Latest campaign game results from Glasgow. It is 109 BC and the Germanic tribes are migrating. The Teutones have crossed the Rhine into Gaul
en masse and the locals decide that it's time to put up a bit of a fight. Teutones vs Sequani - what's not to like? Battle Report by Gordon, in his usual unbiased style...
The German tribes, having thrashed the
Romans, now turn their attention to the Gauls whom they found to be a tougher
proposition than the effete Italians. There
was little subtlety. [Gordon did supply some maps, but I couldn't get them to come out properly in Blogger. Sorry, Gordon, I know those take a long time to produce!]
The German army was slightly stronger than
the Gauls, as can be seen from this table:
type
|
Germans
|
Gauls
|
Warband infantry
|
256
|
264
|
Heavy cavalry
|
60
|
64
|
LC
|
24
|
24
|
LI
|
48
|
0
|
In addition both armies have screens of
skirmishers.
The German cavalry is of better quality
than the Gauls and has impetus bonuses which can greatly increase its
effectiveness in combat. [Note: I supplied the campaign situation and the relative points values from my lair in Cheltenham; the Glasgow players simply paid for the troops and set up terrain and the armies. Early German cavalry don't normally have Impetus, but if they paid the points, who cares? Besides, it didn't seem to help them very much!]
Long table shot of the two armies deployed. Germans are on the left as you look at it.
Some of the other deployment photos didn't come out well, but this one shows Gallic chariots standing in for heavy cavalry - they didn't have chariots by this time. Just in case anyone is wondering!
The Gauls moved onto the hills but
otherwise started with a mainly defensive posture. The Germans came swarming
forward. The two outermost Gallic warbands angled out to the flanks. There was
a degree of trickery in this as it left them open to turning back into the
centre and outflanking German units in any central melee. There was desultory
skirmishing along the lines which the German generally won.
On the flanks the Germans did not advance
as quickly as they might and on the Gallic right the Gauls advanced, hoping to
effect some sort of combination on the German elite cavalry. This failed and
the right most Gallic HC unit took a pasting only narrowly being able to avoid
being broken on the first turn of combat. In the second turn the Gallic light
cavalry who had driven off the German lights were able to attack the Germans in
the back and both German and Gallic HC were destroyed.
The photo above shows the whole table at this point. This one is taken from off the left flank of the Germans, so the German army is on the right as you look at it. The Gauls can be seen at the top centre of the picture massing on their hills.
In the centre the Germans had advanced to
the foot of the central hill. The Gauls intended to await their attack thus
putting them at a disadvantage. At least that was the general's intention. The
warbands, however, chose to charge the Germans. The Germans came off much better
in the ensuing melee although both sides were evenly matched – 96 figures in 4
ranks. Soon after a further warband emerged from the woods and joined in as did
the left most warband of the Gallic central group of three.
Shot of the central German warbands advancing, from the Gallic perspective - hence the dolmen or menhir or whatever you call it.
On the Gallic left flank the German cavalry
and a warband ground down and defeated the Gallic cavalry.
At this point things were looking very bad
for the Gauls. Both flanks were just about gone, and the central warband melee was
going badly.
Clash of the warbands!
The Germans now committed their light
infantry against the warbands. Although such troops will take heavy casualties,
the extra casualties that they would inflict would tip the Gallic warbands over
their break points. This did not happen. A round of generally bad dice by the
Germans brought the Gallic warbands to their tipping point but not beyond it. The
warbands responded ferociously and despite being destroyed themselves in the following turn, they took the LI with them breaking and the German army was pushed over its break point, giving the Gauls
the victory. [At least, this is what I think happened - I've edited the text here.]
I still don’t really know how the Gauls won
this. They were on the back foot throughout. The large size of the warbands
undoubtedly helped. The new rules designed to avoid mutual destruction in melee
also favoured the larger units and worked to the Gallic advantage, saving one
large warband from rout.
In an email message, Gordon made some remarks looking back on the battle:
Also, the "secret history". What saved the Gauls was the German lack of aggression. Far too many troops were wasted on the wings when they should have fended the Gauls off and driven into the centre. You can see from the photos how the Gauls got forward and the Germans were actually turning outwards. [I can see why the Germans might have done this, since they had superior cavalry forces and would be hoping to win on the wings and then flank the central Gallic warbands.] One thing that worked against the Gauls was the +2 intiative. I wanted to wait on the hill and force the Germans to test. One failure and they would all have had to commit but although we were 2 up they won and I had to test. Of course one of my warbands failed and that meant that I had to commit everybody.
[This is a reference to the fact that in our rules, Warbands must test to see if they hold or go charging straight into combat, unless they are in difficult ground. Low hills don't count. What happened here is that the Germans won the Initiative when they probably shouldn't have, and made the Gauls go first, which forced them to test. Some of them went forward and the rest had to follow. If this hadn't happened, the Gauls would have received defensive bonuses against Germans coming up the hills.]
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