Manlii v Julii Game 30

Game 30 – Byzantine Era 3: Thematic Byzantine

Thematic Byzantine (Alec 156 pts) v Sclaviniae alliance (Gordon 160 pts)

Minor Invasion 950 CE (ADLG Std, 20-Sept-2023).

Battlefield Effects: None

The Plan (penned in advance of the battle)

This is a Byzantine Minor invasion of the lands occupied by the tribes known as the “Sclaviniae” to the Byzantines, aka the Southern Slavs, in 950 CE; so two Prestige Points available for a Byzantine victory but only one at risk for a Byzantine loss or draw. Unfortunately for the Byzantines there is only one terrain region available in the Slavic list - “Forest”, which could be a challenge for a largely mounted army.

The arch-typical Slavic army is one of hordes of woodsmen - either medium swordsmen or javelinmen. The list does however allow a useful number of up to eight cavalry units plus six bowmen, so the army isn’t entirely one dimensional. I bid 156 points which Gordon accepted so I will be the Byzantines.

As Gordon is on the defensive I suspect he will try to maximise the difficult terrain – in this case woods and swamps, and attempt to make a position that is hard for my largely good-terrain army to attack where his swordsmen or javelinmen have the advantage. In all honesty, if the terrain does fall substantially Gordon’s way it will be a tough ask to winkle him out and defeat him. Additionally, given the success of his shooting in the last game, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he doesn’t try to maximise his shooting capability and try the same tactic again.

As I need to take the offensive, and given the lack of many bad terrain troops in the Thematic Byzantine army list, I have decided to give up on any idea of contesting it, and have chosen an entirely mounted army (apart from one medium artillery unit). My plan will be to try to minimise the amount of such terrain so that there is both sufficient open ground for me to select a point of Gordon’s army to attack and to reduce places where Gordon may be able to to hide his army. 

Luckily, ADLG is fairly restrictive in where it allows terrain pieces to be placed, two-thirds will usually end up on the flanks and of the pieces that are successfully placed in the centre two-thirds of those will be placed on the table edges. Additionally by only choosing two terrain pieces I will have a good (two-thirds again) chance of moving/removing two pieces already placed by Gordon so I should end up with an open centre to the battlefield no matter how much Gordon tries to close things down.

I will try and use my medium cavalry bow Cursores and Alan mercenaries, backed up by the useful dual-armed Defensores lance and bow armed cavalry, to put shooting pressure on his forces in order to weaken them prior to charging in to crack his line open. If I can get some momentum going on at least part of Gordon’s forces I might just manage to gain a victory. If necessary I will also try to use the artillery unit to goad him into reacting.

If Gordon goes for the option of maximising his cavalry and bowmen life could get trickier, but it will be difficult for him to co-ordinate his foot with his mounted due to his limited command abilities, so my goal then will be to overwhelm the Slav cavalry separately from the infantry. If he gets lucky on his command rolls, like in the last game, I could find myself in trouble but when it comes to fighting a battle there are no certainties, risks have to be taken. The first clue as to Gordon's army composition will be how many areas of difficult terrain he chooses in the setup phase; I will react accordingly when I see.

That’s the plan!

The Battle

Terrain placement

Terrain ended up as below, two difficult hills, two woods, one marsh, one impassable area and one road. As usual I am on the left of the picture and Gordon is on the right. 

As I went with only two terrain pieces (the Impassable terrain and the road) as planned I had two attempts to move some terrain and did succeed in moving some of the woods to Gordon's rear where it would be a whole lot less useful. Gordon had tried to maximise the bad terrain on the table as I thought he might so my guess was that he hadn't gone too heavy on the cavalry component in his army.

I wasn't too unhappy about the end result, there was a large open area in the centre as I thought there would be plus nothing on Gordon's right where, because I had managed to move the wood to his base edge, he was going to be forced to place his camp. Consequently Gordon would also have to deploy at least some of his troops in that easily accessible open area to protect it, and that was all I was going to need to proceed with my plan. Mwahahaha!

Deployment

Deployment ended up as below, Gordon started with placing his camp where I suspected he would, just to the right of the woods - he had fortified it though; I placed my camp to the left of the marsh.

Gordon placed two ambush markers in the woods to the left of his line and then, as defender commences deployment, he placed his first command in front and to the right of his camp in the open - exactly what I wanted to see. It consisted of four units of medium swordsmen, two heavy cavalry units deployed forward and two light infantry units armed with javelins even further forward, so no bow armed units at all to out-shoot my mounted bow; so far so good.

I decided to place my entire army to the left of the swamp, calculating that I could comfortably fit it in the space given its small size. In order not to give the game away too soon though, and to keep Gordon guessing as long as possible, I started with the command immediately to the left of the swamp; so almost opposite Gordon's deployed command.

Gordon then announced that there were no further commands for him to place. Well that was a surprise. So he must have split one command between the ambushes and another had to be off-table performing a flank march. As Gordon had placed a command exactly where I wanted I decided that I would proceed with my deployment as planned, in fact seeing how Gordon had deployed his sole on-table command I was even more optimistic. 

My army consisted of three fairly equal commands mostly of heavy and medium cavalry, half dual armed lance and bow types and half just bow, each command also had one bow armed light horse unit. All the commands were commanded by a competent commander and the C-in-C also had a medium artillery unit.

Both Gordon's heavy cavalry and light infantry were deployed forward and ripe for plucking as it were, additionally they were separated where neither could support the other, was this a trap? I suspected that Gordon's flank march had to be on my left and that he had made it quite strong hoping it would arrive just as I exposed my left flank advancing on his camp - a replay of the 378 CE Battle of Adrianople perhaps!

So, as attacker I moved first, with only one visible enemy command on table I rotated one command to guard my left flank (the obvious place for a Sclaviniae flank march to arrive) and the other two commands advanced towards Gordon's on-table command. If it was going to be a trap, a la Adrianople, I decided to use my superior speed (compared to the Romans in that battle) and go for it full tilt. I considered that the pace of my advance should still win me the day and Gordon's set up looked too tempting for me to resist.

The only question in my mind was: When was Gordon going to reveal what was in the ambushes? Given that he could obviously see that my whole army was on the other flank and, as it was almost all cavalry, I was never going to enter the woods to spring the ambushes I suspected it was not going to be long. I was wondering too which of the non-deployed commands would turn out to be the ally, all presumably would be revealed in due time. To slow down any ambushing units, when Gordon chose to reveal them, I sent one light horse unit of bow-armed Bulgars off to sit in front of the woods and another, that had previously been in ambush behind the hill on my left, advancing up the road.

End of my first turn as below:

On Gordon's turn he rolled for the allied command and third command - both rolled a one! I didn't know which was which but it meant that either his flank march or ambushers, or both, weren't going to be getting involved any time soon. Gordon began to manoeuvre his on-table infantry to guard against a flank attack, his cavalry moved forward. End of Gordon's first turn as below:

In my turn, having noted that Gordon hadn't placed any ambushers, which he could have done even with rolling a one if that command weren't the now hesitant allies, I sensed an opportunity to end the game quickly. Either Gordon's allied command was in ambush or this was the greatest double bluff ever! I moved forward with my heavy cavalry and started shooting at Gordon's, which at this stage I could only see as a 'forlorn hope' attempt to slow my army down until his two wayward commands turned up. 

I sent my light horse on the road forward and across behind Gordon's cavalry. During the shooting phase I scored a hit on one Slav heavy cavalry unit significantly depleting its combat power.

End of my second turn as below:

In Gordon's turn he again failed to activate the hesitant allied command, even though he had spent command points prompting it, and then surprised me by announcing a charge by his heavy cavalry into my best units - my Tagmatic elite heavy cavalry, more in hope than expectation I thought. this was surely a sign of desperation on Gordon's part, which reinforced my belief that the command in ambush was the hesitant allied command. 

Given that one of Gordon's cavalry was already disordered, my cavalry were elite and Gordon's weren't and that mine also had Impact and flank support, I wasn't expecting that his cavalry would last long so decided to stand rather than evade. In the resulting melee combat, partly due to poor die rolling on Gordon's part but also due to the overwhelming odds, both of his cavalry were destroyed in one turn; clearly the game wasn't going Gordon's way. 

Having cleared the Slav cavalry out of the way, in my turn I pressed my advantage and advanced into bow range of Gordon's infantry, commencing to shoot as per my plan; scoring hits on both light infantry units. As he had chosen to go with the javelin option for his light infantry and I had stayed out of range they couldn't shoot back.

End of my third turn as below:

The position at the end of my fourth turn is as shown below. In Gordon's third turn he wasn't able to do much, he failed yet again on the allied command activation roll and lost one light infantry unit in the shooting phase but had succeeded in his flank march roll so it was due to arrive on-table next turn. Oddly it was coming on on his left edge rather than my left as I had feared, Gordon had had to make the decision prior to on-table deployment but even so given that all the woods were on that side it seemed an odd choice. However, no complaints by me as it meant I wouldn't have to worry about them turning up behind me.

In my turn I calculated that until the flank marching units arrived I only needed to score one more hit to destroy Gordon's on-table army and win the battle, an opportunity too good to miss so I charged in. Gordon evaded with the sole remaining light infantry unit so I contacted the three of his medium swordsmen that were lined up. 

Despite being up in all three combats (though Gordon threw in his commander in the centre to even that one up) Gordon finally began to get a bit of luck, so the first two combats I lost, but just in time I succeeded on the final roll; wiping out the medium swordsmen unit in the process with the help of the 'furious charge' of my Impact cavalry. Phew!

Gordon had deployed only nine on-table army points (including the four dead units and the fortified camp), the final result was 10-2 so it was the end of the game and a Byzantine win. 

So, Gordon had come up with a bold plan, one entire command in ambush and another on a flank march. In all fairness it may have worked, at least to some extent, but it relied on the one crucial die-roll so there was always that chance of disaster. If it had worked Gordon's army wouldn't have been defeated when it was, but that's the risk you take when you have allies or send units on a flank march, so possibly the plan was too dependent on a roll which it didn't need to be, it also meant coincidentally his deployment fell exactly the way I wanted for my plan to succeed.

Despite the nail-biting conclusion the result turned out to be an easy win for the Byzantines, my only disappointment being that I never got to fire with my artillery unit 😥.

Gordon's comments

 Pre-Game

Again I simply have to avoid losing. I let Alec win the bid. Mind you, I don’t fancy trying to win a game in forests with an army of cavalry, although they would be against an army of javelinmen and/or medium swordsmen. Both of those stand to die in droves against cavalry.

So, as the Slav alliance I need to maximise bad terrain, maximise units in ambush and hope for some high dice. I decide on the medium swordsmen option as javelinmen seem slightly more vulnerable in the open. I take five cavalry as well, to fill the gaps that will form in my front line. Will split into three commands: an ally with 6 swordsmen; two other commands with mainly swordsmen, a couple of cavalry and some light infantry and a bowman to perhaps annoy the Byzantine cavalry (or hide in terrain). 

The Deployment

Terrain didn’t help me, especially after Alec moved a wood so that I could not put my camp in a safe place.

The wide open right flank was an obvious place for Alec to deploy. So, I decided to put my potentially unreliable ally in ambush in the wood well away from any likely action and where there was pretty much no chance that Alec would activate it. Another command was sent on a flank march (unfortunately I wrote left flank rather than right flank – ooops!). The remaining command deployed in front of the camp.

The plan, such as it was, was to try to delay and hold until the rest of the army could move to support.

To no one’s surprise Alec deployed a cavalry army on the open right flank. 

The Game

Pretty much my worst performance, doomed from my botched deployment.

The Byzantine cavalry advanced.

My ally proved hesitant and did not activate during the very short game.

The flank march rolled to arrive in good time, but by then my two cavalry units had both died in their first rounds of combat and the Byzantines had destroyed one unit of warriors (although two others had held well). Given how few of my troops were on the table the losses broke me. 

Post-Game

No idea what I was thinking when I deployed. Given the terrain the only solution was to line up the warriors on my right flank, probably in two lines, and hope to withstand the cavalry charge and inflict enough losses on them to result in a slogging match without losing too many units to break the army. Or, sacrifice the camp and deploy the army in the woods and see how that worked. 

Result

 Byzantine win - two Prestige Points to the Manlii