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Monthly Meeting Saturday 2 September 2002 after action report photos to be added soon! |
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Duel For Empire As the
Fifth Century opened the struggle for the throne of the once mighty Caesar
entered its final phase. When
it came down to it on that grim September day the resources of the two
contenders were remarkably equal. Emperor Neil’s mostly Eastern Late
Imperial Roman force was divided between him and Master of Horse Philippe
on his right, with the Patrician Chris on his left, with his mixture of
Romans, warband Rugii, and
fierce charging Herul and Scirii cavalry. Opposed
to them Emperor Dieter took the centre, with Master of Horse Wayne on his
right, and Dux Bellorum Peter with a huge, Amorican British command on his
left. The armies met on the rolling
plains of Taking
advantage of the first move Philippe seized the villa with his auxilia
whilst further to the right Neil sent his own auxilia to take the central
wood which was gamely, but ultimately forlornly, contested by Dieter’s
psiloi. In between these two
features Neil came forward with a mailed fist of clibinarii next to the
villa supported by two legions next to the wood. Far
to the rear came a line of light horse. Against
these Dieter fielded a smaller unit of clibinarii, a line of auxilia, line
cavalry and a legion to backstop the wood. As
Neil’s front line advanced, increasing the distance between it and its
light cavalry supports, Dieter stood on the defensive and formed three
supporting lines by falling back the psiloi of the auxilia units and
bringing up the light cavalry supports. On their flank Chris and
Wayne’s battle centred on three struggles of barbarians versus regulars.
Chris’ warband took on two
auxilia units in the open and the result was a stalemate. On the
other flank Peter threw completely average movement dice, (two ones,
followed by two sixes,) and used these to bring his cavalry to bear on
Philippe’s line. Although
Peter’s shieldwall played no part in the battle it was so large that he
could afford to lose all of his cavalry without his command breaking. Thus
he could afford to launch frantic hasty attacks against Philippe as his
cavalry came up. None were
successful and most were easily and bloodily seen off so Philippe was
never really threatened. In the
centre Emperor Neil led his men from the front, taking the central
position between the clibinarii and the legions, whilst Emperor Dieter
decided that discretion was the better part of valour and took his command
post out of the front line and put it safely behind his legion. As the
lines clashed the advantage should have been with Neil. The
clibinarii should have ridden down Dieter’s auxilia but, although they
killed a few, their place was take by psiloi and light horse who made
things very difficult for the heavy horse. The
crisis came when Emperor Neil became isolated from both his clibinarii and
legions. He was flanked by
some psiloi appearing through the dust and taken from the front by
cavalry. The combat was
theoretically equal but the gods were not with him and down he went. His
troops were not demoralised by his death, (perhaps this was an omen in
itself,) but the command control problems meant that Dieter was able to
survive “a Near Run Thing” and eventually grind down Neil’s command.
When Neil’s command
eventually broke Dieter did not take the opportunity to pursue and destroy
it, but then he didn’t have to. As night fell Dieter was, at last, the
uncontested “Noblest Roman of them All.” All in all a fun game that
marked the debut of Neil’s Late Roman army that has been sitting in
boxes for 12 years. It was a
bit unusual in that we made each command exactly 200 points and then
randomised the commands and players. The
Late Romans are a good army to play with and the game showed again that
DBM is at its best when played “in period”. It’s
nice to talk about, and field, units of Auxilia Palatina and Legionaries
and the rules give you all the advantages that you should have for
deploying your units in historical formations. The
barbarian/regular actions on Chris and
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