Manlii v Julii Game 31

Game 31 – Roman Era 4: Late Republic

Triumvirate Roman (Alec 153 pts) v German: Cimbri with Gallic: Tigurini allies (Gordon 140 pts

Minor Defence 105 BCE (ADLG Std, 4-Oct-2023).

Battlefield Effects: Cimbri: Special adjustments 3 - Fear, and Quality & Cohesion variations 3 – Fragile morale

The Plan (penned in advance of the battle)

This is a Minor Defence by the Romans against their most feared enemies - the Germans. This battle represents the war against the Cimbri and their Celtic allies, the Tigurini, by the Romans after they had reformed their legions following several heavy defeats against the Cimbri and the Teutones in the preceding years. The Romans still were greatly in fear of the German giants who had invaded their lands hence they suffer from two fear related Battlefield Effects.

The Cimbri army rolled 140 points and I bid the lowest at 153 points so ended up playing the Romans; is a 13 point advantage going to be enough to fight off the hordes of impetuous barbarians? At least, as Gordon is going to be the attacker. I don’t need to be too aggressive until or if it suits me.

Given the small number of points and the requirement for the Germans to have a Gallic ally the minima will eat up the vast bulk of the points, Gordon’s only real choices are going to be whether to go with heavy foot or medium foot and how many to give Elite status to.

I have decided to go with a combined arms type army rather than just maximise the Legionary heavy swordsmen. I’m thinking that as I will most likely have to face a wave of impetuous hairy nutters it is advisable to try and disrupt their attack by the use of light troops to slow down their advance in some sectors, and have some cavalry to guard flanks.

In order to disrupt things further I have created a small command of three Numidian light horse led by an Ordinary Commander which I will either place in ambush somewhere or place on a flank march. If I can get behind the German/Gallic steam roller I may be able to pin some units and prevent them from attacking. Better yet, I may be able to take the German camp.

That’s the plan!

The Battle

 

Terrain and deployment

I went with three terrain pieces and Gordon two. After placement we ended up with two fields, two plantations and a gentle hill with all the bad terrain falling on my left.

I deployed one command in the centre and one on my right, my third command I sent on an off-table flank march around my right. My centrally deployed command consisted of three Ligurian medium swordsmen armed with two-handed weapons, two Numidian slingers, a Roman legionary heavy swordsman unit with armour and Impact but of mediocre quality plus one medium Spanish cavalry; all under a Brilliant commander. 

The command deployed to its right consisted of five Roman legionary units, two elite and three mediocre, three Numidian light infantry javelinmen and one Spanish cavalry under my family representative who was also Brilliant.

Gordon deployed two commands largely composed of German warband heavy swordsmen but also a couple of medium cavalry on his left and one Gallic command on his right composed of medium swordsmen and two heavy cavalry. 

I also deployed a fortified camp and Gordon and unfortified one.

See below with us ready to start. As usual my forces are deployed on the left of the pictures. Seeing Gordon deploy the Gallic command over on my left my concern was that he would delay advancing his Germans until the Gauls had swung around to threaten my left flank. As Gordon was the invader and would go first I would obviously have to wait to see what he would do in any case but if it looked like that was what he was planning I would have to be more aggressive on my right than I had originally planned.

Gordon's turn one, he thankfully advanced all along the line, as below:

My turn one is as below. Seeing that Gordon had advanced along the line I was happy that my plan was working. I rolled for the flank march and rolled a four which was fine as I didn't want it turning up quite yet; I wanted to maintain the fiction that it could be hidden in the ambushes until the flank march turned up.

My command rolls weren't great but in order to slow down the Gauls I advanced a unit of the Numidian slingers. Also, seeing a rather large gap between Gordon's German commands I moved a unit of cavalry forward, just to give him something to worry about if nothing else plus I advanced a couple of units of Numidian javelinmen forward. I figured that if I could break up the solidity of the German infantry in any way that would be advantageous.

In Gordon's turn he continued to advance. My tempting him with my light infantry worked, he charged them bringing his left wing close to my Roman troops as below. 

In the shooting phase one of my light infantry javelinmen scored the first hit of the game.

In my turn two my flank march arrival roll succeeded plus Gordon's right wing was still quite a way away so I decided that now was the time to advance to get in range of Gordon's left wing command; so I advanced the Legionaries. If I was to win this game I figured that now was the time to get up close and personal with a part of Gordon's troops, the obvious ones being his left flank where my flank march was going to turn up next turn. 

In addition, whilst Gordon had tried to narrow the gap between his two German commands there was still a gap wide enough for my Spanish cavalry to get through so I pushed it behind his infantry line. On my left I evaded with my Numidian slingers.

In the shooting phase another of my light infantry javelinmen scored another hit; the timing was perfect as I was hoping that I could taunt Gordon into launching a charge into my line in his next turn and warbands already carrying disorders are a lot less to be feared, especially by mediocre heavy swordsmen as below:

In Gordon's turn three he did indeed decide to charge in with impetuous swordsmen, before he suffered any more shooting hits. 

As he was about to make contact Gordon decided now was the time to allocate which Roman units suffered from the Fragile Morale Battlefield Effect, choosing two of my mediocre quality Roman Legionaries - indicated by the red flags. 

Unfortunately for Gordon, it has to be said, he suffered an unfortunate run of bad luck.  He was down in all four so it was never likely to be a great result for him but I don't think he rolled above a two in any of them; consequently all four combats were Roman wins.

Elsewhere Gordon managed a consolation win against my right wing Spanish cavalry managing to disorder it, see below:

In my turn my flank march turned up causing one of Gordon's German cavalry to flee. In the combat phase I managed to take down two of Gordon's units one being the remaining German cavalry and the other was fighting a Roman Legion that was suffering from Fragile Morale so it recovered.

See below:

In Gordon's turn four his position on his left and centre began to crumble, German units began falling over all over the place, as below:

In my turn, sensing victory I endeavoured to push Gordon's army over the edge as soon as possible. I charged in with the Ligurians in the centre nearly destroying one German unit, though the other bounced off.

In Gordon's turn he chased one of my Numidian slingers off the board and destroyed the other that had been gamely slowing down the Gallic allies, however, further along the line he continued to suffer.

In my turn I swung some Numidian light cavalry round to striking distance of Gordon's camp but it didn't matter, I pushed him over the army demoralisation level.

End of game position as below:

The end game result was 20 dead for the Germans (18 required) and 4 out of 20 for the Romans.

I was pleased with the way the game panned out, my game-plan largely succeeded as I envisaged it, helped by the lucky rolls in the first turn of contact, but then I was up in all those combats so really it would have been unlucky for me if I hadn't won or at least drawn most of them, Gordon's poor luck only hastened his army's demise.

Gordon's comments

 Pre-Game

The special battlefield effects could penalise the Romans heavily if used correctly. So I bid to be Germans.

I imagine a fair few legionaries and some cavalry. Could be a range of medium infantry for bad terrain. Quite a bit of choice of troops for the Romans. So, I basically looked to maximise the killing potential of the Germans and allied Gauls and maximise impetuous swordsmen with some cavalry to protect the flanks and a couple of light infantry to provide some shielding against missiles.

I closed down flanks and an otherwise open ground to get there quickly without disorder. 

The Deployment

Terrain sort of covered my right flank and provided what could be useful cover for any medium infantry Alec has chosen. I put my medium Gauls on the right and the heavy Germans on the left and in the centre.

Alec deploys a lot of legions and some intriguing Ligurians with 2HCW (I assume there is an image in a museum somewhere of a probable Ligurian holding an axe). However, he deploys only two commands. The third command is unlikely to be large given the number of units elsewhere in his line. But, they might be hiding in the right flank terrain or be a flank attack. This is irritating.

I plan to perform a right hook (even an ambush shouldn’t be stronger than my Gauls) and slowly advance to threaten the main Roman line. 

The Game

However, when Alec rolls for a flank arrival I panic somewhat. It was light horse, and unlikely to be many of them, but it threw me. I could not practically protect my camp from them. So, I determined to get stuck into the legions and hope to win a couple of first round combats to get the furious charge and maybe knock a hole through the mediocre legions. A bit hopeful, but as noted I panicked (only a little bit, but enough to lose the game).

Anyway, Alec’s light infantry held up my right hook beautifully, His light troops in the centre disordered my main line before it charged. I won two out of the 15 to 20 combats (the odds weren’t good in most of them but there were a lot of 1s and 2s rolled on my side).

By the time my right hook had finally beaten two light infantry I had lost. 

Post-Game

My deployment could have worked. If I had responded more rationally to the invisible Roman command I could have held the German commands back until the right hook was in a good position to help. Although, they might have ended up getting tied up in the rough. Only when the flank attack rolled for arrival was that not a potential outcome. Mind you, the flank attack arrived early so I could still have worked with that plan.

Result

Roman victory - one Prestige Point to the Manlii