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Thursday 15 August 2013

Quick Battle Report Late Romans vs Avars

A 1500 point battle using the Late Romans against one of the new lists, Avars. Using 6mm figures and played a Portcullis Wargames Emporium, Bolton.

The initial set-up, with the Romans on the far side of the table and the Avars nearest to us. At this point the Roman player said, are you sure that you got the points for those right? there being about three times as many Avars as Romans. We went through the lists and despite being upgraded (to Average morale class, from Raw) the Avars were precisely right, there are just rather a lot of them. So this was going to be a real test of the Die is Cast rules, can armies with such a huge imbalance in numbers fight a ‘fair and even’ game. The first point to note is that the Romans have clustered their army around a hill (top right of picture) stuffed the hill with archers and 4 pieces of artillery.

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After movement on the first turn. A group of 4 units of Avar light cavalry and 2 units of heavy cavalry move to attack the hill.

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After end of shooting on turn three. The Romans have moved out from the hill and have started shooting at the units of Avar light cavalry. The Avar have suffered one unit destroyed and another damaged.

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After end of movement on turn 5. The Avars have lost the front two units of light cavalry to Roman shooting from the hill. In turn they have caused some casualties on the Roman archers and legionaries (between the edge of the table and the hill). the main force of Roman foot (two units of auxiliaries and two units of legionaries) supported by cataphracts and extra cavalry move to block the gap between two patches of scrub. Meanwhile the Avars are moving two units of Extra cavalry (the Avar nobles) through that gap. The Roman legions form shieldwall and get their javelins ready. Javelins instead of pila to give them a bit of distance firepower.

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Same point in the game but this is the view of the whole armies. The Avar are trying to bring up the rest of their army, forming the infantry into columns of march to get there quicker (right side of picture). The Romans are using 4 units of light cavalry to delay the Avar advance but equally the Avar are using their light cavalry to try and push the Romans back. Both  sides are getting to bow range on the right.

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On the sixth turn the Avar extra cavalry charges into the Roman legionaries and auxlia in the centre. The Romans attempted to charge as well but a cavalry charge negates an infantry charge so the Romans just stand and fire. The Avars will also shoot with their bows as they charge and then switch to lances for the combat. Behind the Avar cavalry are axemen (top of picture) and skirmishers (right of picture). Behind Romans (bottom right) are their cataphract cavalry.

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In centre on the sixth turn, after shooting and combat. The Romans have held. The Avar shooting was incredible destroying an entire unit of auxila and severely damaging another. But the Romans held fast and took the cavalry charge, unfortunately the Roman javelins bounced ineffectively off the heavily armoured Avar cavalry.

But the combat was a draw! Although both sides were rolling 8 dice apiece (the Romans needing 3 or less, the Avars needing 6 or less) the result was 4 hits caused on each side. That completely destroyed another unit of Roman auxlia and inflicted 2 damage points on each of the Avar cavalry units (the black dice). So neither side had to test morale for losing the combat and the Romans had to test for seeing two of their units wiped out. But with good die rolls they held.

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The Avar attack on the hill failed. Two of the units of light cavalry were destroyed by shooting, two broke and ran. One of the units of heavy cavalry was heavily damaged and the other unit tried to charge but failed its morale test and retreated instead. So that was the end of that attack.

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Sorry no pictures of the end of the game but the Roman cataphracts charged one of the units of Avar extra cavalry and in the huge mixed melee that followed (2 units of Roman legionaries, a unit of cataphracts vs 2 units of Avar extra heavy cavalry) the Avar were heavily defeated (5:1) and both units of Avar cavalry fled. At that point we ended the game and all went to the pub.

Now there was still a lot of the Avar army left on the table. All that infantry which was steadily marching toward the Romans but I think that without the support of their own cavalry they would have been dead, outmanoeuvred and out-fought by the Roman. The big mistake (acknowledged by the Avar general) ) was not attacking all together. In effect the Avar infantry was not there on the table as it spent all its time marching to get to the Romans.

So yes its is possible in TDIC for a larger army to be defeated by a smaller one. Next time we will see if it works if the Avars play better.

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