The latest issue of
Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy (101) contains a re-done version of a classic old Don Featherstone scenario, the Battle of Plattsville in
Henry Hyde's "Tabletop Tactics" column. The scenario has been neatened and adapted to suit three periods: ancients, horse-and-musket and WW2. For this re-fight, I have taken the ancients version and set it in the first century AD, with a Roman Legion pushing into Wales and about to run into some unexpected opposition...
The Scenario:
WSS has a map of the action on its website for download. The scenario consists of two forces - in this case, a Roman Legion with some extra units attached and a large Celtic warband - approaching to contest possession of a small village in a wooded valley.
One change that I made was to make both the advance guards advance along the road until they spotted each other: an advantage of solo play! This would slightly change the character of the game, since both sides would have to fight off the line of march.
The Forces:
Imperial Romans:
Commander: Marcus Drusus (Average)
2 bases of Cavalry (Formed Armoured Veteran-Elite)
2 bases of Light Horse (Unformed Trained)
2 bases of Skirmishers (Unformed Trained bow-armed)
XIII Legion
Commander Quintus Flavius (Average)
8 bases of Legionaries (Formed Armoured Trained)
2 bases of Archers (Formed Trained bow-armed)
Silurian Warband:
Commander: King Cynwrig (Average)
2 bases of Chariots (Unformed Trained-Elite)
2 bases of Light Horse (Unformed Trained)
2 bases of Skirmishers (Unformed Trained javelinmen)
2 bases of Skirmishers (Unformed Trained slings)
8 bases of Tribal Warriors (Unformed Trained)
So the advantage is definitely with the Romans, but the difference is not insurmountable.
Each side was led by an advanced guard of 4 bases (2 skirmishers, 2 close-order foot troops), with the remaining forces following c.30 minutes (6 moves) behind.
Readers of the article will notice that I have double the number of units compared to the original.
The Battle:
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| The valley of Bryn Troelleg |
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| A closer look at the village |
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| Bryn gwyrdd, bounded on one side by the stream and a thin belt of woodland on the other |
The Battle:
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| The Romans and Silurians advance, Romans from the bottom and Silurians from the top. |
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| A closer look at the Silurians. The King, idiosyncratic chap that he is, prefers to ride on horseback rather than in his royal chariot. |
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| The Roman column just reaching the curve in the road when it spots the Silurian slingers in the distance... |
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| King Cynwrig is first to get into position, hurrying his men into position on the hill; Flavius leads his legionaries through the woods and up the slope (bottom) |
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| The battle developing as the main bodies of each force arrive. Silurian and Numidian horsemen approach the village from opposite sides, |
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| Whilst the Legionaries continue their slow advance... |
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| Suddenly King Cynwrig orders his foot warriors to charge! Full of fight, they run screaming down the hill towards the wavering Romans... |
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| With their King fighting amongst them, some of the Celtic warriors push a legionary cohort back down the slope into the woods; however, Flavius inspires the other cohort to defy the odds and push back the Silurians |
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| Numidian light cavalry in a very advantageous position - which they resolutely ignore, preferring to harrass the local cattle and women |
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| Drusus orders his horsemen to charge the Silurian chariotry; his archers are now blocking the bridge |
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| Flavius and his legionary cohort defeat and slaughter the Silurian warriors after pushing them back up the slope |
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| But the King and his men have routed the other leading legionary cohort! |
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| Drusus and his cavalry get the better of the Silurian chariots after close, hard fighting... |
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| More Roman Cohorts advance towards the victorious Silurian warriors |
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| Having seen off the charioteers, the cavalry are then attacked by the tribal foot warriors holding Bryn y cwningod across the stream. Defying the odds again somewhat, the Romans hold on, Drusus narrowly escaping harm to his person too. |
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| The Roman legionaries push the Silurian warriors back through the woods. The Silurians are more effective fighters than the legionaries, so the battle is slow and bloody. |
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| The Roman cavalry turn the tables and defeat the Silurian warriors on the far bank of the stream |
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| The Silurian foot begins to break... |
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| More Roman legionaries advance through the belt of woods on the slope of Bryn gwyrdd; whilst harrassed by the Silurian skirmishers, although to no great effect |
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| The position: the Silurian left flank has been turned and they are hastily attempting to restore the line... |
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| But as this closer view shows, the Roman legionaries have finally defeated the Silurians in the woods (bottom-right) and Flavius has already got a cohort into the centre of the hill, so there is no place for the Silurians to "hinge" their new line |
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| The Roman legionaries pant up the hill and catch the Silurian skirmishers.. |
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| Killing many of them |
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| The King himself leads another charge of his foot warriors: the Roman cavalry get distinctly the worse of it, and are in danger of breaking: Drusus again narrowly escapes with his life and liberty... |
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| However the Silurian centre is in deep trouble... |
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| And at that point, Silurian resistance collapses and it is every man for himself. The King and most of his horsemen and charioteers have escaped, but nearly a third of his foot warriors and slingers have fallen. |
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| An overhead shot: the regular lines nicely show the position of the Roman legionaries and cavalry! |
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| The King escapes and Drusus counts himself lucky to be both alive and free (right), as his legionaries come up to relieve him. |
Game Notes: A hard-fought game, and one in which a combination of some advantages in army composition and a couple of particularly luck dice rolls spelled victory for the Romans. Perhaps the distribution of terrain slightly helped the Romans too: woods are not great for the Romans, but watercourses are difficult for everyone and it is slow going getting across them in
Polemos: SPQR (although no-one failed the crocodile test in this game!).
I don't think anything occurred which was that unreasonable, a testimony to the rules. This was actually the third game of this scenario I played: the first two I took no pictures of but played the first with Polemos: SPQR, the second with DBA. I have commented on the differences in play between the two many times so I won't re-iterate them, but it was noticeable how much longer that the SPQR games took: more than twice as long on average. Some of that is extra fuss in the rules (the command and movement mechanisms are slightly more complicated) but much of it, particularly in scenarios with plenty of terrain, is that troops spend a lot of time not moving: they are reforming from disruptive terrain, or reforming having been disorganized, or are trying but failing to get up the gumption to charge. Troops not doing stuff from command limitations are roughly similar in both games. Funnily enough, the troops spend a lot more time in combat in DBA: it is much less decisive than in Polemos, since there is typically a clear progression in the latter that the side losing a round of combat will become progressively more likely to lose the next one.
Figures by
Baccus and
Rapier, buildings by
Timecast.
Thank you, I enjoyed the read. I find your style of battle report very approachable and with just the right level of detail.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the rules differences I guess the same could be said for Warmaster Ancients. If you go about mucking around in the terrain you're going to spend a lot more time waiting for units to move than fighting. It's not a bad thing in a game I imagine, as it rewards simple plans. In the Musket and Pike (hex and counter) series there are several battles where the initial approach to the enemy must essentially be done in open formation due to the terrain. Otherwise you're going to spend the game reforming ranks after every move. I'm not well read enough on the period to say how applicable it would be for Ancients though (and well aware that the option is lacking in Polemos: SPQR with rules as written).
Thanks Aquahog, I appreciate that a lot.
DeleteI think most rules out there will certainly delay and slow troops messing about in difficult terrain. What is noticeable in Polemos: SPQR is that it is on the extreme end of this. Most rules will typically half movement, for example. SPQR does that, and then imposes a disorder penalty and enforces a mandatory stationary turn on top.
The option you suggest would actually be very doable in SPQR. You could just say that "Formed" troops were allowed to operate "Unformed" if they desired - this is already allowed for Auxilia IIRC. It wouldn't be suitable for pikemen of course.
The effect in Warmaster Ancients is, as with most of the system, quite top down. You can theoretically move as fast through dense terrain as over open ground. The only movement penalty in the system comes from formation. Surprisingly enough there is nothing by default stopping you from adopting a regular formation in dense terrain. Our group uses a house rule disallowing this. Now I say theoretically, because most moves require an activation roll and these are penalized for, among other things, being in area terrain. The result is binary. Either you breeze through or, more likely, you are stuck. I gather then that SPQR sends an even clearer message of don't try this at all unless you really have no other option or plenty of time. I mean, since the chance of a quick move is entirely eliminated. I cannot recall where I saw it, designer's notes perhaps, but I think David mentioned somewhere that Legionnaires were not trained for fighting in dense terrain. In his opinion that was what the Romans had Auxilia for, so I guess that's the reason for what you say.
DeleteYes, absolutely These rules, and the ECW stablemates, make manoeuvre in terrain, especially for formed infantry, a total pig rather than a minor irritant.
DeleteWell, that has made me put my thinking cap on. I believe that the reason for the comment is from Tacitus, who remarks that in a battle against the Silures or the Ordovices the legionaries deployed in the valley bottom and the auxilia on the rough sides. Of course, a quick look establishes that I cannot find the reference, so I might have imagined it.
DeleteThe fact that most major battles in the ancient world occurred on fairly flat plains does lead me to suspect that moving through terrain was not something the armies did easily or without good reason, and could well be why the Romans had auxiliaries, although there were other reasons for that as well, such as economic.
there are various models of how the Roman army functioned, of course, and they do not all agree. Part of the aim of PM:SPQR was to allow sufficient flexibility for the players to try out some different ideas. I am not keen on the concept of rule sets being chiselled in stone and immutable. Warfare, and armies, are much more flexible than we allow, I think.
Great points! This is interesting. My view is that armies tended to shy away from the terrain in the 17th century as well. Keith Roberts writes in Pike and Shot Tactics 1590-1660 that pikes were done away with when the terrain allowed it. (Alternatively, when the terrain required it?) It happened for example in broken ground where cavalry could not form a massed charge. Given the limitations on command and control of the time, I like to imagine this was for smaller scale actions than those in P:ECW though. Arguably, it could also apply for a subset of an army. Like the dismounted dragoons and commanded shot on the flank in the hedges at Edgehill for example.
DeleteWell, in the ECW mostly the battles were on fairly flat areas, but the two battles of Newbury, Cheriton and Cropredy Bridge spring to mind as counter-examples, and of a reasonable size.
DeleteI think that part of the issue in real life might relate to what counts as a significant obstacle. The royalists at Marston Moor might have considered the ditch was, but it turned out not to be so much the case.
I think we should not underestimate the power of unit and subunit commanders to make sensible decisions, either. Mind you, subunits could make slightly silly decisions as well, as the Cornish pike seem to have done at Landsdowne.
I do remember interminable arguments on the old REMPAS mailing list over whether pike could operate in woods (the answer is no, but not everyone accepted that). An eighteen foot lump of wood is not going to be successful in any sort of uneven terrain, especially where other lumps of wood are sticking up. Alexander seems to have replaced his pikes with shorter spears for some operations.
Speaking of whom, of course, Darius specially prepared battlegrounds for the purpose of meeting him. This was for his cavalry, but it worked nicely for pikes as well.
Fair point, I didn't think of those. (And contradicted myself in the process it seems given the approach move in open formation commentary on the Musket and Pike Battle Series).
DeleteI’m not familiar with the rules but I enjoyed the AAR nonetheless. 😀
ReplyDeleteCheers Stew. A while ago I did a rules comparison which might help to explain the flavour of SPQR: http://hereticalgaming.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-three-battles-of-mons-graupius.html
DeleteEnjoyable report.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks Khusru
Delete