Last Friday nephew Steve was up from North Carolina and we went to Jim’s to play DBM. This was a campaign battle from our current game and featured Crassus’ Marian Romans versus the evil Dacians led by Howardtrix (Howard West), a fearsome opponent, indeed!
The Romans outnumbered the defending Dacians by over a hundred points (Romans at 530points), and deployed with their CiC command behind field fortifications. Two mounted commands, including the Allied Armenians were on the right. A mobile force with naval transport was on the left.
Howard West and Steve Baier relax at game's start.
The main Dacian attack command was a strike force of Allied Sarmation knights on Howard’s left. The game began well for the Romans when the Sarmations rolled a “1″ and became unreliable while they sat about debating how to attack the Romans. This respite was short-lived as they rallied a few turns later and charged headlong into the Roman lines.
In a confusing melee, many of the knights fell to the Armenians and Roman auxiliary light horse. Gradually the large size of the Sarmation command became telling as two Roman commands teetered toward demoralization. The Sarmations finally broke and the pursuit was on!
But the Sarmation war-leader, although attacked and virtually surrounded for FIVE turns overcame all odds and broke both Roman commands!!
The game at that point was over as the loss of two commands and a few others on the remaining Romans was enough to break the whole Roman army.
Crassus left the field muttering under his breath “I hate these rules!” (Not really…but some things are odd…the General of a broken command can still attack and only loses his add..he is not demoralized like the rest of his command who all fled the board in rout!
In campaign terms Howard had a Pyrrhic victory, losing double what the Romans lost. Most of his casualties were in expensive knights, and mine were in Light Cavalry and cheap infantry.
View from the Roman left. Steve watches the Dacian foot approach.
Game end. The Roman right is shattered.
The previous battle of Wilson’s Creek (US Civil War) ended a week later almost historically. The Rebs rallied their superior number to trash the Yankees…but Lyon did NOT die….perhaps living to become a great leader for the US forces (or maybe to become a successful drunk and end the war in a minor staff function under Ben Butler)
On the other table was a FOG game from the same campaign with Kevin’s Romans versus Jim and Neal using Armenians..they were still playing when we left, so I don’t know who won….
Jim, Neal and Kevin get to it in FOG.
