solitary central clear area (the only meaningful terrain placement I managed, other than keeping my side of the table relatively open). Alex had obviously hidden much of his army in ambush, which may have been costly in terms of attrition losses, but really wasn't as the dice were kind. The English center featured longbow and knights.

As Alex later explained, he used the ambushes merely as a means of deploying his army further forward than he otherwise could have, and his overall plan was to accelerate his push into contact with the Ayyubids. The Saracen cavalry were deployed facing the English center, and their plan was to drive into the clearing ASAP, with the rest of the army watching the flanks.

As the battle developed, Alex had a unit of Skirmish Cavalry sortie into the midst of the advancing Ayyubid heavies (the SC were pursuing some screening Turkomans who had retreated). Much to my surprise, Alex's SC survived the hailstorm of bow fire it encountered -- practically surrounded as it was by bow armed cavalry and foot -- as it fled fragmented back into safe harbor behind the English lines. This was a harbinger of bad things to come for the Ayyubids.

Alex soon thereafter launched his knights, and the Ayyubid heavies responded. This was another battle where the Sultan's best cavalry, the FMC Mamluks, ended up in the wrong spot to carry the heaviest load in the battle. The sub-general and his bodyguard successfully went frenzied, but his supporting unit of Ghulams failed to do so (badly). Thus, Alex's knights attained marginal advantages at the outset of the melee that would inevitably (given average dice rolls) turn the battle in his favor. Presently, a second large melee involving the large unit of Toassin and another large unit of knights broke out to the left (my left) of the first melee. Alex had an advantage in factors here as well. Ultimately, the game was called -- a 1-1 draw at that -- before a decisive result was achieved, but Alex was on the brink of a very big win, as his knights were firmly in control of the cavalry melees, and the Toassin and Ghulams (six stands of each) were fragmented and on the brink of rout.

The peculiar thing about this game was both Alex and I came to blows about as quickly as we could, and we fought our large cavalry battle(s) steadily until time was called, but we really needed another 30 minutes or so to give Alex his big win. Good quality troops in MW are very robust, and in the ebb and flow of battle, they may hang around quite awhile in a straight-up, knock-down fight wherein players are rolling roughly the same. Cavalry melees in particular can stagnate as first round weapon and charging factors disappear.

A 1-1 tie (thank you lord of battles).

More Saladin at Historicon

Introduction
Late Crusaders: Crossbows and Knights
Mongols: Long Spears(!) and Artillery
Feudal English: Knights and Longbows
Post Mortem