Manlii v Julii Game 11

Game 11 – Roman Era 6: Middle Empire

Imperial Roman (Gordon 10,000 pts) v Early Franks (Alec 10,000 pts)

Major defence 297 CE (MeG Maximus, 8-Mar-2023).

Battlefield Effects: Imperial Roman: Terrain advantages

The Plan (penned in advance of the battle)

This is going to be the biggest battle we’ve played so far in terms of figures on the table – a MeG Maximus game. There are a couple of additional interesting features:

1.  We’re going to try out our first MeG house rule – modifying the green Death Dice to be less lethal by removing one of the Wound results (see the Table top rule sets House Rules page).

2.      Gordon has the benefit of a Battlefield Effect: Terrain advantages.

I have no idea if the first feature is going to favour one side or the other, however, if casualty rates are reduced (which they must be) it will inevitably slow down the game. This will make my task more difficult as Gordon will gain one Prestige Point on a draw – I will have to try and push the game on at pace. From my point of view it will make “Shatters” more important in the charge phase as if I can push some files above the green Death Die to the yellow or red it may be my only chance of doing his army any serious damage.

The second feature can only favour Gordon, particularly if he gets the chance to put down a river as that could make the game even slower by reducing the frontage I can attack him on. If he does so I may have to go with a flank march, which won’t be easy with an infantry army. I’m not so concerned about the other terrain advantages as nearly all my infantry are Flexible formation; however, if he sticks a couple of big hills in the centre of his line that will make things more of a challenge.

My most interesting unit is a TUG of dismounted nobles - which has the Fanatic characteristic, this will enable it to fight to the last base. If I can stick them in an ambush with the mediocre leader I may be able to cause him some discomfiture if I can spring it on him at an appropriate moment. Also until I draw a red command card I can pretend there’s a flank march, which will give him something else to worry about.

So, my approach is going to have to be one of maximum aggression, but I won’t be able to pin down a game plan until I see how the terrain falls.

That’s the plan!

The Battle

The Setup

I was aware that Gordon had the Terrain advantages Battlefield Effect. I decided to ignore it and proceed as normal, I would react to it as and when he played it.

I  drew fairly good PBS (Pre-Battle System) cards. Accordingly I managed to close down one flank with a secure flank of mountains and forests, got a wood on my left and with a bit more luck on Gordon's terrain placements managed to get a hill right on my side of the middle-centre and another straddling the centre line on my right. 

At this point Gordon played his Battlefield Effect chit, not to place a river as I feared, but to remove the hill in the centre. He actually played it too early as he could have waited until after deployment, but it wouldn't have changed anything on how I deployed my side.

Gordon had better luck on the scouting, out-scouting me by 20% so he got to follow me placing tranches of our armies on table. After deployment the battlefield looked like this:

We were using coloured dice to denote the units in each of Gordon's command and flags for mine.

From the other end:

I was somewhat surprised at Gordon's army composition, in particular at how little he had in the way of light troops. Two cavalry one end, one the other; the other eight TUG's are all legionaries - armed to the teeth of course with the Support (shown as a rear rank of archers) and Melee expert characteristics.

I deployed my army with all the warriors in the centre, mostly average quality TUGs but with a couple of superiors mixed in, either end in the trees are three SUGs. I deployed my sole cavalry TUG to my left rear in order that it could come out to cover the flank when I advanced and I did manage to put my fanatic dismounted nobles in ambush on my right, with a mediocre general as planned.

We're off!

End of turn one:

I advanced first with a double move up onto the hill and single moves elsewhere. I didn't reveal the ambush, it drew two black cards (thankfully not an allied command!) and I still had faint hopes he may advance strongly with his left flank. I double moved with my right flank javelinmen SUG, my plan was to check that there was no unit in ambush before I revealed the dismounted nobles. Gordon advanced also, possibly not to give away a height advantage on the hill either; his right wing cavalry moved forward also, so I swung my cavalry round to better guard my left flank.

Turn two move:

I had drawn a red card with my general in ambush so had to reveal there was no flank march. I wasn't too unhappy though as I had already decided I should reveal my dismounted nobles or they wouldn't get a look in. Gordon moved first however, and surprised me with advances all the way across the line, he obviously wanted to get stuck in 'early doors'.

I revealed my ambush and advanced them at an angle to keep out of the mountains after the SUG at the bottom of the picture had confirmed that Gordon's ambush was a bluff. On the other flank a got my cavalry into position to start chucking javelins at his Equites and moved one of my bow-armed SUGs just close enough so that they could start firing at his Equites Illyricani next turn whilst still being close enough to the woods to make a run for it if necessary. The next turn both my units managed to outshoot his and each caused a Wound.

Next turn we all charged in! 

Below is a picture of my left flank, Gordon evaded with both cavalry and just got far enough away with the Illyricani to avoid being shot at. 

Below is the centre - showing all my charges to contact. I was praying for "Shatters", with sixteen files rolling green or better Death dice I could expect about five. 

A picture of after the charge rolls:

A disappointing result for me. All together I got only one useful Shatter, result one Skull and four wounds for me and one Skull and two Wounds for Gordon. OKay, I out-rolled Gordon slightly but from now on I'd be mostly rolling white Death Dice to his green. Even with the reduced lethality of the green die I was still going to be up against it. My hope was for my superior warbands to beat their opponents before he wore my troops down.

After the following fighting phase the situation was as follows:

As usual the line starts looking like someone's mouth with teeth missing as bases slowly get removed. Gordon started exclaiming when his green Death die were less effective because of our house rule so it was having the hoped for effect.

On my right I charged in with my dismounted cavalry lunatics. Gordon opted to evade by skirmishing with his cavalry and then rolled low with the skirmish die so got caught, plus I finally managed to get a telling "Shatter" result as you can see with the red arrow. - see below. 

My hope was to finish off Gordon's cavalry and to be able to turn my fanatics onto the rear of the nearby legionary unit in short order.

To cut a long story short the game lasted a couple more turns before we ran out of time, we started a bit later than usual and playing a Maximus game we were always going to be up against it time wise. The end result was an unfinished game draw though a couple more turns at most would have finished it as you will see below.

Below are photos of the end position:

My left flank - the Illyricani were getting seriously damaged by my bow fire and Gordon's right most legionary TUG was down to exactly 50%.

The centre:

The one dead TUG of the game was Gordon's central legion unit - my superior warband can be seen charging through the gap. A couple of my warband are, however, only hanging on by a thread.

On my right:

Gordon's left-hand most legionary TUG is down to exactly 50%, but the story of this part of the line is how well his cavalry unit has been performing and how badly my fanatics. My fanatics are down to only one base having failed to roll one Wound for the last three turns with about nine green dice all the while my javelinmen SUG was waiting to charge into the flank of the cavalry when they did. (SUGs  are only allowed to charge into contact with a TUG in the open when the TUG is within one base of destruction - one more Wound would have done it).

Gordon's comments

Pre-Game

As Romans repelling the Franks I expect lots of warband. So I need to absorb the first charge and then try to beat him in the succeeding melee. So, I need lots of legionaries and auxilia.

Given the army size I don’t expect much room for manoeuvre. So, my Drilled status is going to be mainly for getting him to charge me rather than vice-versa, an opportunistic manoeuvre or if I am wrong and there are open flanks. I give the legions and auxilia integral shooters (to reduce his initial charge) and melee expert (to win the following melee).

I choose three units of cavalry to cover any flanks.

The Romans have the terrain battlefield effect. Given how Alec always seems to get a hill to defend (even when I put it down) that could be useful.

I choose 4 commands: 2 competent and 2 mediocre. Not ideal but my big worry is he might go for lots of units and simply work round my flanks. 

The game

No significant pre-battle manoeuvre or out scouting. A secure mountain and forest flank. Fine, it shortens my line as well as his. Some hills, including the almost inevitable one he will defend. The terrain Battlefield effect gets rid of that.

We line up warriors facing legions. Both of us deploy three ranks deep (me to prevent breakthroughs if his charge does well, him to absorb losses if it doesn’t). We are going to go straight for each other and see who can roll better dice. I have my cavalry to cover the flanks.

Contact between the infantry lines happens quickly. Alec is very unlucky with his combat dice, getting only one shatter that mattered. We then proceeded to roll a lot of no results dice in the ensuing combat (my memory is mainly of blanks and “S” with a relatively small number of cancelled Wounds.

The combat was slow. His superior warband broke through and although I had two or three of his units on one wound to break for a couple of turns the luck was against me.

A unit of fanatical nobles exploded out of the woods at one stage on my left flank and chased my cavalry for a while before I stood to face them. He killed two elements in the charge but then got unlucky and at the end of the game I had killed 5 of them to two of the cavalry. The god of green dice favoured me here.

On  my right flank I decided to delay his cavalry and infantry and proceeded to do just that. Helped that he didn’t want to do much except wipe me out with his skirmishers archery. They were making a mess of my Illyricani cavalry with impunity as I did not have the strength to attack them without exposing myself to his troops. I advanced too quickly here.

After 4 hours I had one broken unit and we both had two or three about to break. But, time was called so I won. Think it could have gone either way of we had continued, possibly still in my favour as I had the advantage of green dice to white dice in almost all the combats. 

Post-Game

No surprises in terms of the armies and their overall performance or the way the game developed (there is only so much you can do with two large infantry armies that basically fill the table).

If warband don’t do well in the first charge they will struggle.

However, the home-grown change to the effectiveness of the green dice mainly disadvantaged the Romans I think. It did not affect his ability to charge devastatingly, he just wasn’t lucky with his dice. In the subsequent rounds I would expect to get the edge rolling green dice to his white. However, losing a wound 50% of the time reduced the Romans effectiveness (even if most of the misses were due to blank dice).

Does it better reflect historical reality? Depends on your view of reality. Mine is: warband are enthusiastic at the start but don’t have the stamina/discipline to keep going when it gets difficult. Not sure why I think that. A sweep of my memory suggests that Gauls and Germans could keep fighting as well as legionaries (Cannae, Telamon, Argentoratum, Catuvellaunian Fields) but discipline must count for something and we like our barbarians to be hairy and initially frightening and then a bit brittle (there has to be some reason to pay the points cost of regular Romans).

It was certainly a longer game than usual given the simple armies and tactics. I imagine it gave Alec more hope of winning than might otherwise have been the case after the charge phase.

So, worth continuing with the home-grown rule to see what else it might throw up.

The Battlefield Effect was a major bonus for me: I have tried too many times to win a fight against an opponent uphill. Mind you, giving I was defending, I win a draw, so he would have had to come off it as I certainly would not have attacked him.

Result

An unfinished draw - one Prestige Point to the Julii