Caesar vs. Germans

We had the little used 15mm armies for a run out last weekend. The later Republican Romans masquerading as Caesar's army on an expedition across the Rhine. Les had amalgamated the allied contingents of several armies to produce a veritable horde of ferocious Germans. The Germans outnumbered the Roman army by about 2 to 1 in units. They were however outclassed in quality and armour, also the Romans had a more efficient Sequence Deck (3 Leader Check cards and no Milling Around for example.)

With just two command groups and no cavalry, the German options were to be a bit limited (and rightly so.) My plan (such as it was) consisted of a right hook with all my veteran units and the sole, decent quality, Hearth Guard unit attacking the Roman left. With a line of the plentiful standard Warriors to their front to absorb the Roman pila, this would allow the second line to charge in and win the day! The standard Warriors would suffer badly from missile fire having only a feeble shield for protection (very light armour class.) The Veterans have only a marginal upgrade (light armour) indicating a slightly sturdier shield or maybe a helmet.

My only other stratagem was to line one of my skirmisher units along the forest edge on the Roman right flank. This was to suggest that ambushing units were lurking therein. I'm not sure that they fell for it however.

The battle went about as well as was possible for the German side. The Battle Lust card came up at a very opportune moment. [This card acts as an extra Melee Resolution card and gives the Germans a bonus in melee as well.] The flip side is that victorious units have no choice but to pursue. Also every unit under Battle Lust that is within a move of the enemy must move into contact using up available impetus to do so. The unfortunate timing for the  Romans was that they had not had a chance to react to the overlapping German units on their left. This meant that the Battle Lusted Germans were forced to turn and fling themselves at this open flank. A combination of frontal attacks, this flanking charge and rotten dice rolls caused  this Roman flank to crumple and several units to rout to the rear.

The third line of Romans (near the corner of the rulebook) watch as their colleagues ahead of them are roughly handled.

With the success of the right half of the German army (even before the decent veteran units had got involved) the left hand command of the army was also ordered forward. The skirmish line of bowmen was successful in disordering some of the leading Roman units and the Romans sensibly refused to waste their pila on these light infantry.  When they did  brush aside the skirmish line, the disorganised attack was less effective that the Romans needed to swing the battle back their way. To add to their woes the bowmen along the edge of the forest moved up to pepper the unshielded flank of the advancing Romans.

Fleeing Romans in the centre being pursued  between their own lines.

The hard fighting and requirement to rally disordered units had quickly depleted the Roman supply of Morale Chips (these represent the overall staying power of an army, they are reduced by casualties and routs and spent on rallying or forcing enemy morale checks.) The final straw for the Romans was when the victorious German units that had pursued routers through the intervals in the Roman army finally had a chance to halt their pursuit (their enemy had routed off table). They both managed to halt and turn around. This now resulted in the Roman left being both damaged and surrounded. They were also (although not aware of it) about to face the better elements of the German army (my cunning right hook plan.) This was a sensible place to finish our game with effectively no hope for a Roman victory.

This decisive victory was achieved in effectively one turn of the game of Archon (Piquet rules.) The Romans really needed to hold on and be viable into a second turn when the Battle Lust card would no longer be in effect. It really did highlight that it is not enough in this rule set to have all the advantages in quality and equipment; the smaller better army needs to win the initiative and choose where the action will take place. Good dice rolls is also useful.

Caesar contemplates a rare reverse in his glittering career (obviously an off-day!)