|
Warhammer Ancient Battles This is a quick report of the Battle I did on June 21st 2008 From the Organizer Doug Marston from Gamer's History in Fort Morgan sent this email to the group after all was said and done. My Army Lists My army was a brittany roman. Why? Well I like the romans, even in those dying days of the Western Empire. That's really why I chose them. Plus being "used" (since I so rarely play) to the Early Imperial Romans, I wanted to see how their Later brothers would play out. The last game I used with late Roman was during Dominicon 2001 in Maynooth Ireland vs Vinnie. Wow that was so long ago! We both had 1,500 point "warlord" army. After reading over the rules and army information, I opted for as much infantry as I could field. This lead me to many important decisions. On the one hand, I really wanted the punch and mobility my allied lists. After looking at the miniatures that I had, I wanted to have a WYSIWYG army (or as close as possible). I finally opted to use my franks/saxon minis as pedyt instead of franks or saxons. Some of those minis I painted going on 8 years ago now...
Overview The idea was simple. Start with a one-on-one.The loser becomes the vassal of the winner. The two them joined forces against another pair and end up with a 4 on 4 gigantic extravaganza. The hick? Well... After a battle, you got bring back only HALF the miniatures removed from the table at a one for one trade off. Therefore as a side-thing, you wanted to defeat your opponent, but without inflicting massive casualties upon him. This was a strange twist to the whole deal. I could barely sleep the night before because I was so excited and looking forward to my first ever WAB major event. I re-read my army list, looked over the tactics they recommended. Play defensive. GREAT! I wasn't exactly thrilled by that because my usual playing style is far from defensive. After thinking about it and looking over my list again, I had enough cavalry to give me some maneuvering, skirmishers to put the warbands First Battle Opponent: Early Merovingian Franks Scenario: Battle on the River Dubglas (Scenario 2 in AoA) This was the one battle that was pre-setup so that both armies coming across the channel would be united under the same banner. I was excited to see what would happen. I won the dice off and selected the hill as my deployment zone. I guess that the Franks would be quite aggressive so getting higher ground, and keeping it would be very important to help me win this gallic conflict. My army was arranged as follows (from left to right). The Equites deployed in close order, One unit of pedites, then the milites with the bishop and the other pedites. Behind the milites stood the army standard bearer while in front of them bow-armed rustici stood strong. Then my left wing had the forces I hoped would swing the flank. My Dux with his comitanenses and the other equites in skirmish formation. In front of them, my slingers would provide some missile power.
 Rick's army was arranged with his pueri cavalry in skirmish formation, his heavy cavalry, more warriors and more skirmishing cavalry. A strong formation. I had to say that I was worried about facing his top cavalry with my infantry. The opening moves went terribly wrong for me. After taking fire from his pueri cavalry, my equites decided to return back home and never look back. I kept my infantry back while Rick proceeded carefully. On my left however, my skirmish cavalry and his traded javelins. His pueri warriors took on my comimanipulares. Things looked grim when after losing a round of combat, my general fled combat. OUCH. In the last turn, I managed to chase away his standard, his pueri cavalry. Finally, I stood victorious, extremely surprised to have emerged victorious. This fight was a nail biter until the end. Second Battle Opponent: Welsh with Strathclyde Scenario: Battle on the River Glein (Scenario 1 in AoA) I set up on our right in front of the ford, facing Arthur the Welsh while Rick took the left flank facing the Dal Riadan. The battle was a quick and extremely bloody affair. My general got charged by welsh infantry, My milites charged across the ford. It was bloody. At that point, my general broke through and Arthur's army was about to be wrapped. Rick's army was not faring as well, but his losses were low. At that time, we offered our opponent a chance to join us in our glorious attempt to take the crown. They accepted and hostilities stopped and we readied ourselves for the big assault. Noteworthy events include Rick's lack of losses while most of his army was falling back. On my side, my (initially) 4 equites held Arthur and his knights for like 4 close combat phases (they were rescued by pedites one turn later). Eventually, numbers prevailed and my infantry caught Arthur as he ran. Final Battle Opponent: Vortigern (Commander) with Sea Raiders, Irish and Twilight of Britannia Scenario: The Roman Road (Expanded Scenario 11 in AoA) Wow! our opponents had a battle line that stretched what seemed like foreever. This had to be the biggest WAB battle I ever saw! Our battle line was (from my left to my right). Our left flank had the Dal Riadan, then I took the center-left. Rick's Frank had the center-right and Arthur had the right flank. Facing the Dal Riadan and occupying the village were the Irish. Scott the Roman warlord faced me then Vortigern and finally the saxons with their heavy cavalry. This promised to be exciting. Exciting it was. The right flank saw the Dal Riadan repelled from the village by the Irish (that's what happens when you try to chase them out of their pubs... The place quickly turned into a gigantic brawl. As for me, I surged forward, and had a very difficult fight against saxon warriors and roman infantry. Finally my infantry prevailed and I broke the center, chasing away the enemy. Rick fought Vortigern to a stand still (Frankish knights could not destroy the roman infantry and the other way around). But the rest of the flank was doing rather well. Looking at the field, our opponents gave up seeing how the longer it went on, things would only solidify our victory. Aftermath Well, I won! I really need to give it to my fellow commanders who did so well. It seems that upon this day a frenchman would crown himself king of Britannia! It was a fantastic experience and I will most definitly do the 2h drive to Fort Morgan again! Thanks Doug and everyone who took part! I'm already excited that more events are being talked about already! Pictures I thought I had taken more pictures, but this should give you an idea of the high quality of Doug's painting and deployments.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
