Bagotrix Strikes Back

Back in May at Cangames I ran another of my Roman - British Hail Caesar games.

In the game last year, recounted here, the Romans managed to capture a defensive dyke from the British and the over the winter have built a watchtower and are preparing to reinforce it in order to use it as a base to attack further into the British lands. At the same time, the British warlord, Bagotrix, has gathered some of his fellow kings for an attempt to drive the Romans back over the dyke.

The Roman forces consisted of the garrison at the watchtower -- Legion troops divided into line infantry, slingers, mano-balistae, and sentries as well as 2 scorpio and auxilia archer -- and the reinforcements -- a cavalry force with 3 units of medium cavalry and 2 skirmish units of Numidian light horse and an infantry force of legion and auxilia.

The British have 2 forces consisting of Warbands and skirmishers and one force with cavalry, a chariot unit, medium infantry and wardogs.

The Roman reinforcements lead by the Numidians approach the dyke.

The garrison of the watchtower prepare themselves for the British attack.

The Britsh line up for the attack.

The opening battle lines.

The British move up towards the tower with one force heading over the dyke to try and slow down the Roman reinforcements.

The Roman cavalry moves up but the Infantry is being indecisive and only moving up very slowly.

Meanwhile the British Cavalry seems very frightened of the British slingers and rides past them rather than over them!

The warbands, supported by the medium infantry move up to Roman lines.

The British cavalry take some hits riding by and the medium infantry takes care of the pesky slingers.

The noose tightens around the watch tower.

The two cavalry forces move towards each other.

 The British medium infantry press to the front door of the gate as the Legion pushes the warband back.

But the legionnaires may have moved a bit too far away from the tower as the British warbands engage it in force.

The two cavalry forces get stuck in.

They each win one of the battles so no resolution yet at the end of the dyke. The second British warband unit is moving down aross the dyke to to engage the Romans.

The legion at the tower is wiped out so now there are only a unit of sentries and and a unit of slingers guarding the outside of the tower.

The overall view of the battlefield.

The British cavalry move up to try and get the Roman infantry in the flank.

The British wipe out all the Romans outside the tower.

The Romans have a bit of good luck and defend well against the British cavalry, wiping them out before the warbands arrive.

In the mean time the surviving Roman cavalry has reached the tower and is trying to relieve the pressure on it.

The warband have reached the Roman infantry.

The remaining British cavalry engage the Numidians.

The Roman Cavalry has some success in pushing back the British.

The other warband wipes out the Roman auxila and pushes back the legion.

On the far flank the Numidians engage the British slingers.

In the centre, things continue to go badly for the Romans.

The Roman cavalry have better luck though and have pushed the British away from the tower.

The game ended with the Roman relief force almost completely wiped out but with the tower still in the Roman hands. The Romans will keep the position but they will be unable to use it to attack further in to British lands in the short term.

There will be more adventures of Bagotrix next year at Cangames, I have more British cavalry on the painting table right now (and a Roman elephant -- but I am not sure if I will use that or not)

Stop the Romans, the Battle for the Dyke at Cangames 2015

My computer is back in action so I now have to get through my backlog of Cangames reports.

First up is Stop the Romans

In this battle the Romans are rushing forward to try and seize a defensive dyke from the British before the bad weather sets in. The Roman forces are 3 divisions of mostly infantry with some engineers, light cavalry and archers. The British have 2 divisions of warband and sling and 1 division of cavalry and chariots as well as assorted light troops on the wall and a group of fanatic warband lurking behind the dyke.

The table at Cangames was quite a bit narrower than the one I used when I playtested it (as seen here). I did briefly think about getting another table but that would have made the table awkwardly wide so I had the dyke extend into the river and declared it as passable but bad going (and refused to answer any questions about the British chariots got across the dyke!)

The forces I used were the same as for the playtest -- I had hoped to add one more cavalry and one more warband to the British and one more legion to the Romans but the British reinforcements got lost on the way so I just left things as they were before. The British were set up further back from the table edge so that would be closer to the dyke if they chose to fall back to it.

The Romans could choose for each of their division to either not come on on turn 1 or to come on but have each unit roll individually for orders and to be ordered to move forward the maximum they could. All 3 Roman players choose to come on and the command rolls went pretty well for them.

The forces did get a bit mixed up like the archers charging ahead towards the British cart but most of the units came on the table.

 The British weren't quite so lucky with their rolls and one infantry division didn't move at all. The other did move up towards the Romans.

The Romans continued their march across the battlefield towards the dyke.

The British chariots charge into Roman Auxila

The battle is raging on the Roman left but on the right the British are mostly staying out of contact.

But finally, the Roman Marines fight the British warband.

 The Numidian Light Horse shows more bravery than common sense and attacks the British Cavalry

The light horse is easily driven off but the Legion are another matter altogether.

The victorious Romans resume their advance.

The Legion advances slowly to the dyke.

But due do a blunder in the command roll, the auxila advance much less cautiously and put themselves in front of the Legion

The Romans manage to get them selves sorted out and the Legion clambers up the fascine to the top of the dyke

The druid fanatics charge up the reverse slope of the dyke hoping to drive the Romans off.

The right wing of the Romans spend some time regrouping before they face the dyke.

The druid fanatics drive the romans off the dyke and charge down into the main Roman force

While on the other flank the Romans continue their more methodical advance.

After driving of the druid fanatics the romans go back up the fascine only to run into yet another druid fanatic.

But the Romans on the other side are now at the top of the dyke and there is no real opposition left on that side.

The game ended as a Roman victory but it was a hard fought battle and I think it could have gone either way.