Three Featherstonian Battles #1: The Battle of Trimsum

As part of my desultory quest to play all the...iconic? foundational?...wargames scenarios...I had a go at the first battle in Don Featherstone's Wargames. The first battle is an Ancients affair - although amusingly enough it is really more like a battle from Conan than anything strictly historical (for similar reasons presumably - it wasn't so easy to create good matching armies in 1962, so the iconic armies of ancient history were allowed to fight each other!). So the armies of Hyperborea (with chariots and war engines) and Hyrkania (with elephants and war engines) faced off in the 'Battle of Trimsos'.

 

 

 

I am not quite so constrained, so I redesigned the scenario into the Battle of Trimsum, to feature Romans against Ancient Britons. The elephants have disappeared, but the chariots stayed, so obviously the Britons took the role of the Hyperboreans. 

 

The rules used were Polemos:SPQR. It was quite a small battle for this set, typically a small battle for SPQR would be 20-bases/side, rather than this game of 10-bases/side.

 

The Forces:

 

Britons:

4 bases of Tribal Foot

1 base of javelin-armed skirmishers

3 bases of Light Horse

2 bases of Chariots (Elite)

 

Rome:

 4 bases of Legionaries (Formed, Armoured)

1 base of sling-armed skirmishers

1 base of Light Horse

2 bases of Cavalry (Armoured)

2 bases of Artillery (Scorpions) 

 

I adopted the same deployment as the original, more-or-less, although I slightly re-aligned the terrain; I found the relationship between the two a little odd in the original, with the Hyperboreans moving at an angle to the river. This won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't read or played the original, but hopefully it is clear to anyone who has.  I also added in another river to mark the 'end of the world' in the original scenario, so it would have the dimensions I use for a typical One-Hour Wargame-type scenario.

 

Eagle-eyed readers may notice the photos are distinctly darker/worse than in the recent past. This is because I have had to move to a new gaming space within the house, which is not particularly photography-friendly, and I haven't had time to work out how to ameliorate the situation a little. I wanted to test the playing ergonomics a little first. 

 

The Set-Up: 

 

View from behind the Romans - essentially in 3 columns, with legionaries and slingers in the left-column, legionaries and ballistae in the central column, with some Numidian Light Horse and some Roman cavalry on the Right.

A closer look at the massed ranks - the general is leading the central column, the Legion's commander is taking the left column.

The Britons' Left (right) and Centre - two bands of warriors, one supported by some javelinmen, the other by some Light Horse

Light Horse and Chariots on the Britons' Right

View from behind the Britons' Left

And looking towards the Romans

The Battle:

The Romans took the initiative and advanced; the Britons have moved their Light Horse to skirmish and delay them.

The Roman Cavalry push forward over the hill; the Britons have become slightly mixed-up in bringing their Light Horse back over the bridge.

The Roman Cavalry has seen off the first element of the Britons' Light Horse on the hill

Meanwhile, the Numidians and remaining Roman Cavalry engage the Britons on the hill on the left.

The Numidians throw back the Javelinmen with loss, then engage the main body of the Britons on the Left.

To try and restore the situation in the centre, the Britons' chief leads more tribal warriors onto the central hill to battle the Roman horsemen

Initially honours are even on the Left, although the Javelinmen run off; but the British warriors have been pushed off the central hill again

And then all of a sudden, the Roman (and Numidian) Horseman just put their opponents to flight and the sword, just as the first legionaries are coming into action also

The Britons are in full retreat - although their right was barely engaged, so most of those warriors will escape

Game Notes:

It was quite a fun game, although there is always a slightly fiddly element with these rules that I can't seem to eliminate (i.e. hold in my head confidently without checking), to do with combat outcomes and pursuits and so on. But it was basically fine as a game. It was quite swingy though, as a function of the way that the tempo points (similar to PIP points for DBx players) work - with very small numbers of bases it is more likely that everyone will be able to do stuff...but also it is more likely that no-one will be able to do anything. And this is more or less what happened to the Britons. They brought back the Light Horse over the bridge (just as in the game of the original scenario), got disordered, and then could not rally in time, so there were a lump of troops that could not help at the crucial time. Not unrealistic perhaps, but very annoying for the Britons. The Romans look was generally replicated in the combats too, so it was relatively quite a straightforward victory for them. Attacking over the bridge was so low odds that I didn't do it: they did do it in the original game, to relative predictable and well-deserved disaster. I think what I am saying is that I really, really disagree with the Hyperborean deployment! If I do a bigger version of this to completion, expect changes...

Figures and models from Baccus 6mm.