Playtest Battle report - Early imperial romans vs Pontic

[malekithau]

Hi,

Played a 500 pt game against local opponent Mark 9we live in Newcastle, Australia). This was Marks 1st game. As there haven't been any AAR/battle reports posted in here for a while I thought I'd post a sanitised version of a playtest game. I will do this more often so that those who are not playtesting get to read about how the games play out.

Armies were only 500 points so fairly small.

My Pontic was -
1 BG 4 Pontic Cav
1 BG 4 Pontic LH javelins
1 BG 4 Sarmatain Cav
3 BG ea 6 Mock Legio (would've liked to use pikes but don't have enough)
1 BG 6 Thureophoroi
1 BG 6 Bastarane
1 BG 6 LF - javelins
1 BG 6 LF - bows
1 BG 2 Scythed Chariots

Mark used a Principate (early Imperial) Roman army
3 BG 6 Legio
1 BG 6 Cav
1 BG 6 LH javelins
1 BG 6 LF - bow
1 BG 6 LF - sling
1 BG 6 LF - Jav

We both deployed using fairly generic cav on the flanks, heavy infantry in the centre, LF in front. The large units of cavalry caused me some concern even though I had an edge in mounted. I decided to face the LH with my Pontic cav and his heavy cav with my LH and Sarmatians. My LF were outnumbered too although Mark made a deployment error and placed the javelinmen behind his slingers. My main line was, from left to right- thureophoroi, 3 legio in battle line (CinC attached) and scythed chariots. My sarmatians and LH were on my left with my Pontic Nobles on my right. The Bastarnae followed behind the rightmost legion and scythed chariots ready to fill the gap sure to be left there later. My 2 TC were attached to both my heavy cav.

Mark placed the heavy cav (TC attached) on his right with the LF archers next to them followed by a battleline of 3 legio (attached FC/CiC) with the 2 other LF placed opposite my scythed chariots and in front of the leftmost legio and finally the LH with attached TC.

The opening moves flowed quite well with the battle lines moving forward quite rapidly and within half an hour the opposing sides were arrayed for the climactic actions. The Roman heavy cav charged the Pontic LH who only just managed to get away. On the other flank the Roman LH moved into jav range and managed to kill a base of the Pontic nobles. All the LF were within range and took potshots at enemy units but managed no results at all. The Roman slingers were now within charge range of the scythed chariots and the right hand Legio BG. My Sarmatians contracted into 2 ranks while everyone else moved forward. And I forgot to charge my javelinmen into the LF archers, d'oh!

Next turn (about turn 4 or 5 I think) Mark made several errors which cost him heavily. He charged the LH again and this time they were able to outrun him easily and bypass the now shortened line of Sarmatians. This left his flank open to the Sarmatians. On the right my Nobles charged the LH who decided to stand (tested and passed). In the centre my Scythed chariots and legio charged the slingers who also stood (tested and passed). In the impact phase the Nobles smacked the LH dropping them to disrupted and killing a base. The slingers also dropped to fragmented and lost 2 bases. Manuevre was stright forward with legio pushing forward with the archers also getting into the face of the Roman legio. The Sarmatians improved their flank charge position and the Thureophoroi moved up to support the javelinmen. In the melee phase the LH dropped to fragmented and lost another base while the slingers evaporated.

Next turn saw charges across the table as the Sarmatians charged the Roman cav who evaded, thureophoroi/jav the archers, scythed chariots plus legio into the javelinmen and both lines of legio into each other (well after the intervening LF bolted anyway). The Roman cav rolled down and got caught evading as did the Roman archers.
The Roman legio were now in contact across their front. One Roman legio faced 2 Pontic legio while the centre BG faced 2 Pontic while the lefthand Roman Legio faced only one though the scythed chariots were now free on their flank and the LH was in deep trouble. The impact phase was kind to the Pontics with all three beating their opposing Roman BGs with one now being disrupted. The Roman HC meanwhile dropped to disrupted and was fighting to its rear with one base only. The Roman archers lost a base and dropped to fragmented. Manuevre was just the chariot trundling forward to place itself in the flank of the Roman line. and the Bastarnae moved forward to cover the legio line. Melee phase was a complete reverse of the impact phase where the superior skills and armour of the Romans gave them a huge edge. All three BGs won their combats, killed a base and disrupted or fragmented their opponents.

At this point we had to call a halt to the game after 2 hours of play.

We both believe that the final outcome would be a Pontic victory due to the flanks being won by cavalry superiority. The centre of the Pontic army would have imploded over the following turns but due to the still healthy Bastarnae, chariots, thureophoroi and cavalry they would eventually go down. With more experience and possibly different army choices (MF for the Romans) the Romans could've won by holding the flanks and forcing the issue in the centre - in other words using historical tactics.

I will try to write up more games as I play them and post them here. I am playing more games this weekend.

Thanks
John O

[shall]

Great stuff John

We look forward to hearing about the next games

Si

[malekithau]

So no sanitised playtest reports for the masses to keep the interest up?

Before I was in the beta group I read every AAR I could and it kept me interested. To keep the buzz going there needs to be more info for the interested gamers to get their teeth into. 9 months is a long time. Perhaps someone from the team can put together some AARs that don't give away any rules secrets or much detail from the armylists to help here.

Not all the potential players have access to Britcon or Historicon etc. All they get is what is on this website and not much new has been added really.

John O