Late Imperial Romans at BRITCON 2014

[LawrenceG1]

Late Imperial Romans at BRITCON 2014.

Not all the Late Romans, mainly the ones I was using.

A couple of years ago I thought it might be possible to enhance my Late Romans into a super-army by adding some Gothic warband and  Legionaries with heavy clubs, so I bought and painted the required figures. For the warband I used an assortment of Germanics plus a few Roman Auxilia figures to keep them in order. The Bd(X) were legionary standard bearers with scratch-built clubs. All the figures were from the old Donnington ranges, now “Ancient and Modern”. The army now had Warband to take out Bw(S) and dismounted knights, Bd(X) for mounted knights, Ax(S) for terrain, Art(F) for elephants and war wagons, Bd(O) to be generally tough, Knights for cavalry, Cavalry for light horse and quite a lot of light horse of its own. I tested it out against a Burgundian Ordonnance army and it lost every game. That year I took the Burgundians to the Worlds/CANCON and the Late Romans retired to the back of the army cupboard, although they did put in an appearance in their “Patrician” incarnation with the warband on sabot bases posing as Foederati irregular auxilia.

This year the Worlds was restricted to Book 2 dates, so I thought I might dig the LIR army out again and use it for that.  I gave them a try-out in the one-day book 2 competition at Milton Keynes. As a result of that experience I felt they had potential, but I would need quite a few more games under my belt to really get the hang of them. Over the next few months I tweaked the composition but had limited opportunities to play actual games. I hoped that by taking them to BRITCON I would be able to get enough experience with the army that I might be reasonably competent with it when I got to the Worlds.

The Final list 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, 4 BdO, 4 BdX, 2 RPsO (supporting Bd), 5 ILHS  - 28 ME
Sub RCvO, 6 RLHO, 3 RCvO, 3 RKnF, 2 RPsS – 24 ME
Sub RCvO, 5 RAxS, 5 RAxO, 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.

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



Game 1 versus Greg Mann, Seleucid

I defended. Significant terrain was a large gentle hill at my rear right, a large marsh at Greg's rear right and a small boggy flat in the middle of the table, just in Greg's half. I decided to try the unexpected, so put my mounted command next to the marsh, the Auxilia on the open flank to hold the hill and the CinC in the centre.

Greg's commands were:
8 Ps (in the marsh), 8 KnF including CinC, 4 LH and an elephant next to it;
8 Pk and 4 Hd behind the knights above;
6 AxS in a single rank in the bog, 5 Knight wedges to (my) right of it, 1 Ps and 1 El behind;
4 PkS 1 LHF and 4 Hd  opposite the gentle hill.

The elephants were at the back, far out of artillery range.



It was obvious that the central bog would be key terrain. I could have simply charged it with the warband that were in front of it, but I decided to try getting more of the blades into this fight on the basis that they would be more effective against AxS in the long run. I also wanted to get some warband out towards the knights in order to break them up at low cost in ME so the clubmen could pick them off. This rearrangement delayed my attack for 1-2 bounds.

Greg rushed his PkO command forward and expanded them in front of his knights to pin my LH and cavalry and protect the flank of his psiloi that also rushed forward (unopposed) in the marsh. He also advanced with the PkS, backed them up with a few knights from the CinC's command and moved the knight wedges outside the flank of the PkS. I moved the Alan Mercenaries (LHS) onto the hill to oppose the wedges. The auxilia had to advance off the hill to support the flank of the CinC's command.



There then followed a rather interesting fight. On the left, the combination of pike from the front and psiloi from the flank was gradually logorating my mounted command, while a light horse and knight melee raged behind the pikes, with casualties on both sides.



On the right, the combination of PkS and knights broke my auxilia command and the knights were able to pull back behind the pikes before I could get the LHS into them. In the centre, my heavy foot were steadily wearing down the Seleucid thureophoroi. Try as I might, I couldn't get any BdX into contact with any knights.



Eventually I wiped out all the thureophoroi and was able to get a good hit on the knight wedges with the LHS and broke that command. However, things were getting pretty desperate next to the marsh with both sides' mounted commands disheartened. I was in a worse position, exposed to many hard flank and rear attack opportunities. In a do-or-die attack I threw my cavalry general into a light horse and a knight next to him into a knight. If the general destroyed his opponent, the knight would get the benefit of the +1 bonus, an overlap  and the opponent's F grading factor for a good chance to win the game.



The general got the desired result, but the knight didn't. Greg counterattacked with his general, killed mine and broke my army.  7-18

Greg's victory was, of course, due to his cheesy use of single ranked pike and nothing to do with a better deployment plan, manoeuvre scheme, or the masses of knights backing up the pikemen.


Game 2 versus Steve Rathgay, Ugaritic

I have played Steve a couple of times and he generally has a trick or two up his sleeve. In this case his first trick was to place a  wood in the centre front of my deployment area. Other terrain was another wood at his rear left, a marsh in the middle of the (my) left table edge and a rocky hill in the middle of Steve's deployment area.

I deployed my auxilia near the marsh and the CinC's command in the front of the wood, ready to move out in a single move. This meant I couldn't deploy in as much depth as I normally would. My mounted command was on the right.
Steve deployed a command of psiloi and cavalry chariots on and around the rocky hill, angled back and anchored on the table edge, and a command of CvS and KnO chariots between the hill and the wood, with a few psiloi in the woods and in reserve. The gap between the hill and marsh was suggestive of a delayed command and the general lack of troops suggested there was also a flank march.



I would have to use the auxilia to kill the psiloi on the hill, so I gave that command the middle dice and the mounted command the low one. The CinC used the high dice to wheel the heavy foot towards the enemy chariots and feed the BdX and LHS generally towards the enemy knights, which were moving out to my right. Once the Auxilia were more or less in position, I switched dice so the mounted command would have the middle dice once combat was joined. The auxilia wouldn't need PIPs as the enemy psiloi would charge impetuously down the hill onto them and then be pursued up it. The artillery would not be able to see the psiloi among the rocks to shoot them, so wheeled towards the centre in the hope of getting some shots in at chariots over the heads of the warband and blades. Careful observation of the 5's on Steve's PIP dice told me that neither of the missing commands was delayed. Steve used the time to arrange his line as well as he could to avoid overlaps and flank contacts and reinforced the rocky hill with his reserve psiloi.



Eventually my knights charged the CvS and the LHS charged the KnO with overlaps. I lost a knight and the only combat I won was a CvS destroyed by my cavalry. In the ensuing melee, I lost a blade and the remaining knights in exchange for two more CvS. In the centre I was slowly losing warband to the cavalry chariots and a knight that I hadn't noticed earlier.



Meanwhile the first flank march had arrived and reached the Roman camp. In my next bound the loss of a blade + psiloi to the CvS's dreaded “+1 if scoring higher than foot in an enemy bound” exposed my cavalry general to a front-and-flank attack, which duly dispatched him, breaking the mounted command. Steve had had low PIPs so had to leave himself open to a number of good quick-killing counter-attacks, which might have broken his knight command. However, time was called and, even if we had played on, his other flank march of countless CvS chariots was now on, so I wouldn't have lasted much longer. 



Steve's double flank march was probably a mistake, but my inefficient use of the auxiliaries and then poor combat dice meant I failed to take proper advantage of it and in the end I was lucky to get away with a draw at 10-15. And I still haven't kicked the habit of attacking up enemy-held hills, which I seem to find myself doing with distressing regularity.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 3 versus David Houston, Lydian

I defended, but David had to deploy first. All significant terrain was roughly along the centreline, but in Davids half of the table. There was a large marsh on the left and two small boggy flats on the right.

The Lydians filled the table with a thin front line of ordinary auxilia and an assortment of psiloi, plus some wardogs (classed as WbF) on my left, near the marsh. In reserve were light horse in all three commands, plus CvO chariots on the left, knights in the centre and more knights on the right, behind the boggy areas. Having learned from the first game, I set up the legionaries to attack the auxilia in the rough going, with warband behind and left of them, clubmen and Alan LHS further behind. My mounted command was to the right and the auxilia were to the left, mostly facing psiloi, but didn't stretch quite as far as the marsh so the flank was rather dangling in mid air.



Not surprisingly David attacked around this flank, while I attacked in the centre, my mounted command protecting the flank of the legionaries, but also posing a threat to a couple of auxilia in the open between the two bogs. I moved a couple of the Alans through the Goths to kill enemy psiloi and held the others in reserve. 

David's combat dice were poor where he had the advantage, and where I had the advantage they were equally poor, so I had soon destroyed many of the enemy skirmishers on the centre-left, while the Lydian attack on my left flank was somewhat stalled.



The Alans, after dispatching the enemy psiloi, exploited their opportunities to create further mayhem, the Lydians slowly continued their logoration of the Roman auxilia comand and the legionaries finally came to grips with the enemy holding the bog. Artillery shots caused one light horse element to flee.



Once the legionaries had gained the advantage, the Roman mounted command piled in to help. Some of the Goths followed up the Alans, charging forward towards the enemy knights. The Roman auxilia continued to attack to their front, while pulling back on their flank.



The bog fell to the Romans and a mass of warband, Blade(X) and those Alans that had been held in reserve soon destroyed enough knights to break the Lydian central command. However, the Roman left had crumbled, with Lydian troops charging down the artillery and war dogs well on their way to the camp. The Roman mounted command was making heavy weather of finishing the defenders of the other bog. They lost both of their own psiloi and the general resorted to dismounting as an Auxiliary(S) in an attempt to kill the Lydian psiloi. This Lydian command was close to becoming disheartened and the mounted component withdrew.



The Roman Auxilia broke, but had enough PIPs to halt most of the surviving troops. The wardogs reached the camp and disheartened it. The remaining Lydian foot on the right survived well enough to prevent their command from being disheartened. The Roman CinC had collected some Alan light horse and chased the Lydian mounted troops into the corner, warband and clubmen following. Then, with 4 PIPs, a Lydian knight and three light horse turned round and attacked. The knight caused his opponent to flee and the light horse killed my remaining three light horse, including the general. This disheartened the command. Luckily the time limit prevented me from seizing defeat from the jaws of victory. Losses were 38% to 42% which with disheartened commands gave me a 13-12.



In this game I suspect I would have been better off deploying the mounted on the left and auxilia on the right. I had some luck early on, but I must be more cautious when chasing undisheartened enemy that appear to be withdrawing.



Game 4 versus Peter Kershaw, Early Asiatic Successor (Demetrius)

I defended and the significant terrain was a sea on the right with a small boggy flat next to it, just my side of the centreline, and a large marsh in the far left corner. I deployed the auxilia near the bog, but not too close to the sea so that it would not be too vulnerable to a naval attack. The CinCs command was in the centre and the mounted next to the marsh. Peter put his phalanx behind the bog but at an angle to advance past it, a mounted command of knight wedges, cavalry and light horse, bolt shooters, an artillery boat and a couple of psiloi between the phalanx and the sea and a command of elephants, light horse, peltasts (Ax(O) and psiloi between the phalanx and the marsh.

It seemed to me that my CinC would have a relatively simple job – just wheel the warband to face the phalanx and let them go, while my mounted could just advance straight ahead and ride down the enemy light foot. I therefore averaged my two high PIP dice between the CinC and mounted commands. As soon as I rolled my first bound PIPs of 3 (becoming 2) ,2,1 I realised this was a mistake as I didn't have enough to both wheel the warband and control the Alan light horse. I advanced the warband and blades and formed the Alans into column. The other two commands also advanced.

 
This picture shows the situation after the first pair of bounds.

My second bound PIPs were 2,2,1 but this time I could wheel the warband (and legionaries) and let the Alan column make a spontaneous advance. However, a couple of the blades had to be left behind because the Alans were in the way at the time of the wheel. By the end of Peter's second bound, he had switched the auxilia to the right, the mounted troops to the left and moved the central lighthorse forward to cover the flank of the phalanx. The elephants stayed at the back, out of reach of  my artillery.



The next phase of the battle was characterised by jockeying for position. I tried to outflank Peter's cavalry by sending light horse through the marsh. He countered with some psiloi that had been left behind when the auxilia switched flanks. I thought it would be better to use my Alan light horse against the enemy light horse that were facing off most of the warband, rather than fight against cavalry, so I pulled them back and put them behind the warband with a view to interpenetrating later. However, this blocked the shots of my artillery. I moved my knights across to face Peter's cavalry. The warband and legionaries crept forward, but the BdX got left behind. Peter's artillery blasted my troops out of the bog and his peltasts came forward to exploit the space. With my artillery obscured, he took the opportunity to move the elephants behind the light horse screen to face my warband. I moved the psiloi from the mounted command towards the centre to counter the elephants.



The fight in the centre now got going with warband versus light horse and one very deep column of warband engaging the end of the phalanx. Some of the Alans got involved, then the elephants. The peltasts engaged the Roman auxilia in the bog and in front of the phalanx and one legionary element got embroiled in this, pushing his opponent and all the phalangites behind him back a considerable distance. The column of warbands was steadily eroded as it lost every combat against the pikemen . I pulled some of the Alans back to allow the artillery to shoot at the elephants, destroying one element. Psiloi that I had been feeding in from the wings destroyed another.



Next to the marsh, neither of us had felt strong enough to attack yet and Peter had actually pulled back some of his cavalry out of range of my knights. However, I finally managed to get some BdX across there, which should have given me the edge later on. The warband, despite heavy losses, had managed to open up the centre to some extent and I had reserves there, while Peter did not. On the other hand my CinC's command was quite badly beaten up and still fighting the phalanx and the flank of my auxiliaries was open with nothing to oppose substantial numbers of enemy peltasts and psiloi. Alas, time ran out before much else could happen. 12-13.

My main problem in this game was the PIP assignment, which led to my second mistake – moving the Alans in front of the artillery after I had lined up the artillery to shoot at the enemy light horse and elephants. I should have kept them in reserve and used them to support the mounted command.

[LawrenceG1]

Game 5 versus William Coughlan, Seleucids

I invaded and the significant terrain was a difficult hill on the left table edge (serving only to narrow the field), a gentle hill on the right table edge and an orchard in the middle. All were near the centreline and in Willie's half of the table.

The Seleucids set up behind the line of terrain with a Phalanx between the gentle hill and orchard, a column of auxilia and psiloi plus a column of elephants and knight wedges behind the orchard, a column of knights to the right of the phalanx and some light horse (ordinary and fast) behind the gentle hill. Two artillery and two psiloi were behind the phalanx. I put the Alans opposite the light horse, Goths and legions opposite the phalanx, auxilia opposite the orchard and mounted command to the left of the orchard facing nothing.



Willie used his early bounds to redeploy the pike to the left, knights from the right to the centre and knight wedges from the left to the right. I advanced towards where all the knights were going, adjusting formation to suit the new threat, and sent a couple of psiloi into the orchard in the hope of interfering with the column of pikemen as it went past.



Half of the phalanx deployed to pin the psiloi, the other half was able to advance towards my cavalry,which was trying to switch wings, and prevent some of it from marching. My CinC engaged the Seleucid knights and light horse, resulting in the Alans losing an element and exposing themselves to flank and rear attack opportunities.



The Seleucid light horse counter attacked and destroyed two more Alan elements, but one hero threw off all attackers. A less heroic element was able to withdraw behind the warband and wait for the cavalry to arrive. Some Goths and legionaries fell to knightly charges.



More and more troops were fed into the fight and now it was the knights that were dying. Meanwhile the surrounded heroic Alans continued their unstoppable advance.



However, the Seleucids had plenty more knights and now they threw a general into the fray. They had more than enough quick-kill chances to disheatern my CinC's command and succeeded in destroying the Heroic Alans (front, rear and an overlap), a BdX and a warband. However, some Goths and BdX fended off their attackers (complete with general's kill bonus), saving the command. The victorious Seleucid general had pursued into a double-overlap, which he could ignore, being a wedge. I had the choice of attacking him with BdX for a quick kill but no overlaps, or my CinC (LHS) for a slow kill, but with overlaps and S vs F grading. I sent the CinC in and he just managed the required score to double his opponent. That broke one Seleucid command. Other kills and the 2 ME penalty broke the other for a 23-2 victory to the Romans.



In this game I felt I got the deployment right, though the Seleucids redeployed with the ease that I was becoming accustomed to. I made a mistake in not shadowing the Knight Wedges as soon as they started switching flanks. This allowed Willie to use his pikemen to stop my mounted troops from marching. They would have been very useful arriving a couple of bounds earlier. Luckily the knight killing power and survivability of the CinC's command was able to do the job almost unassisted, despite the Alans being largely frittered away. I don't recall the artillery killing anything, but they did cause the elephants to move well away from the fighting.

Game 6 versus Thom Richardson, Late Imperial Roman (Eastern)

The eastern emperor seems to have taken exception to his counterpart and invaded the west. Terrain was a 2 FE marsh in the centre of Thom's table edge, with a gentle hill to the left of it, both extending close to the centreline. Another gentle hill and a bog were in the front left sector of my table edge. Both of us decided to fight to the (my) left of the marsh so other terrain was irrelevant.

I deployed the auxilia opposite the marsh, legions and Goths opposite the plain, mounted command opposite the enemy's gentle hill, partly in the boggy flat. Thom deployed his auxilia command in the marsh, in a single rank. This command also contained one element of camel-mounted scouts which was to the right of the marsh. His centre consisted of 8 BdO legionaries and 8 Gothic warband, positoned on the plain and on the hill with supporting psiloi and Artillery(F) behind, plus 4 light horse extending the line to the edge of the hill. At the back of the hill was a command of Gothic knights, cataphracts and hun mercenaries. The easterners had a fortified camp, so I provided my Goths with scaling ladders, just in case.



In the early moves I didn't fancy “Warband lottery” so formed the Goths into column and moved them left to redeploy opposite the enemy legionaries that were mostly on the hill. My knights moved to the right to face the enemy's waband. However, Thom formed his gothic foot into a column next to the marsh, opposite some of my legionaries and this meant that the Eastern legions shifted sideways to face my knights and created a space for his knights to charge down the hill into my warband (some of whom pre-empted this by spontaneously charging up the hill). After a bit of forward and backward skirmishing, all our light horse was concentrated on the left. The camels tried to get around my right flank, but I had enough PIPs to pin them with some auxilia, which neutralized any immediate threat. It was low PIP dice versus low PIP dice here so not a lot was going to happen. I tried to filter my club-wielding legionaries across to oppose Thom's knights, but somehow separated them into four single elements that would be short of PIPs. However, I was able to get some psiloi-supported auxilia palatina in front of the big column of hostile Gothic infantry.



The fight on the hill was bloody with 6 Western Gothic foot being exchanged for 2 Eastern Gothic knights. I now had some BdX in the front line, but they were facing light horse and a cavalry general. The Eastern Roman light horse had tried to seize the small gentle hill on my left, but PIP shortage left them on the front slope, down which my Alans charged, wiping out three elements at a stroke. The Huns held position on the front of the other hill, not willing to come forward and expose their flanks, while I kept my light horse and cavalry back outside the Huns' charge range. The rest of the field was relatively quiet apart from some ineffective bolt shooting from behind the Eastern army.



Casualties on both sides continued to mount in the fight on the central hill. The infantry lines clashed near the marsh and the Huns advanced impetuously off the hill and were hit by my cavalry and light horse, suffering a number of losses. Both of the Easterners' main commands became disheartened.



More reserves were thrown in. Cataphracts and light horse charging downhill knocked out more BdX. Eastern legionaries carved their way through a column of Western Goths. A heroic element of Huns survived two combats at factors of +3 vs -1. Western knights bounced off Eastern legionaries. The Eastern CinC entered the fray, but failed to do any damage. The Western CinC's command was at its disheartening threshold.



Finally the remaining Huns succumbed, breaking the Eastern Army. I didn't make a note of the score but it looks as though it might have been 21-4 if my notes on the other games are correct.

I must admit that in this game the dance of the warbands at the start seemed a bit unrealistic. I handled my  mounted much better than in some of the other games, only committing them when they had a significant advantage. Thom wasn't helped by his PIP assignments (Averaging the two high dice) as his knight command struggled to engage all the cataphracts and had to let the Huns go sponno, and the CinC's command ran out a couple of times too, leading to the loss of his light horse and a couple of warband that outstripped their flank cover.  Although My CinC got his troops in a bit of a mess in the middle game, with the high dice he could recover the situation. However, as usual when the enemy is on a hill, I still end up attacking it, though this time I got away with it.


Overall I finished in 7th place out of 22 players. There seems to be some convergent thinking on Late Imperial Roman armies as at least two of the others at BRITCON and Adrian's army at Koblenz all used the warbands, fast artillery and  IIRC Hun/Alan mercenaries. However, none of us did particularly well, so this is clearly a difficult army to use. Did my two victories on the last day indicate that I had finally mastered it, or was it a change of luck, or was it simply that I was now far enough down the draw that I met opponents I could beat?

Lawrence Greaves

[mickhession]

Thanks Lawrence - nice report

Cheers
Mick

[Barritus]

G'day Lawrence

Thank you for the informative report. I'm looking forward to seeing you at Cancon in January.

In reading these accounts I have to say I'm a little disconcerted by the amount of lateral maneuver players seem to be able to undertake, even with infantry armies. In particular I noted Willie's Seleucid Conveyor Belt, and the Dancing Goths in the final battle.

Are players deploying well back to give themselves redeployment space, or are they trying to optimise match-ups before advancing? Or is it something else? It just seems to me that an aggressive player would need only one bound to advance troops far enough across the table so as to prevent such lateral moves, or at least make them a risky proposition. Are players that wary of unfavourable match-ups?

[LawrenceG1]

(not to mention Peter K's exchange of wings).

As defender you often find the enemy deploys into good matchups, but you get first move so there is nothing the opponent can do to stop you from redeploying laterally. As first mover, you can rush some march-blockers forward, but I generally didn't (must remember to do so in future). The opponent can mitigate that with his own march-blocking screen and deploying in depth.

I think the lateral movement crops up a lot with warband/heavy foot match ups as the terror factor of warband is so huge, people will do anything to get or avoid the match-up.

When I use Kyreneans, the spears are not very sensitive to matchups (apart from warband, and who uses that?) so I generally charge forward on the first bound to within 400p, which prevents any lateral movement by the opponent.

Historically I would say there is little evidence of lateral movement apart from a couple of exceptional examples, but the game needs some mechanism to allow the first deployer to redeploy when he sees where the enemy is.