The European Serin On Tour - Part 6
Open Period ADLG at The Worlds in Spain 2025
Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance
Game 1 Khurasanian vs Ghaznavid
Game 2 Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire
Game 3 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire
Game 4 Khurasanian vs Wars of the Roses
Game 5 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire
Game 6 Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance
Or, for our many foreign readers ..
** Game 1 Khurasanian vs Ghaznavid - In Spanish! **
** Game 2 Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire - In German! **
** Game 3 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire - In Portuguese! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs War of The Roses - In Spanish! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire - In Spanish! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance - In Australian! **
The Khurasani army's interminable meander through ancient, or more accurately, early feudal to late medieval military history was by now drawing to a close, just in the nick of time as the bar opposite the venue started to reconsider the adequacy of it's weekend beer supply in light of loads of wargamers accidentally mixing with an apparently perfectly normal Flamenco Sunday Lunchtime taking place in the adjacent community centre
With three wins, a draw and a defeat I was probably, maybe, just about in the perfect position - a final round victory would put me into a very respectable near-podium placing but without the risk of actually winning any sort of trophy which I would then be obliged to squeeze into my hand luggage-only packing to carry home, only to be told "that monstrosity isn't going on display anywhere in our house!".
The final matchup for the Khurasan was another Medieval army, this time under the command of past-winner Shaun Drummond all the way from Australia or New Zealand (yes, the old ones are the best..) with a French Ordonnance army.
With Shaun having actually won this event last time out (I think?) with this same army the broad brush strokes of its composition were widely known - a big old block of shooters, pikemen and the odd knight which apparently sat and absorbed an enemy attack and defeated it in the process.
The French Ordonnance-era army, forged in the embers of the Hundred Years’ War and formalised by the edicts of Charles VII in the 1440s, was an early example of a professional standing force in late medieval Europe - a blueprint for royal military control.
Gone were the feudal free-for-alls; in came the Compagnies d’Ordonnance - heavy cavalry units, rigorously maintained and handsomely paid (unless, of course, the treasury was being used to fund another cathedral, royal wedding, or overly ambitious Comte cheese wheel).
Supporting these knights were the francs-archers, militia-style infantry levied from the provinces, intended to be crack troops but in practice more crackling than cracking - prone to confusion, sunburn, and chronic wine breaks.
A static Medieval army that relied on shooting to blunt the attack of an opponent, optimised to neutralise enemy cavalry was pretty much what my army list had been designed to face, and so it was with some optimism (but also 6-games/4 nights out worth of fatigue) that the final round hove into view
The lists for the Khurasanian and French Ordonnance from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at The Worlds in Spain can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
The terrain had fallen rather badly for me in this one, with the Australo-French managing to drop down both a coast on my left flank to narrow the table, and, most irritatingly, a large marsh right in the middle of the front of my deployment area, making it rather difficult for my army to lurch forward at speed
The French had also included a rather formidable Swiss ally in the centre of their line, a much sterner opponent than that mishmash of Mediocre Pikemen, longbow infantry and knights who made up both wings.
Now, some lesser-known chronicles - mostly ignored by serious historians and anyone with sense - suggest that this professionalisation was in part inspired by a brief and deeply confusing diplomatic exchange with a delegation from a distant land called Australie.
The story goes that a shipload of sunburnt emissaries turned up uninvited in Marseille, wearing wide-brimmed hats strung with corks to ward off flies, and immediately challenged the local garrison to a wrestling match, a drinking contest, and a cook-off.
The French officers were baffled by these strange men, who rode kangaroos instead of horses, called every senior officer “mate," and insisted on setting fire to prawns over an open flame regardless of circumstance.
Faced with this medieval Tetris-like challenge I had elected to push the main Elephant command and the Cavalry/Spearmen mix down the relatively open right flank, and send the Dailami down by the coast across an stretch of fields in the expectation that this would see them come up against a block of longbowmen.
Getting everything past the Difficult terrain of the marsh was however something of a traffic management challenge the like of which Napoleon himself would have found required the invention of traffic lights and illuminated batons.
To make things even more challenging for myself, I decided that the Crazy Ghazis would be better off being sent out to the flank so they could combine with the Cavalry/Spear command to assault the non-Swiss components of the French army, leaving the Dailami/Elephants to nibble away at one end of the Swiss line in the centre to pin it in place and prevent them reinforcing either flank.
The dastardly French however were not willing to just sit and mavel as this intricate plan was put into action as if I were presenting a tarte aux pommes with chantilly creme to their table.
Instead the cheeky blighters started to shuffle their deck of Longbowmen, Knights and Crappy Pikemen like a street corner hawker playing tourists with the "three shells and a pea" game, whilst their colleagues picked the pockets of the distracted onlookers with complete impunty.
Suddenly the Crazy Ghazis realised they were facing Knights, not Crappy Pikemen and Longbowmen!
On the opposite flank the Dailami, perhaps exhausted and even a little miffed after being tasked with charging the full width of the table into the teeth of relentless heacy artillery fire in the previous game, were struggling to build up a head of steam as they advanced slowly and cautiously through the patchwork of fields by the coast
Here too the Franco-Dingo-stralians had been cute by the almost-cheating expedient of, erm, "moving their own troops" such that they were no longer presenting all of their most vulnerable units in a static line and waiting to be smashed-into and overrun by the fearsome Dailami tribesmen!
In this dubious account, Charles VII was particularly impressed by the Australians’ ability to remain both extremely casual and extremely violent. Inspired, he restructured parts of his army to emulate this paradox.
The result? Cavalry who could charge with devastating force and offer unsolicited barbecuing tips mid-gallop.
Seeing the incoherent disarray of the Khurasani forces, the French and their Swiss allies stepped up smartly to put pressure on my ragged formations before they could reform.
The sleight of hand of the rearranging Frenchmen had somehow resulted in my right flank having all the worst matchups imaginable, and the Dailami & Elephant Death Star being only partially constructed as the Helveticans started to rush toward them at pace. And we've all seen how that particular film ends, haven't we?
On the left the Dailami were marooned on an island of ploughed fields, being harassed by longbow fire at distance and always in danger of being run down by Ordonnance Knights should they dare to step foot outside the cavalry-repellent uneven ground afforded to them by the fields they even now clung so tightly to.
French handgunners taunted them with gallic insults and the occasional volley of gunpowder-fuelled projectiles, with the offensive language probably more cutting had the Afghano-Iranian Dailami been able to understand it.
French Ordonnance Infantry were issued experimental broad-brimmed helmets with dangling corks, allegedly to keep flies off in the Loire Valley (though in practice, they mostly smacked each other in the face with them during drills).
Siege engineers also began requesting rations of Castlemain XXXX lager - which had to be imported from a repurposed vineyard that now smelled suspiciously of eucalyptus, and regret.
With space to manoeuvre now having run out as decisively as the cake shop opposite the venue had run out of croissants that morning, it was time for combat to be joined.
The Khurasani Commander instructed his Elephants and mercenary Dailami to have a good old go at the French, realising that only being overlapped on one side of his ad-hoc formation was probably as good as this was going to get for the time being at least.
Now it was elephant tusks and zupins for the win, with any pretence at skill fully out of the equation.
Companies d'Ordonnance
The first series of clashes with inconclusive, with the Swiss taking damage from the fierce Dailami charge, but the Elephants being checked back by a wall of Swiss pike points.
Elsewhere the Khurasani spearmen had waded into the fray against Mediocre French Pikemen and Francs Archers, but to little effect as they too picked up markers signifying their loss in these firet blood combats.
The clouds of Khurasani horsemen milled around impotently in the background, waiting and needing their infantry and elephant colleagues to conjure up some gaps into which they could later dart and cause havoc.
Seizing the opportunities presented by the not fully aligned French front line, waves of Arabized Iranian cavalry suddenly swep forward to try and help their embattled pedestrian colleagues by creating overlaps where they could.
On the wing, light horsemen skilled in the ways of the desert danced in front of the French Noblemen, dazzling and confusing them with their flurried movements and ineffective mounted archery. As long as the Knights could be kept away from combat the cavalry's job would be done.
The Francs-Archers, initially wary of these changes, embraced them fully after discovering that kangaroos could in fact kick down siege doors and were less maintenance than a horse. Though difficult to saddle and prone to boxing their riders, they added a certain bounce to French battlefield tactics.
It was the Khurasani Spearmen, so long the unfancied and unflappable rocks on which the entire army had pivoted, who suddenly struck the first key blow - and suffered the first significant reverse.
Part of the line of spearmen surged forward to overrun the French Francs Archers on the right, but the rest of the line imploded under the pressure and weight of the French mercenary pikemen, their superior and mysterious Medieval European technological advance of (checks notes) simply "having longer sticks than us" counting in the heat of battle to see the brave Arabized spearmen crumble and rout.
Even so, with clouds of horsemen now near the front lines, and more Francs archers in the crosshairs of the legendary "Medium Foot vs Mounted in the Open" matchup there seemed now to be a real possibility of a mounted breakthrough into the rear of the entire Franco-Swiss army!
And so, while the Ordonnance army’s legacy lies in military discipline, centralisation, and early professionalism, one cannot entirely discount the very real possibility of the influence of an Australian-style tactical philosophy: never fight on an empty stomach, always bring a hat, and if the enemy’s got a bigger lance, just hop away and throw a boomerang at their commander.
That tantalising whiff of victory - part gunpowder, part unwashed cavalry boot - filled the air as Khurasani horsemen skittered forward, threatening to spill into the rear echelons of the French-Swiss alliance as long as the rest of the Swiss contingent remained distracted by the Dailami and Elephants of the Khurasani commander's command.
Unfortunately, this was the exact moment that all of these supposedly optimised for pike-killing units decided to give up the ghost and be swept from the field in exhaustion, after utterly failing to dent the resolve of a the Swiss, who with the cold efficiency of men used to chopping both wood and enemies in equal measure, re-angled their pike blocks like a Rubik’s Cube of steel-tipped despair to deflect the cavalry advance and neutralise this emerging threat with painful ease the like of which they had never seen and certainly had not expected to encounter in this particular battle.
Eager to prove that they, the Allied Dailami, were both braver and more noble than their pecuniarily motivated brethren, the zupin-waving warriors finally found a way past the threat of the French Knights and burst out of the fields to assault the right hand end of the Swiss line!
These warriors had learnt the lesson of the centre, and were able to coordinate with packets of their own skirmishers who moved up in tandem, forgoing their ablative role to become harassers of flanks and contributors to the key combats in this part of the front line
Upon the far-flung flank, where the sun hung low and suspiciously like a kebab in the sky, the Khurasani cavalry squinted through the dust and menace of the field and saw the looming shadow of doom: the Swiss.
A wall of pikemen so dense it could stop light itself, emerging like a forest of angry clockmakers, grim-faced and precision-minded, now free from their earlier engagement and clanking ominously toward the main fray with all the speed and inevitability of tax season.
Realising the sands of opportunity were running quicker than a panicked goat on a tiled roof, the Noble Ghulams - paragons of panache, turbans askew from enthusiasm and moustaches sharpened for battle - threw themselves into the narrow and swiftly vanishing corridor in the French line.
There, ahead of them like a startled pheasant in a vineyard, sat a lone unit of English longbowmen: isolated, alarmed, and apparently still trying to decide whether to draw arrows or ask directions.
Now was the moment. The Ghulams charged - hooves thundering, silk banners flapping like the laundry of the gods, war cries echoing in seven dialects and at least two musical modes - determined to shatter the fragile English knot before the encroaching Helvetic hedgehog of pikes could shut the door forever on this delightful little patch of chaos.
Should they succeed, oh, the joy! The rear of the French army - all cooks, clerks, and bored junior heralds - would lie exposed to the tender mercies of the Khurasani horsemen, who considered "causing havoc" a sort of cultural obligation.
There would be plunder, panic, and possibly poetry.
But the race was on: noble steeds versus ticking Swiss precision. Glory or skewering - no time for hesitation, no margin for error, and absolutely no patience for baguette-based resistance.
But the resolute French archers` had other ideas - as did the rest of the French army as well. Standing firm, the longbowmen resisted valiantly the lance-point charge of the Khurasani Ghulams, and elsewhere the inexorable Swiss carried on their grim task of defeating everything the Dailami and Khurasanians could throw at them
The incoherent attacks, exacerbated by the challenges presented by the terrain on the battlefield, and force-multiplied by the unexpected quality of the Swiss centre to the French army had proved a game too far for the exhausted Khurasans and Dailami, as they slumped to a second defeat of the tournament
The Result is a crunchy defeat, which, if the scores had been reversed, might have seen me sneak in as high as 4th place in the whole event. Ho humm..
Click here for the post match summaries from Sheikh Yabouti, delivered from a Psychedelic Beanbag Near a Burned-Out Incense Brazier as the Sheikh is swaddled in tie-dye robes, sporting mirrored sunglasses and a battered tambourine whilst lounging sideways under a fluttering banner of the All-Seeing Eye of Cosmic Logistics, as behind him a dishevelled sitar quartet mournfully riffs on Tubular Bells. There is also another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Khurasanian Commander
Brothers. Sisters. Funkadelic children of the steppe and sun - today we gather not in triumph, but in what the French call a moment de merde. Yes, yes - the battle did not go our way. But before you start pointing fingers at your humble Sheikh, ask yourselves: was it me? Or was it the marsh?
Have you seen that marsh? I mean seriously, who puts a swamp in the middle of the battlefield? That wasn't terrain, man - that was an energy sinkhole. I deployed with a vision, a groove, a celestial layout based on a dream I had while listening to a lost Tangerine Dream cassette.
But that fetid little bog, that sinister salad bowl of reeds and sadness, broke the harmonic flow of my formations. My cavalry couldn’t even gallop - they just kind of squelched in place like rhythmic laundry. And don’t even ask about the Dailami. They’ve filed a formal complaint with the cosmos.
And let’s not forget the betrayal of the cosmos itself: the French brought Swiss mercenaries. Swiss! No warning, no courtesy note, not even a psychic ripple in the ether to suggest we’d face a block of uncannily efficient men who fight like cuckoo clocks full of knives. You can’t anticipate that kind of cold-blooded punctuality. My mystic vision - powered by Cherry Garcia and a cassette loop of Yes’s Close to the Edge - showed no sign of them. Just trees, horses, and a very unhelpful baguette.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking: ‘Oh, Sheikh Yabouti, didn’t you just charge straight into a defensive formation designed specifically to absorb and repel frontal assaults, while doing literally nothing to adapt or probe the flanks?’ And to that I say: look, man, it was a very long morning. I hadn't done my breathing exercises. My aura was cloudy.
And their army was just so boring! All shields and halberds and standing still. That’s not war, that’s architectural stubbornness. I had hoped to outmanoeuvre them with groove and initiative, but I admit, I just... kind of hoped they'd get bored and wander off. Turns out the Swiss don’t wander off. They dig in and multiply.
So yes, the day was lost. But not the spirit. For though we may have been out-organised, out-defended, and out-catered (their cheese carts were frankly intimidating), we are not out-funked. From the ashes of this square defeat, we shall rise again - refreshed, rehydrated, and possibly rearmed with something that isn’t allergic to wetland.
In the meantime: meditate, hydrate, recalibrate. And if anyone sees the camel I rode in on, please tell it I didn’t mean to shout. The mushrooms were just kicking in at the wrong moment.
The Sheikh now leans back, produces a kazoo from his sleeve, and begins a solemn rendition of "Shine On You Crazy Pikeman" as the army collectively tries not to notice the French carting away their banners.
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
O Sheikh Yabouti, thou perfumed juggler of half-baked stratagems, thou sherbet-sipping sage of sidelong glances and sideward deployments! Once more you present me a battlefield strewn not with the corpses of thy enemies, but with the shattered fragments of your own overcomplication.
This French defeat, let us be clear, was a self-inflicted wound. Your army - crafted (with surprising lucidity for once) to dismantle slow-moving footsloggers like the Ordonnance - found itself precisely where it wished to be: opposite an army mostly of pike-wielding hay-balers and their smug Swiss accountants. And what did you do? Did you unleash the fury of your Dailami? Did you trust your Arab horsemen to skirmish them into submission?
No. Instead, you gazed upon a marsh - a bog, a puddle, a watery inconvenience - and decided to outwit not your opponent, but yourself. You split your force like a man sawing through his own saddle. You redeployed like a cat trying to repark a camel. You confused your troops, the enemy, and possibly the gods themselves, with your corkscrew logic and jazz-inspired army movements.
The result? Predictable. Defeat, not from enemy brilliance, but from the internal combustion engine of your own overcomplication. You were defeated in detail, like a shopping list forgotten aisle by aisle.
Had I, Hannibal, been in command - and the heavens weep that I was not - I would have led the Dailami through the marsh, heads high, boots damp, and spirit ablaze! I would have marched boldly, or perhaps even sent a flank march with the calm assurance that an enemy composed entirely of foot soldiers dare not split themselves thinner than a Swiss ham slice. Boldness, Sheikh. Simplicity. You confuse it with recklessness because you cannot tell the difference between elegant force and chaotic flailing.
And now, as this woeful campaign comes to an end, I must ask: what possessed thee to bring an army optimized for butchering spearmen and pikemen to an event where your opponents were, almost without exception, mounted and mobile? Didst thou read the enemy list backwards? Were you aiming for irony?
Your two defeats - both, mark you, not imposed by superior generalship, but birthed from your own misadventures in misguided cleverness - could have been victories. Yet you drowned them in a thick syrup of ambition and bad decision-making, as one might ruin good couscous by pouring Ben & Jerry’s upon it.
So I take my leave, Sheikh of the Sandblasted Synapse. When next you seek greatness, try first to find clarity. Sometimes, the straight road leads to triumph, while the winding path leads only to humiliation - and a marsh.
Six foes faced. Two battles lost by your own hand, like a chef burning soup. The rest, won - yet few truly worthy of the victory. Next time, oh Sheikh of Sunglasses and Self-Sabotage, bring an army for the opponents you actually expect to face. And perhaps, leave the Ben & Jerry’s in the baggage train - for clarity, not caramel, is the first ingredient of conquest!
Hannibal's Rating of the 6 Opponents in this Campaign
1. The Mongol Khan (First Encounter)
"He who fights by shooting and scooting."
Credit where it is due — though his cavalry never engaged in meaningful combat and instead galloped about like caffeinated goats with longbows, the Khan at least preserved the ancient Mongol art of not actually fighting while still somehow (almost) winning. A curious strategy, like defeating a tiger by pointing at it until it leaves. That Yabouti’s vision-induced anticipation foiled him says more about divine luck than tactical insight.
Hannibal’s Verdict: A ghost of terror past — still spooky, still swift, still allergic to actual melee.
Rating: ★★★★☆
2. The Ottoman Trickster
"Hill-hugger. Ambush-recycler. Tactical one-trick pony."
This general has been ambushing from behind hills since before the Sheikh grew his first scented beard. And yet, like a camel with object permanence issues, Yabouti still failed to anticipate it. The Ottomans get points for consistency, and the fact that it keeps working is more of an indictment of their opponent than a praise of their own creativity.
Hannibal’s Verdict: As original as a third encore of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ at a Persian wedding — but undeniably effective.
Rating: ★★★★☆
3. The Mongol Khan (Second Encounter)
"Now with even fewer actual soldiers!"
This was less a battle and more a surreal theatre piece. The Khan deployed hostages, prisoners, possibly the catering staff — all while refusing to commit his cavalry to any decisive blow. The Sheikh claims victory, but against what? A screen of terrified captives and some cavalry dressed like Alexander’s Companions from an off-brand cosplay convention? Victory here is like winning a game of chess against a goose.
Hannibal’s Verdict: Not so much a battle as an exercise in advanced absenteeism.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
4. The French Ordonnance with Swiss Attachments
"Now with more Swiss! And more marsh!"
A competent but uninspired foe — a big block of pike, a grumpy hill, and a marshy mess in the middle. Yabouti outwitted himself and delivered his army into the French meat grinder in pre-cut slices. But the foe cannot claim brilliance; he simply stood there, impassive and Gallic, while the Sheikh redeployed himself to death.
Hannibal’s Verdict: A granite-faced pedestrian — dull but hard to move. Like a baguette left out in the sun.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
5. The Ghaznavid General
"Cautious to a fault, and to several minor inconveniences."
One suspects this general would not cross a river unless escorted by at least three accountants and a fatigue test. Over-reliant on terrain to do his thinking for him, and utterly flummoxed by a sudden outbreak of Dailami initiative. Yabouti’s victory here is underwhelming — like slapping a sheep and calling it conquest.
Hannibal’s Verdict: A man who mistakes being immobile for being unbreakable.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
6. Iniaki of Pamplona (Fallen Star Edition)
"The once-great, now dice-cursed."
A tragedy of Iberian decay. Iniaki was once a titan — now reduced to sighing at unlucky rolls and watching his archers dissolve under the weight of Khurasani enthusiasm. Beating him now is akin to winning a duel against a waxwork. Yabouti’s gloating here is unseemly. One does not boast after pushing an old man down a sand dune.
Hannibal’s Verdict: Once a lion; now a sleepy goat in the rain.
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
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That's the end - so why not go back to the Match Reports Index and read some more reports?
You may also like....
Game 1 Khurasanian vs Ghaznavid
Game 2 Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire
Game 3 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire
Game 4 Khurasanian vs Wars of the Roses
Game 5 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire
Game 6 Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance
Or, for our many foreign readers ..
** Game 1 Khurasanian vs Ghaznavid - In Spanish! **
** Game 2 Khurasanian vs Ottoman Empire - In German! **
** Game 3 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire - In Portuguese! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs War of The Roses - In Spanish! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs Mongol Empire - In Spanish! **
** Game 4 Khurasanian vs French Ordonnance - In Australian! **
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