Roman Scouting Mission

We played this via Zoom yesterday with Steve C having the German Barbarians and me the Romans.

The Romans deploy from top right hand side, the Barbarians will have various deployment/ambush points they can appear from

This area in the bottom left hand corner is dense woods

First on, a Roman Auxiliary cavalry unit, heading towards the small woods

They were right to be suspicious of it - enemy slingers emerge, fire and kill a mounted warrior

More enemy skirmishers emerge from the marsh in the centre 

They exchange fire with some Roman archers that have deployed in another marshy area

The Roman Optio comes on with two groups, heading for the centre

and they are backed up by yet more archers

With all this firepower heading their way, the Barbarians are down to 50% already and taking a lot of shock too

Now the Roman Centurion has arrived with the rest of the force

The cavalry concentrate on enemy deployment points to negate them

The enemy skirmishers in the centre have been destroyed

but the ones in the woods need to be addressed

so a useful Infamy card is played to let the cavalry chase them through the woods

The Optio's men have now reached the large marsh in the centre

and they are flanked by the cavalry

At last ! A big enemy war band emerges from the trees

The Centurion rushes forward his remaining infantry

The last few Barbarian skirmishers have fled into the dense forest

but the Roman cavalry suffered in the woods - only their leader comes out and retires

And now another war band attacks from left of the Roman lines

The big war band is building up fervour before they rush forward

and now Barbarian cavalry appears and heads off behind the Roman lines

The Romans have a solid wall of infantry awaiting the Barbarian charge

Roman cavalry and Barbarian foot clash on the left flank

The war band is in shield wall for protection

casualties mount

but the Barbarians are thrown back in disarray

the Barbarian cavalry now threatens the rear of the Roman line

Their attention is still focussed on the enemy Mob

Just as the Optio turns his men to face the enemy cavalry, a group of Barbarian "Loonies" attack from nowhere

The Barbarian chief tells his men it is time and they charge

but the attack is disjointed and they take casualties

Roman discipline holds

The "Loonies" stab the Auxiliaries in the back

and they break and run

narrowly avoiding the remnants of the Barbarian cavalry that have lost men to archer fire

Those "Loonies" have made a right mess of the Roman line

Roman cavalry now tackle them

In a hard fight, both cavalry and "Loonies" are destroyed

Now the Barbarian chief charges his men forward again

The Optio's men have tried to charge the smaller Barbarian mob but get beaten for their trouble

The Barbarians follow up

but this has left their rear exposed to the remaining Roman cavalry

They are smashed by this attack

The Barbarian morale had been falling steadily and this final act sees their morale crumble completely - they are done !

The Barbarians flee the field leaving the Romans as victors.

We started at 11am and didn't get to finish until 18:30 partly because of a glitch with Zoom for a while but we got back on again and finished the game.

Definitely getting slicker with the rules now and they feel just right for this period and style of skirmish.