Late Imperial Romans at Koblenz

[LawrenceG1]

Late Imperial Romans at the Worlds, 2014, Kobenz

This year “The Worlds” DBMM was restricted to Book 2 dates. My army was Late Imperial Roman, 407 AD, Western in Gaul. This date and location corresponds to the army Constantine III brought out of Britain, though I'm not sure how closely it corresponds to the composition he might have had.

CinC RLHS, 12  WbO  (Goths) , 4  BdO, 4 BdX (Legionaries with heavy clubs), 2 RPsO (supporting Bd), 5 ILHS (Alan Mercenaries) - 28 ME
Sub RCvO, 6  RLHO, 3  RCvO, 3 RKnF, 2 RPsS – 24 ME
Sub RCvO, 5  RAxS (Auxilia Palatina), 5 RAxO (Border Auxilia), 4 RPsO (Supporting Auxilia), 1 RPsS, 2 RArtF – 20 ME
Army baggage 6 RBgeO – 12 ME

The general idea is for the CinC to have the high dice and do most of the fighting. The mounted command supports as best it can, but isn't strong enough to be the primary battle-winner. The auxilia command takes the low dice to hold a flank and can afford to lose all the half ME elements, while the general manoeuvres the artillery behind the rest of the army to pick on any suitable targets. The army has the antidote to everything*, but it can be difficult to coordinate all the different tactical elements. I had used it the previous week at BRITCON, where I had had a loss, three draws and two wins. Could I do any better here?

(* TBH it's not that good against Light Horse armies or huge irregular armies)

Game 1 versus Norbert Bausch, Early German, Cherusci

The Germans invaded and placed a rocky hill in the middle of each long table edge. I put down a steep hill, a marsh and a wood, which were spread out along the centreline with the aim of breaking up the enemy warband into manageable chunks that would expose their flanks as they came past the difficult going.

I deployed the mounted command on the left and CinC in the centre, mostly on the rocky hill. These two commands were between the steep hill and the wood. My Auxilia were on the right, mostly between the wood and the marsh, but partly behind the wood and in the marsh, which was next to the table edge. Norbert put a command of Wb(F) and (S) and one psiloi behind the wood, but angled to aim at the marsh. Most of the command was in column, Wb(S) at the back. A Chatti ally of Wb(S) with 1 cavalry was to the left of the wood with three psiloi behind the wood. The CinC's command was to the left of this, Wb(S) next to the Chatti, then Wb(F),  then a line of Cavalry with psiloi behind, all facing the steep hill. I came to the conclusion that I would have to take the wood and use it to assail the flanks of the Sub and Ally commands and then finish off the ally using my mounted troops from the front and legionaries from the flank once it got past the wood. The Auxilia command would be busy so I gave them the high PIP dice, CinC the middle and Cavalry the low.



On my first bound I moved the Auxilia in column into the wood, whereupon Norbert revealed an ambush of 8 Wb(F). However, it was too close to the centre line so he took all the figures off and put them back in the box. I thought this was a harsh sanction, so called our illustrious umpire, Neil Fox, to come up with a more appropriate penalty. He said put them on the rear table edge behind the wood, which was the standard way of dealing with this situation in DBM. What Neil didn't know, and I only discovered a bit later, was that these warband were from the CinC's command and out of their command rectangle. If I had thought about the significance of this, I probably would have suggested to Norbert that he move them across so they were in the CinC's rectangle, but I didn't.

Issues with the ambush having been resolved, I began preparing the rest of the army to receive the Cherusci attack.

Norbert advanced with the CinC's and allied infantry, then moved his CinC's cavalry behind the ally. The subgeneral, with low PIPs, could only advance towards the marsh. The ambush party spontaneously advanced towards the wood.



The battle near the marsh began with some desultory combat between the Alans, that had moved into the space where the auxilia had started, and the Cherusci warband, while some psiloi were engaged by Auxilia in the wood. My attempt to hold up the enemy CinC was only partially successful and cost some LH destroyed and spent. Some of the Chatti, however, outran the supporting cavalry and exposed their flank.



After that it was a case of both of us spending our PIPs on attacking as best we could in the melees occurring all over the table. The artillery managed to destroy one element of warband by shooting, then got charged down, along with an element of clubmen that I had helpfully moved into the zone of death. Most of the ambush party was eliminated when it charged into the wood, but this diverted my PIPs and troops from concentrating on the other two commands. Things got very messy  in the area of the marsh and both sides suffered losses. The Roman heavy mounted, with the low PIP dice, were exchanging knights for warband, while the light horse and psiloi were gradually outflanked and destroyed, leading to the loss of that command. The Chatti allies were disheartened, but time ran out before I could break them. 11-14 in the German's favour.




Game 2 versus Carlos Duecker Benfer, Han Chinese

The Chinese invaded and the terrain was two woods on the left table edge, a rocky hill on my rear table edge, towards the left, with a difficult hill in front of it, a marsh in the middle of my rear table edge and a BUA half way along the right table edge. The battle was fought mostly in the open.



I deployed CinC in the centre, Cavalry on the right (next to the BUA) with the light horse in front and the auxilia on and near the hills. Carlos deployed double based BwX opposite my auxilia and positioned so they could advance past the difficult hill, cavalry and light horse in columns facing the hill, and a large command of cavalry, light horse, psiloi and knight chariots facing my warband and cavalry.

I started by moving the warband across to face the BwX. Carlos responded with three sixes for his PIPs, redeploying his BwX behind the difficult hill and replacing them with his mounted troops from behind the hill. Initial skirmishing near the BUA left my command broken up into a number of groups, but the Chinese had not advanced very far. 



Despite the early loss of  light horse, my mounted command gained the upper hand on the right, aided by the Alan superior light horse advancing to fight their fast Chinese opposite numbers. However, my first knight charge resulted in two knights recoiled and one destroyed. The Chinese chariots, rather than taking on the Alans backed up by the clubmen, moved to a safe position behind the other Chinese cavalry command. These cavalry and the warband advanced towards each other and if I remember correctly, the artillery did some damage with overhead shooting. The Auxilia occupied the end of the hill and the Chinese bowmen moved up to shoot them off it. The Chinese also brought some more cavalry out of ambush in the woods, but they never got close enough to affect the battle.



The sideways withdrawal of the Chinese knights left a big hole that the Alans could exploit. However, they made heavy weather of doing any further damage and the second of the Roman knights was destroyed. The last knight started killing things, however, and the warband managed to put to flight the Chinese cavalry on the left, albeit only temporarily.



The melees continued with casualties on both sides. Eventually the large Chinese command was disheartened and the Roman cavalry command was almost, but not quite, disheartened too. The Roman CinC's command had lost several elements, as had the Chinese second cavalry command, but time ran out before anything more could happen. 13-12 to the Romans.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 3 versus Juergen Bohn, Chin Chinese.

The Chinese invaded and selected two gentle hills and two open fields, all 1 FE. I placed a large marsh on the left, in Jurgen's half of the table and a small one on the right, slightly forward of my rear table edge and about 5 ME in from the right side edge. The two gentle hills fell at the front of the Chinese deployment area, so I would have to attack either through the big marsh or up the hills.

I deployed the Auxilia close to the large marsh, CinC central and cavalry command with five of the light horse forward, the two psiloi in the small marsh and the rest of the command well to the rear to act as a reserve. Juergen deployed three commands each containing five BwX/BwO double bases. Two of them also had five knight chariots including generals and the had other four cavalry. There were also some psiloi at the back and an element of artillery on the central hill, and quite a few hordes, mostly protecting the baggage. The BwX were mostly in columns and the knights were at the back, the cavalry was on the right. Two hordes were deployed as march blockers near the large marsh.



I moved the auxilia forward to attack the hordes as once they were out of the way I would have clear path around the flank of the Chinese army for the Alans to exploit. The warband had no BwX in front of them, so I shifted them to the right and threw a couple of legionaries forward as march blockers. The Roman light horse headed further over to the right. The Chinese responded with a general move to the right as fast as they could, so I started moving my cavalry reserve to the left as there was no point in trying to fight BwX with them. My artillery had moved up to cover the hill, but the Chinese stayed behind the crest.



The situation crystallised out with the two armies facing each other diagonally across the table. My Auxilia were opposed by knights uphill, but I had the Alans, the Roman heavy cavalry and some legionary clubmen in the area. The Goths and legionaries were facing BwX/O double elements uphill, with knights in reserve. My right flank was wide open, with the bulk of the Chinese foot about to wrap around it. The Chinese cavalry were on the extremer right chasing the Roman light horse around the small marsh.



I had allowed the warband to creep forward within bowshot of the hill, so the Chinese came over the crest. Rather than stand there and be shot up, I decided it was better to charge. Low PIPs assisted this decision, but meant that the Alans had to spontaneously advance to the Chinese rear table edge instead of swarming around the Chinese flank. Meanwhile the Chinese infantry swarmed around my right flank. The blades and warband, supposedly the antidote to BwX/O double bases, killed none of them. The double ranked psiloi holding the end of the Chinese line manfully resisted the charge of the Roman light horse. Odd elements of Roman auxilia advanced up the hill to distract the Chinese chariots and the Roman heavy cavalry moved up behind the warband.



Over the next few bounds the chinese artillery moved up to the crest and started lobbing bolts over the melee into my reserves. My legionaries were eliminated by a combination of knights coming through the archers and flank attacks and the Goths also suffered some losses. One of the Chinese chariots was drawn down the hill to where I could hit it with a BdX in the front and a subgeneral in the rear. I move my CinC in to provide an overlap. What I hadn't realised was that this made my CinC a target for the  Chinese artillery. The result of the shot was a “Flee”, but another thing I hadn't realised was that my other subgeneral was preventing the CinC from completing his recoil. CinC destroyed and his command broken.




In the next bound, one of the broken Goths managed to beat his BwX opponent (the only time I beat a Bw X in the whole game), but it was the enemy bound so the bowmen just recoiled. This brought us up to the time limit, so it was a 10-15.


Game 4 versus Thomas Kimmerle, Seleucid.

After three draws, two of them losing, I concluded that I needed to do something radically different to get a decisive result. I decided to flank march.

The Seleucids invaded. I set up the Auxilia and the CinC's commands between a large marsh and a BUA so my flanks were secure and flank marched with the cavalry. The Seleucids set up partly on a gentle hill and in six bounds rolled over my army from the front with successive waves of scythed chariots, catphracts, fast knight wedges and elephants. 2-23, a decisive result, but not the one I was after. 

Before



After

[LawrenceG1]

Game 5 versus Valerio Toscani, Alexandrian Imperial.

The Macedonians invaded, and having been reminded in the previous game that Hellenistic armies were not very wide, I selected the minimum of terrain, with the result that the battle was fought on a flat and open field. Alexander had to deploy first and set up a large (34 ME) mounted command of companions, light horse, cavalry and a few psiloi on the left and a large (35 ME) foot command of phalangites, auxilia(O) and psiloi on the right. A small command of 6 psiloi, 1 artillery, 2 Thracians and a general were to the rear of the main foot command, angled out to the right. I matched up mounted against mounted, heavy foot against the phalanx and auxilia against the light troops of the phalanx command.



Valerio started by moving most of his mounted out to the left and wheeled six light horse forward to skirmish against mine. The psiloi facing my auxilia moved out to the right and the Thracians came forward. I moved the clubmen across to where the companions would be later on and everything else forward to attack as quickly as possible. Thanks to some good combat dice rolls,  within a few bounds I had knocked out four enemy light horse and disheartened the phalanx command for the loss of one element of light horse.



However, the Macedonian mounted troops fought back and had soon destroyed two of the Roman knights and another light horse. The Romans managed to kill another light horse element and one of cavalry and the Goths broke the phalanx. With the phalanx in rout and clubmen and Alans closing in on the Companions, Valerio was ready to concede, but I pointed out that he now had a good chance of breaking my cavalry command. He decided to play on, broke my cavalry and then conceded as the Alans and clubmen were about to put in flank and rear attacks on Alexander and several of the Companions. 16-9 to the Romans, thanks mainly to my good dice and Valerio's decision not to use his many psiloi to screen the phalanx from the warband.




Game 6 versus Rolf Linke, Sassanid Persian

I invaded and put down an enclosed field and two small orchards, all of which fell in the enemy half of the table, along with a BUA and a gentle hill placed by my opponent. When it came to deployment, Rolf had forgotten that the fields were enclosed and deployed the cavalry of his central  command in them. This command also had six fast light horse, to the left of the fields.  Further to the left were more cavalry, with Dailami and psiloi in an orchard. To the right were  more cavalry and cataphracts and further to the right, near the hill, was a small command of Alan allies, all light horse. Hordes guarded the camp.  I deployed my CinC's command opposite the cataphracts, auxilia opposite the fields and the cavalry command as a second line across the full width of the army.

Rolf immediately moved the Sassanid light horse and the cavalry from the Dailami command to go around my left flank. The central cavalry emerged from the fields and the cataphract command sent forward a couple of cavalry as march-blockers. The Alans were unreliable.



I advanced everywhere and started shifting the Roman light horse across to the left to fight the Sassanid light horse. The Roman cavalry moved right to provide a reserve against the enemy Alans. Meanwhile my own Alans attacked the enemy march-blockers and destroyed one, but also lost an element. The engagement began in front of the fields.

The Sassanids then advanced everywhere and their Alans joined in, knocking out another one of my Alans. Casualties were mounting, slowly, in front of the fields and I had to commit the subgeneral to combat.



The Cataphracts charged and killed several warbands, but this allowed the legionary clubmen in the second line to move forward and four elements of cataphracts were destroyed in the counter-attack. Another died soon afterwards, breaking the command.



However, the enemy Alans then managed to wipe out the rest of mine, disheartening my Cinc's command. The melee in front of the fields got hotter as the Dailami command piled in and the two light horse forces clashed on the flank. I had the advantage of O versus F, but the disadvantage of one of my psiloi getting in the way and the middle dice general trying to control not only the light horse, but also cavalry on the opposite side of the field and  knights filtering through the auxilia to engage the cavalry in front.  Eventually I killed enough light horse and cavalry to break the second Sassanid command, though I had lost nearly 20% of my army. 22-3 to the Romans.




Overall a loss, three draws and two wins was no improvement on the BRITCON performance.  Since the Worlds I have used the army at the Derby World Teams competition (1 win, 2 draws, 1 loss). The army does give interesting games and a respectable mid-table finish in a tournament, but it's not a tournament winner, at least in my hands. Time to try something else.


Lawrence Greaves