Reddened Hair (366)

Continuing on with General Jovinus' campaign against the invading Alamanni in 366, here is a game based on a second surprise attack by the Romans upon the Alamanni.

...one of his scouting parties report that 'after plundering the neighboring farmhouses a predatory band was resting near the river': unfortunately [chronicler] Ammianus does not name the river.  Advancing with extreme caution, Jovinus managed to bring his troops to the edge of the valley, where: 'Hidden in a valley concealed by a thick growth of trees, he saw that some were bathing, others were reddening their hair after their national custom, and still others were drinking.'  Preparing his troops, Jovinus suddenly gave the signal, and his men rushed the enemy camp. Taken completely by surprise, the majority of the Alamanni were killed, while a few escaped by taking refuge along the 'winding and narrow paths' in the area.

- Hughes, Ian. Imperial Brothers: Valentinian, Valens and the Disaster at Adrianople (2013).

So a similar set-up to Scarponna, but with a river this time.  Since this was yet another remote game and involved a grid, we decided to give ruleset The Portable Wargame (or, more specifically, Developing the Portable Wargame, since that is where the ancient rules are located) a try.

Positions after the first turn: the Alamanni are positioning to defend themselves on the far bank of the river, while Romans advance from left.

We played with 10 units per side at exactly 46 strength points each, for an army exhaustion point of 15.  Because I had laid out a grid of 3" squares on my game mat, each unit straddled two squares, and movement and ranges were doubled. Although this mostly worked fine, the one-unit-on-two-squares element made for some tricky melees, since units could combat with only one square each touching.

Roman right flank advancing.

All of the Alamanni were classed as heavy infantry with pila (representing their franciscas, a heavy throwing axe).  The Roman infantry was also heavy infantry with pila (representing darts and javelins, rocks, and strong language), with two units of "close order archers" (a variant of light infantry), two units regular heavy cavalry, and a single unit of cataphracts.

The Roman general behind the Roman left flank.

As players of The Portable Wargame know, each side will fight until it has lost 1/3 of its total strength points, at which point it cannot move towards or charge the enemy anymore.  These strength points are tallied across the entire army.  So losing 15 strength points does not mean losing 4 units (of 4 SP each).  Instead, five units could lose 3 SP each, which would mean that none of them would be removed from the table, but that the army had still lost its fighting nerve.

Cataphracts attack an Alamanni unit in its flank.

This dynamic means that unlike most games, by the end of the game it is very possible that both sides could still have all their starting units still on the table. Furthermore, shooting and melee can only result in the loss a single SP, with a decent probability that no hit will be scored in the first place, and a decent chance the hit will result in a recoil in place of a lost SP.  This may sound like it would be a slugfest wherein nothing much happens, but the Romans rather quickly found themselves missing 12 SP to the Alamanni's 9. 

The Alamanni chief in combat against Roman heavy cavalry.

This seems to have been the result of the Roman cavalry and cataphracts getting stuck in perhaps a little early and then getting overwhelmed by the Alamanni infantry.  The Roman infantry by contrast was too cautious and took too long to get into javelin/dart range, and also routinely ended up obstructing the LOS of the archers.

Roman infantry finally crossing the river and joining in melee.

When the Roman infantry finally did get close enough, the various cavalry had accumulated too many lost SPs. One attempt was made at a sort of combined attack - one infantry unit retreating a square and throwing javelins, followed by archer fire at the same target, and then a 2nd infantry unit closing for the melee. In theory this could have resulted in 3 SP lost on the target Alamanni unit in quick succession. Instead, it escaped completed unscathed!

Roman cavalry in a messy situation on the Alamannu right flank.

Generals in The Portable Wargame can join a melee and add +1 to the dice score. The Alamanni, sensing victory in reach, had the chief join a melee with a Roman cavalry unit that had already lost 3 SP.  

However, generals also have a notional SP of 6, used solely for the purposes of calculating, and counting towards, the overall exhaustion point. If the unit a general is attached to loses a SP, a dice is rolled. If a '6' results, the general is killed and the unit loses an additional SP.  This is exactly what happened when the Alamanni chieftain joined the melee. 

After the death of the chief.

So in one swoop the Alamanni lost 8 SP which put them well over the exhaustion point.  We finished the Romans' turn and gave the Alamanni another turn to resolve existing melees and some shooting attacks, which caused the Romans to reach their exhaustion point as well.  As both sides had lost one unit but the Alamanni  had also lost their general, we agreed it was a Roman win that they could feel good about.  Next time we will have some victory point criteria in place.

I forgot to mention that there are no activation rolls in these rules.  It is a simple IGOUGO turn mechanic. However, if a unit is attacked and the attacker choses to fall back rather than losing a SP, the defender may follow up and attack.  Between this and the defender frequently having the choice of taking a SP and holding ground, or falling back and not losing the SP (but becoming exposed to a follow-up attack), means that a player will have things to do even when it is not their turn. Besides, with grid movement and no activation rolls, turns go quickly, only slowing towards the end when players become more cautious as their SP losses pile up.  

These rules worked very well in a remote-play setting, with the game concluded in about an hour and a a half, where a similarly sized game (10 units per side) of Lion Rampant or Pikeman's Lament (even on a grid and with no activation rolls) would take 2+ hours.  I am almost done with 3 units of Gothic cavalry, and I look forward to trying these rules with even more units on the table.  I will also switch back to a grid of 6" squares as the one-unit-in-two-squares dynamic made things tricky.