Manlii v Julii Game 9

Game 9 – Roman Era 5: Early Empire

Early Imperial Roman (Gordon 340 pts) v Ancient Briton - alliance (Alec 330 pts)

Major invasion 43 CE (ADLG Big Battle, 22-Feb-2023).

Battlefield Effects: Ancient Britons: Special adjustments 1 - Taunting the enemy 

The Plan (penned in advance of the battle)

As I bid lowest for the Ancient Britons my army consists of a huge quantity of impetuous medium swordsmen infantry together with a small number of chariots and light horse. The Romans are the opposite – an army of superior trained legionaries.

As the ultimate horde army I can only think of one strategy – an attack across the board designed to overwhelm all sectors of the Roman army so that they can’t use their mobility to outflank the Britons.

My chariots and light horse will be used to plug holes where they will undoubtedly appear.

That’s the plan!

The Battle

The Campaign Battlefield Effect

Immediately before the battle I drew the chit for Taunting the Opponent. This Battlefield Effect looked like something I may be able to take advantage of, making Gordon's army more difficult to control and essentially putting it on a par with mine. 

Taunting the enemy represents the effects of pre-battle actions, such as crucifying enemy ambassadors or in-game taunting that has made enemy troops become prone to uncontrolled and rash actions as they seek revenge. In this case maybe a bit of human sacrifice as per the photo of the Ancient Briton camp below!

 The Setup

We ended up with a large river down one side of the table (the river Medway perhaps) and three fields, otherwise the terrain was all fairly open. A road ran along the other flank (the predecessor to the M2 perhaps)

As defender I had to place a command on table first. I had gone with four fairly equal commands, all with nine warrior units. One was an allied command, required as the Briton army is noted as an alliance in the Enemies list; and I put all six superior warriors together in another command to be placed at the point where they could do the most damage to go on the table last. As it happens I determined that to be the Batavian allies.

In accordance with my plan, I placed the light horse and chariots behind the infantry line to act as fire brigades for the inevitable Roman  break-throughs. I did put a couple of light horse on my far right as Gordon didn't extend his army all the way along. So after deployment my army was as below:

 Gordon deployed as below:

On his left and left centre, in front of his fortified camp Gordon placed a mixture of Legionaries (heavy swordsmen armour impact) and Auxilia (medium swordsmen armour impact). He had a couple of heavy cavalry in reserve. He placed his elite Roman troops in the centre (the Praetorian Guard no less) and to their left an allied command of Batavians, six units of Impetuous Medium swordsmen. On his far right was a command of four legions and four more heavy cavalry.

Battle commences!

As it was a Major Invasion Gordon was aware he had to get on with things in order to win the sought after Prestige points. He didn't waste any time in advancing towards me across the table on his right, where his best troops were; his left advanced a bit more slowly.

In accordance with my plan of trying to prevent any fancy Roman manoeuvring I advanced forward along the line also. when we got close I revealed my Battlefield Effects chit Taunting the opponent. It worked, in one part of his line (his extreme right) Gordon was forced to charge me with his legionaries rather than waiting for me to charge him as he would have preferred. His Batavians were also forced to charge in. By the end of his second turn he was in combat. The position just prior to rolling dice was as follows: 

The first round of combat went quite (ahem) well for me, one legionary unit wiped out on the left, the other taking three hits. Against the Batavians even better results - three units wiped out. None of my units had even a scratch! The dream start.

It was now my go and I charged in looking to capitalise on the awesome first round of combat. My warriors being impetuous troops, the turn of first contact would be critical, I needed to score big on at least some combats so that my 'Furious charge' would kick in and multiply his losses.  The results were as bloody as I feared they would be as below:

I managed to finish off the legionary unit on Gordon's extreme right and scored some good successes on his legions on his left. On the rest of the line his legions and auxilia beat me off, as you can see from the green disorder markers. 

Gordon sent in his cavalry reserve to plug the hole by the river and began to move his reserve auxilia in the centre to fill the hole where the Batavians once were. From this point the battle swayed to and fro, but from my point of view more "fro" than "to". Gordon made up for my initial round of good results with a couple of rounds where I swear his dice only seemed to roll sixes. 

So after a couple more turns of fighting the position looked like this:

As you can see, holes everywhere, a close-up of my left flank is below:

There are very few of my infantry warriors left on this flank, and the ones remaining are all disordered, not looking good!

Army break-points were 34 for Gordon's Romans and 48 for my Ancient Britons. After the end of the first round of combat it was some thing like 10 - 0 to me , now through prodigious fighting Gordon had pulled ahead, it was something in the order of 27 -23 in his favour. My left flank front rank had almost ceased to exist, but I had wiped out most of his Batavians and his left flank legions were under the cosh.

In order to buy time I pulled back my left flank horse and chariots:

As I did so my centre continued to crack. The only Briton warriors still fighting were the ones against the elite Praetorians! On my right though, I was beginning to make serious dents in his legionary wall, as below:

 There was only one legionary unit left on Gordon's left. He had advanced a cavalry unit down the road which I had managed to catch in the flank (a 6-1 in his favour saved him though!),

Casualties by this time were enormous.

Gordon's dead are on the dark blue, mine on the light. I think I was on about 40 dead to his 30 at this point, both approaching army destruction fast. A turn or so later and we were both within a point or two and it could have gone either way. Luckily for me it went mine.

The end result was as follow:

My left flank:

You can see from the above photo that the Praetorians were already attacking my second line (successfully) and the Roman cavalry had swung round on the left. One unit of Batavians was still alive, being pinned by my light horse.

My right flank:

Very few of Gordon's units left here, just the three Roman heavy cavalry, one of which (the one on the road), had just received the disorder marker that won me the game.

My thoughts 

The battle took four and a half hours to fight which seemed reasonable enough considering it was the ADLG Big Battle format and Gordon was playing via Skype video link. 

As I state above, after an initial lead for me Gordon pulled it back to get into the lead mid-game. At one point I thought that I had had it, but just did enough to win in the end.  My strategy of attacking all the way along the line seemed to work, as he couldn't do much except use the few local reinforcements he had.

The Battlefield Effect made for an interestingly different game but I'm not sure if it helped me much in the end; I guess it did as, combined with a very lucky first round of combat I just managed to scrape the win.

Gordon's comments

Pre-Game

The Britons will be warband. Maybe lots of chariots if Alec wants to create problems on a flank. Roman choice is fairly straightforward:

·        lots of legionaries to absorb the initial charge and then with a bit of luck to claw back to victory. 

·        I will take some cavalry to give some flexibility and in case there is a clear open flank.

·        Some auxiliaries (basically slightly weaker legionaries) for a bit more manoeuvrability, so useful as a reserve 

·     an allied command of Batavians (I could live without them, but they played a noted role at the Medway so I ought to have some); they will help with any rough terrain that favours the Britons at the expense of the legions.

Britons have a Battlefield effect, don’t know what, so I didn’t bid too low.

I choose 4 commands:

1.      Legions, auxilia, 2 cavalry

2.      Legions, Praetorians, auxilia

3.      Batavians (impetuous) auxiliaries

4.      Legions and 4 cavalry

Roman command is very good – 3 brilliant and a competent ally. I will need this to counter his numbers. 

The game

A secure water flank and some fields. Fields are a problem for my Legions so that is where I put the Batavians. Shutting down the flanks suggests he isn’t going to rely on cavalry and chariots and it will be a slog – the winner will be the one who roles the most 6’s! Once we are in combat my brilliant commanders might allow me to better manage rallying to counter his numbers.

I deploy my cavalry weak command against the river, cavalry in reserve. Next is the powerful legion command, then the Batavians in the rough (my weak link otherwise: they are the same as his troops, and relatively few in number). Left flank is the cavalry strong command, but still with four legions. Alec fills the table (except for my extreme left). Not going to be much manoeuvring in this game. I keep a couple of units in reserve in the two right flank commands.

I have to win to get any points, so off we go. Straight forward advance on the right and centre. Batavians slowly forward to provide flank protection and not get close enough to destroy themselves. Left flank slowly advance as they are facing a lot of the enemy; I might be able to take advantage of the slightly open flank with my 4 relatively powerful cavalry.

Turn two and we are in charge reach. Alec reveals his Taunt the Enemy Battlefield Effect. This is major bad news for me. I rely on holding his charge because his warriors are less effective if they charge than when they stand to receive. My Brilliant generals mean I can hold most of the men, but a couple of legions go in, and some of the Batavians (I moved them too far forward). Worse is to follow: he kills four units and almost breaks another (I don’t think I rolled higher than a 3). I don’t do any damage. I am well on my way to breaking already.

The next few turns see something of a turn around. He charges in with controlled charges, so I have an advantage and it works for me. There is one turn when I roll a lot of 5’s and 6’s and my centre and right look like they are going to win. I am still in with a chance. My left flank, however, is getting battered. My cavalry get lucky in one combat but get battered elsewhere, so I disengage and sit while I rally.

This means that my optimism is now severely tempered, and we are both near breaking. He is now finally getting to throw javelins at me with his cavalry and chariots. I cannot afford to sit and remove casualties, because he can just re-inflict them. So, a final push to break his remaining central and left flank warriors. It didn’t work and he beat me. But close. 

Post-Game

I like ADLG. Just feels more like a battle than MeG. The wildly random combat dice do give the chance for anything to happen, so I never feel the same “all is lost” so early in a game.  But the random effect is perhaps too wildly random. The rules suggest an option to use average dice rather than D6, which could be worth a try.

Otherwise:

–       Not sure I made any major mistakes, although I would not have taken Batavians if I wasn’t making some effort to replicate the Roman invasion army; moving them too far forward too early didn’t help.

–       The Battlefield Effect was a major problem and somewhat confounded my plans. The game became even more of a battle of who can roll higher than I expected.

Result

Ancient Briton win - Minus one Prestige point to the Julii