Slitherine

Hello All,

A 'Friend' of mine has suggested we re-fight the battle of the Teutoburg Forest in September as something fun to do.

Since he's a Germanophile, I call him a 'friend' as opposed to a friend as I'm sure which side I'll be on

Anyway I'm wondering if there's any thoughts on what we should use to represent this battle.

Paul suggested we play length ways across the table with the Romans needing to get from one side to the other and the Germans having a good field day along the way.

Any thoughts on this?

Some thoughts that I've had:

We could have something like 20 totally random ambush markers along the way, with differing quantities and qualities of Germans in each ambush.

For purposes of this battle the Germans are considered all "Medium Infantry"

The Roman army must remain in column until contacted by enemy.

No 'army morale'. The Romans start off as (mostly) 'Armoured/Superior/Drilled/-/Impact Foot/Skilled Swordsmen' go to 'Armoured/Average/Drilled/-/Impact Foot/Swordsmen' once 1/3 of the BG's are destroyed or double that number fragmented or a combination of each and go to 'Armoured/Poor/Drilled/-/Impact Foot/Swordsmen' when >1/2 if in a similar way.

Winning conditions:

If >25% of the Romans get off the far side of the table (in any condition) Roman tactical victory.
If >50% of the Romans get off the far side of the table (in any condition) Roman decisive victory.
If ANY Romans get off the far side of the table (in any condition) but <25% German tactical victory.
If No Romans get off the far side of the table German decisive victory.

Please - this is a work in progress, so let me know your thoughts.

Ian

I like it.

I would not give the Germans MI status though. Just more points to buy more troops.

Just my 'friendly' perspective, mein freund.

If I recall, the Germans had defensive works prepared along the Roman route of advance. You might want to check that out.

Keep the Germans as HF except they don't suffer any penalties in woods and other terrain. Keeps it simple. Also, this was a coalition of tribes some of which might have been MF.

I'd probably add some units representing baggage along the route of march to act as mobile FOG camps the loss of which represent a small point loss for the Romans and a major point gain for the Germans.

If you can make it a multiplayer game I'd have players represent different tribal groupings and Roman officers. The German players would be competing with each other for points through looting baggage except for Arminius who would gain most of his points from killing Romans. As for the Romans I'd probably have two sets of objectives: one for the army getting off the table as you propose and another set where army losses exceed say 25% at which point it becomes a free-for-all and each Roman officer should get points for getting his command off the board at any point.

Julian

Rather than ambush markers I would have a table to roll on at the start of each Roman turn. The result of the dieroll decides how many new German units enter the table each turn. The Romans job is to survive and exit units off the far edge of the table.

I played a Lake Trasimene (SP?) scenario where some of the Gaulic battlegroups on the Cartho side started within flank charge range of the Romans.....Immediately meant some Romans where getting smacked right off. If you give hte Romans the full Arm, Ssword, Impact, Sup, DRilled Kitchen sink classification it may be hard for the germans to whack them, even in the woods.


Ian

IanB3406 wrote:I played a Lake Trasimene (SP?) scenario where some of the Gaulic battlegroups on the Cartho side started within flank charge range of the Romans.....Immediately meant some Romans where getting smacked right off. If you give hte Romans the full Arm, Ssword, Impact, Sup, DRilled Kitchen sink classification it may be hard for the germans to whack them, even in the woods.


Ian

You could always say that Ssword only counts for steady units. Since the Romans will mostly be hit in the flank they will be disrupted. If they survive the initial rounds of combat and are morale subsequently recovers, the Germans should be in trouble.

Julian

Or just say that not every single Roman legionary unit is veteran. The average ones are not nearly so tough, without the Skilled Swordsman.

Also, it seems from a cursory examination of the Wikipedia article that there may have been some fortifications involved at the end, when the Romans are trying to fight their way out of a narrow gap.

Plus you need 3 days tramping through forests in the pouring rain to run down Roman morale a bit.

John

Sounds like a good game
let us know how it turns out