Battle Report: Timete incognita

The God of the Deep had always favoured Garzan Thrice-Cut. He had championed the God of the Deep in many fights, always dedicating the spoils to the God. With the God's favour, he had claimed the Armour of the Champion, raising his status among his people to exalted heights, as well as giving him the respect needed to deal with the other races. Three weeks ago, the God had spoken to him in his dreams.

Raise a force in my name, and take it into the dry-lands. Slay all the mud-scrapers you find, sacrifice their blood and flesh to me and I will give you glory. 

With his sworn swords, men he had grown up with who had pledged their allegiance to him, he journeyed into the warrens where his people lived, seeking those young who sought the chance to earn glory. He was able to gather some riders and some foot, before he set off to make a deal with the Beastmen, plying their chief with meat and alcohol, who then allowed him to recruit from his clan. Never ones to shy away from a fight, he was able to take his pick of the unpledged warriors.

With his force raised he set forth into the cursed dry-place, coming upon a village and descending upon it as the great sky fire began to creep into the open space above. Fear and surprise reduced the mud-scrapers to pathetic wretches, easily dispatched, unworthy of sacrificing to the God of the Deep. As they killed the last of the village dwellers, another group of the land-men who smelled somehow different had come along the road. After a brief fight, all but one had been slain, and the last fled back along the road. Just as he prepared to order his riders to hunt down the fleeing creature down, he heard the God of the Deep in his mind.

Let the creature flee, he will bring you more worthy sacrifices, a glorious battle in which you can prove your value to me.

He obeyed the God and called off his riders, despite their obvious frustration.

That had been three days previously, and the warband was growing ever more restless. They had combed the village and all the surrounding lands, finding no more mud-crawlers to slay. Frustration and boredom was beginning to cause the band to fracture, the Beastmen being the worst. Their snarling and barking was almost constant, they were openly scrapping with each other and his people, some of the fights had drawn blood. Without some enemies to fight, soon the band would begin killing itself. Garzan's faith was being tested, and he was almost beginning to doubt when one of his riders appeared. "More mud-crawlers on the road." he reported breathlessly "They wear iron shirts and carry weapons." Garzan smiled as he heard to God once more.

 Kill

In another case of impulse buying an army and rushing it to the field, this game saw my recently acquired and painted Celtos Formorians pitched against my Romans in a game of Dragon Rampant. We were playing a simple open battle with 30 point warbands, set in the time of the Third Punic War. A Roman force has been sent to Gaul to ensure that Rome's preoccupation in the south doesn't encourage the Gauls to misbehave, and then they received a report of a Roman merchant's convoy being attacked near a Gallic village, so send a centurion leading a small force to discipline the Gauls. 

The two forces had the following compositions:

Romans: 30 points, Leader Skill: Bone Shaker, one free attack activation for a unit within 12" of the leader.

2 x Picked Principii, Elite Foot with Short Range Missiles (7 points each) (Leader with one unit)
1 x Hastatii, Light Foot with Offensive and Short Range Missiles (6 points)
1 x Triarii, Heavy Foot (4 points)
1 x Syrian Archers, Light Missiles with Sharpshooter (6)

Note: Technically the Elite Foot can't have the Short Range Missiles upgrade, but I allowed it, but limited their ammunition so as not to overpower the units. As it turned out, the Romans never used this ability, so maybe in future I'll spend the points elsewhere.

Formorians: 30 points, Leader Skill: Bone Shaker, yep both sides rolled the same number for their leader skill, madness.

1 x Formorian Adults, Bellicose Foot with Terrifically Shiny Armour and Mystical Armour, (8 points) (Leader with this unit). Reduced model unit (4 models with 8 strength points).
1 x Beastmen, Bellicose Foot with Terrifically shiny Armour and Fear, (8 points). Reduced model unit (4 models with 8 strength points)
1 x Blood Raiders, Heavy Riders with Fear (6 points). Reduced model unit (2 models with 4 strength points)
1 x Formorian Adolescents with Spears, Light Foot (3 points)
1 x Formorian Adolescents with Swords, Light Foot with Offensive  (5 points)

The table was set up so the Formorians would start on the short table edge in the village and Romans would advance from the other short edge. To simulate the lack of familiarity of the opposing forces with the other neither side was informed about the other's special rules/stats etc.

The sun rises over the suspiciously quiet village, with only the cows and pigs making any noise.

The Formorians deployed first, with the majority of their force in the village positions to move up the road, and the spearmen unit on their left flank.

Formorian starting positions, the spear adolescent unit is hidden behind the small building.

The Romans had deployed intending to use the marshes to protect their archers and then push up the road.

The Roman raiding party marches onto the field, intent on exacting revenge on the Gallic village.

The opening move saw the Romans conducting a general advance towards their objective, maintaining a fairly solid battle line.

Roman forces on the march.

An archer discusses the centurion's interpretation of the word "leading." The primus pilus back at the Legion would doubtless be mortified.

The Formorian forces responded by advancing to exit the bottleneck at the village's edge, aiming to reach the Romans as rapidly as possible. 

Is it just me, or are the Gauls uglier than usual centurion?

The next couple of turns saw both sides continue their advance with mostly succesful order rolls. The Formorians began to shift to their left to keep out of range of the Roman archers, while the Romans right flank began to lead the left. At this point the Formorian players (following the exclamation "Maybe we should read all this stuff" in reference to the special rules on their unit cards) realised they could move their Bellicose Foot into rough terrain without penalty and prepared to outflank the Roman line.
 

The two forces close, and the Romans really begin to wonder if the hideous creatures are actually Gauls. Also, why the horses have fangs.

The Roman force has become rather strung out as Formorians push into the woods around their right flank.

It was at this point that the Goddess Fortuna deserted the Romans and they failed their first order roll of their turn, paralysing their forces at the very moment of contact. The Formorians capitilised on this opportunity, charging their Formorian adults into the flank of the Hastatii, easily beating the terrified Roman troops in the ensuing melee. 

Roman troops first experience the fury of their opponent as strange monsters storm out of the forest.

The Hastatii were unable to retreat due to the presence of the Triarii on their flank, but passed the roll to avoid additional casualties. The Formorians used the rest of their turn to move the Beastmen and Blood Raiders onto the Roman right flank.

Unfortunately for them, the Romans again fluffed their first orders roll of the next turn, so their forces were unable to respond to the flank, leaving the Hastatii to face the fury of the Formorian Adults once again, losing another two men in the progress. This time they failed their unable to retreat test, and two further men were cut apart as they tried to flee. The unit then failed its courage test and became battered, effectively destroying their combat ability, and were then hit by a charge from the Blood Raiders.

Sometimes it's just one of those days.

This charge wiped the unit out, and left the Triarii next in line to face the Formorians. For a third turn in a row, the Romans failed their first order roll (these rolls were 5+ on 2d6, meaning that the odds of this happening 3 times in a row is of the order of 1 in 216, sometimes the dice gods are just cruel). Clearly the centurion had lost all ability to command as his mind processed the sights of actual monsters.

The triarii were hit by the Formorian leader's unit and fell back only to be hit by a charge from the Beastmen.

Beastmen storm into the triarii.

They managed to hold their own against the horned monstrosities, cutting one down for the cost of two of their own, forcing the mosters back although they did end up battered. The next turn saw the Romans rediscover the ability to roll decent order dice (once), moving up the rearmost of their elite troops while the triarii prepared to face another wave of charges. The Formorian leader led the charge again, cutting the triarii apart and forcing them back in disarray. Another failed courage test saw one man drop his weapon and shield and flee the field (or alternately drown in the swamp).

In Rome, the saying "It's all down to the trarii" means a situation that is critical. What do you call a situation like that when the triarii are already breaking?

The sight of a pair of terrified, fleeing soldiers was too tempting to resist for the Blood Raiders and they swept in to clean up the remnants, which they did in short order while the Formorian Adolescents moved up to support their leader.

Another Roman unit evaporates.

The Roman forces finally managed to make something of a response to the Formorian presence now, using their free attack activation to charge the Formorian leader with their leader and his picked Principii, while the Formorians used their free attack activation to automatically counter charge. 

The centurion attempts to restore the situation in person.

The fight saw both sides lose one strength point, enough to remove a model from each due to an earlier hit on the Formorian leader's unit by the triarii, forcing the principii to fall back. Meanwhile the Roman archers shot down one of the Blood Raiders and the other Principii unit moved up to hold the line with their centurion.

The Romans stubbornly fight on, and a glimmer of hope begins to show as they inflict losses on their opponents.

On the Formorian turn, another round of combat saw both leaders' units lose another strength point, critically putting the Roman unit on half strength, cutting it's combat dice from 8 to 4.

In the next Roman turn, the second unit of Principii charged forward to relieve the pressure on the centurion and the, with 8 dice needing 3+ to cause hits, did precisely no damage, taking a casualty in the process. To add insult to injury, a catastrophic roll for a courage test saw the unit go battered in the face of the two most powerful enemy units.

Fear gets the better of the pick of the Legion, leading to a shameful performance.

Beginning to accept the inevitable, the Roman centurion begins to retreat from the battle area. More shooting from the archers fails to have an effect on the Blood Raiders, adding to the ignomy of the round for Rome. 

At this point, the Beastmen clearly felt the need to sort out the pecking order with the death of one of their number, failing to launch a wild charge into the battered principii unit, meaning the Formorian Leader had to deal with it, inflicting a further casualty on them but failing to destroy them. The Formorian adolescents were now rapidly moving to sweep around the last Roman units and cut them off from any chance of escape and the Blood Raider moved to set up a charge on the Syrian archers.

The Roman turn saw the principii rally, their leader dither behind his two surviving units and the archers shoot down the surviving Blood Raider, although it was now clear it was a matter of when, not if, they were going to be destroyed.

The archers shoot down the enemy riders, but the situation remains grim.

The Beastmen continued to disappoint, refusing another Wild Charge opportunity, while the Formorian leader left the remnants of the principii alone to hit the archers. (Note: Allowing this was an error on my part as it involved moving within 3" of the principii, although at this point such an error had no impact on the game's outcome). Unsurpisingly, the archers suffered horribly under the attack, losing 3 men. The sword armed Formorian adolescents charged into the Roman centurion, cutting down his remaining principii guard at no cost to themselves. The spear armed adolescents threw themselves at the principii who were now surrounded, but were driven back with one casualty by the grim faced legionaries.

Defeat is now certain, but the Romans courage somehow holds. They brace themselves to take as many as possible with them before they die.

Keen to end the defiant legionaries, the Formorian leader charged into them with his retinue, both  sides losing a strength point, before the Beastmen rushed in, finally having sorted out whatever had been distracting them. 

Eager to get back into the fight the Beastmen charge down the defiant principii.

The last principii was cut down, as his centurion was run down by the sword wielding adolescents, not even being able to take one with him in his final moments. The loss of their leader demoralised the Roman archers, who were then charged by the Formorian leader. Only one man survived the fight who then fled to the hills. 

With that, the last Roman unit was destroyed, a resounding victory for the Formorians. A couple of lessons came out of this game:

1) Remembering the 3" separation rule is critical, especially that it probably applies to friendly units too. We ignored this rule through a lot of the game (at least in part due to lesson 2). While this probably did not affect the outcome, it's something to watch out for.

2) The terrain was probably too close for fighting across the short edge. Either using long edges or less terrain would a) give units more space so the 3" separation rule would be usable and b) defang units that can fight better/at full effectiveness in rough terrain.

3) The unable to retreat rule is one of the most elegant ways I've seen to give a benefit to flanking in a game without unit facings. Its ability to cut units that are unable to retreat apart is an excellent reward for players who manage to put their opponents in such a bad position.

4) Not knowing what the enemy's special abilities are can be brutal. 

The last lesson in particular in this game was massively amplified by the failure on three successive crucial turns of the Romans to perform any orders. This allowed the Formorians to throw their heaviest forces at the two weakest Roman units and eliminate them without any real risk. From that point on, the game was always going to be an uphill struggle for the Romans. Despite that, everyone seemed to have fun, and the rules gave a fast paced and fun game.

Garzan surveyed the site of the battle, satisfied at the performance of his little waraband, even with the unfortunate loss of the Blood Raiders. Some of the mud-crawlers had been found alive, often wounded, and were now trussed up ready to be taken back to the warrens. Some would undoubtedly die on the journey, and if they knew what would happen to those that lived they would consider themselves the lucky ones.

The Beastmen were beginning to feast on the corpses of the slain, tearing into the flesh raw regardless of whether it was still clothed and armoured or not, barking and laughing loudly as they bragged about their exploits. His people were more civilised, and were making the fires to roast their feast prior to eating. 

Garzan walked to where he had seen the enemy leader with his distinctive helmet fall, stepping over the corpses of the tough enemy troops who had stood against his forces for far longer than he had expected. As they walked, he felt a hand grasp his leg and looked down to see one of the adolescents who had joined his band. He'd been stabbed twice, once in his leg and once in the stomach, and he was now holding in his innards. "Please" he whispered "help." Garzan wrenched his leg from the creature's hand, nodded to one of his guards, reminding himself he needed to find a new warrior worthy of taking his fallen comrade's place and walked on. 

The enemy leader's final expression was a mixture of fear and anger, lying in the field of his defeat, staring sightlessly into the sky. "If this is how well the mud-crawlers fight we will be able to take the whole dry place from them." said one of his guards, wiping the blood of the now dead adolescent from his blade. "A tempting idea" admitted Garzan. He took one more look at the dead mud-crawler, feeling a slight chill of trepidation run up his spine.

"Make sure our dead are given to the marsh." he said, a harsh tone creeping unbidden into his voice. "When the sky fire leaves the open space we make for home. Once our sacrifices have been given to the God of the Deep, then we can talk of defeating these creatures once and for all."