See earlier posts for scenario context; scenario rules; orders of battle; and the course of events up to turn 11...
Turn 12
The Roman auxilia blocking the western road close with the approaching column, limiting its room for manoeuvre. Death and glory is the idea.
Disaster for the Roman legionaries! As expected they mop up the final archer base, but the engaged legion takes a wound which breaks it, and the knock on effects are; removing a base from the legion to their right; breaking the single-base legion immediately to their left; and causing a wound to the legion to the left again. An expensive victory! The Roman blocking position now looks to have unraveled, although the saving grace is that the forward Goths are not quite in a position to exploit it yet, and the heroic auxilia on the road are preventing further reinforcements coming up quickly.
A unit of Roman auxilia comes down from the E hill to assist their pals fighting on the lower slopes. The Goth lancers are broken, the Roman equites manage to survive, and after a brief pursuit they fall in behind the other equites unit trying to withdraw back between the hills.
The Goths start trying to gather their forces into a coherent mass ready for the final push against the SE corner hill lines.
The Roman light cavalry have now re-organised themselves, sitting on the top of the E hill and providing flank protection for the auxilia. At least this is one place where the Roman defences are still on a sound footing.
Turn 13
Two units of Goth rear column warriors charge the heroic auxilia on the road. The auxilia break one of them, and take no casualties themselves.
The Goths begin to form a new line of forces ready to chase the remaining Roman legionaries back up and over the S hill – two units of warriors, two of light javelin inf, the remaining unit of Alan light cavalry, and one unit of tribal archers.
The Roman legionaries pull back onto the S hill, trying to delay the inevitable.
The Roman auxilia pulls back onto the E hill, lining up again with the other auxilia.
The Roman equites fall back through the gap in the hills and turn around. The road is still guarded, but their left flank is worrisome.
The Roman left flank general is running around the edge of the board, leaving his heroic auxilia to their fate and intending to take personal command of the light cavalry on the extreme right.
The goths facing the solidly defended E hill are cautious. The remaining lancers hold back, allowing archers and light javelinmen to move up to cover their left. The lancers want to charge down the road, not onto the rough hill!
Turn 14
The heroic auxilia on the W road continues their single-handed war of attrition, wounding the warrior unit they remain engaged with. Further warrior units are trying to come up in support, but the fight being on the road is a hindrance.
Meanwhile the forward part of the Goth forces are now reasonably organised and attempting to land the final blows. Time is beginning to look short, so they cannot simply wait for the S hill to be overrun. Especially since the warriors need to change to loose formation to make any sort of real progress there.
The Goths crowd forward around the edge of the S hill, and missile fire removes the single-base legion. The one remaining legion keeps pulling back, limiting the Goths’ speed of advance.
Goth archers and javelinmen push forward nervously towards the E hill, and the Roman light cavalry come down, taking a small risk in order to be able to return fire.
The goth lancers push forward along the road, not quite ready to charge through the gap until something comes up that can protect their left flank from the auxilia on the hill.
The Roman equites continue pulling back and re-organising, ready to face the lancers when they attack.
Turn 15
The heroic auxilia on the W road continue their lone rampage, breaking another unit of warriors and charging heedlessly towards the remaining column. Only 8 more units to go and they can have a tea break!
The Goth warriors decide they don’t want the hassle of getting into loose formation, so it is left to the archer and light troops to advance and try to remove the still falling back Roman legion. The massed missile fire inflicts a wound.
Both unit of Roman light can take a wound, inflicting one on the Goth javelinmen in return, and retreat up the hill as the Goths continue to press forward. A lack of good command cards hinder their organisation – one unit now has its back to the enemy and cannot shoot.
The Roman auxilia come down off the E hill. They have a choice between sitting back and soon coming under unreturnable bow fire, or trying to get into action and make the Goth archers regret their hand-to-hand inferiority. With the equites forming up on the road again to keep the lancers honest, the auxilia commander goes for the bold option. His orders do not emphasise saving lives at the expense of failing in the objective!
Turn 16
The last Roman legion is dispersed and Goth light forces continue off the other side of the S hill. The archers turn left toward to road, intending to intervene against the defending equites.
There is now a second Roman general running along the S edge of the map, this one however has no more troops to try to rejoin.
The Goth warriors still are not in loose formation, so instead start to turn 90 degrees left and march around the edge of the hill. One unit turns now, the other waits to admire how they do it.
The Roman light cavalry re-organises itself atop the E hill, and both units have their wounds cured (no command range restrictions in this scenario).
The Goth lancers were still not ready to attack, so the Romans take the initiative. The undamaged equites unit and the auxilia charge; one unit of auxilia helps out against the lancers at some personal risk, the other smacks into a unit of archers. Fortuna rewards the bold apparently; at cost of one wound on the equites, a base of lancers and a base of archers are removed. Both C-in-C’s are fighting in the front line here – there isn’t anything else for them to move, and this could be the decisive moment with not much time remaining.
Turn 17
The Goth archers on the S hill charge down into the flank of the equites engaged with the lancers. A further wound removes a base of equites, but the lancers are broken, the archers to their immediate left are broken, and two units of auxilia swarm forward in firm possession of the road.
Roman light cavalry chase away the javelinmen on the extreme Gothic left, leaving one unit of archers high and dry. A second unit of javelinmen comes up nervously in support.
Turn 18
The Goth cause now looks hopeless, a combination of too little time and too few advanced units to clear away the remaining defenders and push on down the road in meaningful force.
But is this a final twist?
The Roman equites engaged in the flank cannot get turned, and the other equites unit fails to come to their support. One breaks in the melee, the other is carried away with it (or was it fire from the Alans who are now surging around the southern flank of the hill?)
One base of auxilia is lost to javelin fire from the lone unit of warriors in position to threaten the roadblock.
Finis
At this point I concluded it was time to call it.
The Romans have achieved their primary aim of delaying the Gothic column, but suffered extremely heavy casualties in doing so (note: no automatic army break effects, another scenario rule), losing some brownie points.
The remaining Gothic forces will be able to get off the table eventually, but they have taken a lot of casualties and it will still take some time to get a co-ordinated force moving onward to their next battle; some way further along the road, against a better prepared and fully fortified Roman force holding the pass through the main mountain chain. Not a palatable proposition!
Overall therefore, a moderate Roman victory.
Conclusions / food for thought
Is it better for the Romans to just pull everybody back and man the hill lines in the SE corner? Possibly, but that would allow the Goths to try to get forward and organised quicker and more effectively. I feel that some sort of harassment is necessary. And vital to make an interesting game!
Should the Goths have been more cautious at the start, getting more forces on the table and off the road before pushing forward? The remaining lancers could have done with getting into a position of influence earlier, and leaving them behind on the road didn’t help when the rear party finally started arriving – suddenly they had to moved to the detriment of activity on the front lines. As it turned out the Goth forward push put the Romans under serious pressure but didn’t quite have the strength, or follow up support, it needed. Perhaps a case of more haste, less speed (ultimately).
Were the Romans wise to come off the hills? There was always a chance they would not make it back and end up fighting Goth reinforcements in the open. On balance though I think yes. They had some bad luck with the dice at critical moments and lost of lot of casualties I was not expecting (the heroic auxilia on the W road then made up for that, but I’m not sure how much difference that flourish made to the overall outcome). Even so they occupied Gothic attention and reduced their forces enough, limiting their ability to carry out the final assault in an effective fashion.
So that leads me to conclude that the Goths were not justified in pushing quite so aggressively up the road, expecting the Romans to stand off them. Stronger masking forces from the advance units were needed to allow the push up the road, by elements from further back in the column. Where to attack ultimately depends on exactly how the Romans are deployed in defence, and the terrain will still make it challenging.
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