The Medieval Fighting Man: Costume and Equipment 800 to 1500 - Jens Hill and Jonas Freiberg

Some reference books end up becoming turn to ones whenever I'm getting stuck into a painting project, so much so that the book very often ends up perched somewhere close to my painting desk as a ready reference whilst working out the look and detail on a particular sculpt and the best colours to use to bring out the detail.

Last week I added to my collection of books that have started to fall very much into that select group of ready references, namely the Europa Militaria Specials series of Osprey sized paperback books covering the military dress of a particular era or theme as presented by some of the best re-enactment groups around.

The book in particular is 'The Medieval Fighting Man' which is currently on offer from the Naval and Military Press for just £2.99 which is a must buy price in my opinion and when I received it I had intended just to refer to it for this brief review but then I remembered the other books I have in this series that would deserve equal recommendation for the same reason and ones I have used regularly when painting up my collections of Saxons and Vikings and Romans.

https://www.naval-military-press.com/product/medieval-fighting-mancostume-and-equipment/

The fact of the matter is that these groups of reenactors have made a large contribution to the archaeological evidence that supports how we portray these warriors from such a long time ago in that they have taken a lot of trouble to recreate their equipment and dress and then, when worn, have helped a lot in the understanding of how these warriors may well have worn the gear functionally; rather than simply based on educated guesswork and contemporary illustrations from artists who may never have fought in the gear they portrayed and were getting their information from those who had or had witnessed these warriors in action.

Needless to say this extra information adds to the way modern wargaming figures are now sculpted and the look we can create with our table-top armies, but these pictures of the way the reenactors carry the equipment and the look of it hanging on the body, not to mention the colour of the equipment and dress can really help those of us who want to capture that look in our figures.

My Romano-Dacian collection is about two thirds complete and I have finished my Saxon-Viking collection but may end up adding to it at some time and I have a very large collection of Perry 28mm Wars of the Roses to yet get started on and so these books will feature very much in my projects as they come under the brush.

The sample pictures included here in this post are taken from my latest addition and like the other two on the Romans and Vikings are lavishly full of colour photos like these which are invaluable to the figure painter.

The late medieval selection features these shots of the typical men at arms and poleaxe armed foot knight and there are similar illustrations covering the look of these men across the era from late Viking, the Crusades, and 13th, 14th and 15th century European armies from knights to the common soldier and armed citizen troops, with some great pictures of typical weaponry ideal for working out how to paint that particular crossbow mechanism or arrow shafts painted with a red oxide pigment mixed with linseed oil to protect them from the elements.

The Medieval Fighting Man is 96 pages and consists of the following sections:

Preface

Acknowledgements

Viking Warrior - 8th to 9th Centuries

Carolingian Landowner - Early 9th Century

Scandinavian Trader - 9th to 10th Century

Viking Warrior - Late 10th Century

Norman Miles - 11th to 12th Century

Infantry Serjant - Second Half of 12th Century

Knight Templar of the Third Crusade, 1190

Castellan Knight and Foot Soldier - 13th to 14th Century

Crossbowman - Mid 13th Century

The Longbowman - First Half of the 14th Century

Officer and Foot Soldier, 1485

The Armed Citizen, 1470 - 1500

Bibliography

Each section has text describing the times depicted by each warrior, with more information about their clothing, arms, equipment and their role on the battlefield.

There are some one-hundred and thirty full colour photographs of the re-enactors including full back and front figure portraits mixed with close ups of the gear and other equipment, intermixed with about a half-dozen full colour period examples of artwork that support the look of these men.

If you are the slightest bit interested in painting these early warriors then these books are a goldmine of reference information and if, like me, you have a rather large collection of late medieval types to get stuck into or you're working on those beautiful Footsore Miniature sculpts for the Barons War, then I would definitely recommend checking out the offer from Naval and Military Press in the link above or below.

https://www.naval-military-press.com/product/medieval-fighting-mancostume-and-equipment/

Next up: More to come on JJ''s as I conclude the posts covering Steve and my fighting of Ardennes'44 with a dramatic battle to end our refight of the first three days of the campaign and work progresses in JJ's Dockyard as the next six ships are fitting out with sails and rigging.

Barbarians - Netflix

I've just finished watching Series One of the new Netflix historical drama Barbarians, based on the Teutoburg Forest disaster of 9AD in the forests of Germania and I have to say I very much enjoyed it.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81024039

Ok so it's not Tacitus and the actual battle is squeezed into one of the six episodes, not for me quite able to create the impression of the three to four day attritional fighting that characterised the battle, but that said, it did capture some of the key events from the historical sources, with some artistic license to the story line and just as importantly the attention to historical detail in the sets and the dress of the actors really worked to get me hooked and looking forward to another series, which if the reaction so far is to go by seems fairly certain.

 

The storyline pretty much attempts to follow the historical accounts with 'spoiler alert' Arminius hoodwinking his surrogate father Varus into marching his three legions off into the woods, with a really clever and well acted set up showing how the whole situation is arrived at with some gorgeous sets showing Varus's summer camp complete with multiple Roman tents and a very impressive German hamlet of A framed houses around a large tribal meeting house.

However as well as a well acted storyline I was immediately grabbed with the attention to detail applied not only to the sets but to the look of all those extras which hopefully the few pictures from the series help to illustrate.

None of the dubious outfits seen in Gladiator, with Romans in a mixture of lorica segmentata and hamata worn by the common soldiers illustrating the gradual shift from mail to plate armour that seems to have occurred at this time on the German limes and wearing plain undyed tunics rather than the red seen worn by their officers.

Alongside that we had German warriors all displaying the kind of dress you would expect to see in Ancient Warfare magazine, complete with top knots in the hair and appropriate shield designs.

All this and Roman officers speaking in Latin with subtitles for those of us barbarians not quite able to keep up with such a civilized tongue.

If you haven't tuned into this series yet then you might want to have a watch as this is not the usual sandals and spear ancient drama and things have been left perfectly for the Romans to come storming back in Series Two with Germanicus keen to establish a bit of Pax Romana.

SPARTA, Rise of a Warrior Nation - Philip Matyszak

Book one of a two part set, this one as the title says covers the rise of Sparta from its earliest times and ends at the conclusion of the Persian wars. The first thing you notice upon opening the book is the font size, it appears to be the next size up from the norm and is definitely larger than in book two, admittedly whilst very welcoming for the elderly eyes it is a little odd.

Chapters one and two set the scene and clearly has to be based on whatever information can be gleaned from the ancient texts or later study so there isn’t a lot to go on. Generally speaking the origin stories of most ancient cities are usually based on myth and then enhanced by their citizens later to make things sound a bit more impressive, Matyszak does a reasonable job of sifting out what you can from what is passed down to us from the past.

Map of the Peloponnese

Sparta is sited in the ‘Hand’ of Greece, there are three ‘fingers’ hanging down into the Mediterranean and Sparta is in-between fingers two and three, The whole of the Peloponnese peninsula is very mountainous and fertile land is at a premium so Sparta is squeezed alongside the river Eurotas which runs north to south and originally consisted of two villages either side of the river and surrounded by mountains. This is possibly the origin of the two king system, more of which later. There was no access to a port at this time and the coast was notorious for shipwrecks so trading wasn’t a priority unlike in many other cities. Sparta didn’t even bother to develop proper coinage until near the end.

River Eurotas, Sparta originated either side of this river. wikipedia

At some time in the Bronze Age something really momentous happened in both Greece and the surrounding area of the Mediterranean causing the collapse of whole empires not just little villages and it is estimated that up to 90% of the Peloponnese was abandoned, for what little its worth my vote is on big volcano, tidal wave and the resulting change in atmospheric conditions seriously affecting farming but that isn’t relevant to this review. Enter the Dorians, who are relevant to the story as Sparta clearly identifies itself as being Doric when it suited them, who the Dorians were or where they came from is still being debated but they settled across the eastern Mediterranean in large numbers especially in the Peloponnese.

Anyway these two chapters also included fun stories of gods and double dealing and people born in eggs etc but as far as the Spartans were concerned, they were the descendants of Zeus and Taygete (daughter of Atlas), later the great-grandsons of Hercules just happen to return to reclaim their inheritance thus making the Spartans really Achaeans all along and so native to the area, which was convenient.

Map showing Sparta and Messenia : wikipedia

Chapters three and five get to the really important bit and is critical to understanding Sparta and its whole ethos. To the west over the mountains lies Messenia, this actually had some flat land and once all the pointy bits had been discounted it was still over 20 times larger than Sparta. Of course everyone knew that Messenia really belonged to Sparta because when the land was originally divided up via the choosing of lots by the great-grandsons of Hercules, the one who got Messenia cheated. Not sure I follow the Spartans reasoning here.

All ancient wars apparently took a very long time and all of them always ended in nice round numbers so it was twenty years before Sparta eventually conquered Messenia after many battles and doing some very un-Spartan things to achieve it. The Spartans were not yet the all conquering killing machines they later became; they were outnumbered by the Messenians and had the additional problem of the hostile city of Argos to the North East constantly causing trouble behind their backs.

Hence the need to do sneak attacks, bribery and suffer numerous defeats but eventually they won. Now the important bit so pay attention.

Messenia was declared public land and then sub-divided into equal lots called kleroi, each kleroi was sufficient to maintain one Spartan and his family. This Spartan wouldn’t do any actual farming of course, this was done by the conquered Messenains now known as helots (hel- means conquered /subjugated). This allowed the Spartan to concentrate full time on being a warrior, after successfully passing though the Agoge (see below) he would apply to join a soldier’s mess where he would be spending most of his time and once accepted he could then get married and if he didn’t already have one, be allocated a kleroi. Everyone in Sparta was therefore equal even the ones who were more equal than the others, when the Spartan died the land would revert to the state and be reallocated, usually to the son if there was one and if they didn’t already own a kleroi.

Ancient Sparta, note the mountains that surrounded the city

The helots hated the Spartans more than I hate playing AWI, and Spartan policy essentially revolved around maintaining control of Messenia and preventing a helot uprising, their armies when away on campaign were always looking over their shoulder and never liked to be too far away from home. The control of Messenia was critical in allowing Sparta to exist as a major city and is the actual source of their power. Once Messenia is lost it all falls to pieces.

There is much more that can be said about the Helots, they could own land, they did have money and they did fight in the army but you can look that up yourselves if interested.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helots

The huge effort needed to keep Messenia under control should have made it blindingly obvious that Sparta would be unable to do the same elsewhere but they did try to absorb the next city along which was called Tegea, even going so far as take along the chains that would allow them to measure out new kleroi. After a dreadful beating the Spartans had first hand experience of the chains as they got to wear them whilst working the Tegean’s fields, eventually the prisoners were released but the Tegeans kept the chains.

After that Sparta changed tack, their new policy was to approach each small city in turn threatening them with war unless they joined the new Peloponnesian League (controlled by Sparta of course); as the league got bigger then the request was accepted that much quicker. But I have now strayed into chapter seven.

Lycurgus

Chapter four is all about Lycurgus

Apparently everything that you know about the Spartan way of life is entirely down to Lycurgus, exactly who he was and when he was around is of course unclear but the Spartans say that it was he  who set down the laws called rhetras which covered the minutest detail of everyday life and that every Spartan would strictly follow. Conveniently for all future Spartan law implementers Lycurgus only gave these rhetra verbally and even went so far as to proclaim the Great Rhetra which forbade them from ever being written down, handy that.

According to Plutarch:

“Nothing can be said about Lycurgus without someone else disputing it. There are different accounts about when he was born, where he travelled, how he died and above all, about what he did as a law giver, No one can even agree in what times he lived”

But all the loopy things that you have ever heard about the Spartan way of life can be placed at his doorstep.

I will now briefly outline the Spartan ruling set up. There were as previously mentioned two kings, probably from the two most powerful families from the original two villages but far more likely it was someone who later claimed they were descended in that way and no one fortunately asked any embarrassing questions. The titles were hereditary within the family.

Ephors by Richard Hook

However the kings were overseen by an elected body of five Ephors, these were chosen from the Spartiates (those who held a kleroi) and they served for a year and could not be re-elected. In reality they had a lot more power than the kings as they formed state policy and upheld the laws. Underneath them was another body of twenty-eight men (plus the kings) called the Gerousia, naturally you had to be a Spartiate and be over 60 years old! You would have thought that the choice of potential candidates would be quite limited. Election was by acclamation and was for life, this body was a sort of jury who considered important law decisions and whether to veto anything that wasn’t in the public good. The kings would always lead the army regardless of whether they knew what they were doing or not and later on, after a few conflicts of interest out in the field, the Ephors decreed that from now on one of the kings must always remain behind in Sparta.

The Gerousia and the two kings debate

Chapter six is titled the making of a Spartan warrior, all well known stuff so I will skip this, if you don’t know then click the link below which outlines their education system which was called the Agoge. Failing the Agoge meant that you were not a full Spartiate and joined the next class down which was the Periokoi, free non-citizens who did actual work and therefore very un-Spartan but would of course still fight in the army when required.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoge

Chapter seven I have already briefly outlined above and covers the formation of the Peloponnesian league with most of the peninsula signed up, Sparta then turned again to deal with the much trickier problem of Argos. This was done by lining up in battle formation outside the city the same as they had done with all the others however unlike the smaller cities Argos wasn’t playing ball and they came outside to talk things over dressed in their best armour. Both sides then had a serious think about things and agreed that maybe it would be better if only a few from each side fought it out on a last man standing agreement. Queue the famous “Battle of the Champions“ yes really.

Battle of the Champions

Dated to around 546 BC each side picked 300 of their best warriors and everyone else went home to let them get on with it undisturbed. I am sure you not be surprised to know that 597 were killed, two Argives were left and believing themselves to be the only survivors they staggered back home with the good news that they had won, later however one Spartan who was not quite dead woke up and seeing no one else alive he too staggered back home with the good news after erecting a trophy on the field.

Typical Greek Battle Trophy

When both armies returned to claim victory an argument then ensued about who had actually won, this led to blows and a pitched battle which they had all been trying to avoid in the first place, the Spartans won and so imposed their control over some more small towns. What happened to the Spartan survivor? So ashamed that he lived whilst his comrades died he returned to the battlefield where they fell and killed himself.

Chapter eight is about one of the more interesting characters, Cleomenes the mad king. Although the Ephors were very powerful a king could still do more or less what he wanted as long as he had enough backing, Cleomenes wasn’t one to sit around eating black porridge, instead he got involved in trying to overthrow many of the other cities rulers especially any democratic ones, he managed to install new leaders in Athens but needed several attempts to do so as they kept getting thrown out along with himself on one occasion, despite his many martial successes his project completion record in Attica really wasn’t very good and the Ephors were not happy, it was now that they passed the law that one king should stay behind as the shambles in overall strategy was down to the two kings disagreeing on what to do.

King Cleomenes 1st

Next he decided to attack Argos, winning the battle of Sepeia and driving the remnants into a sacred wood. Burning it down was not a wise thing to do and oddly he then didn’t attack the undefended city. Plutarch claims the city was defended by women and drove the Spartans back with heavy losses, recalled by the Ephors whose patience had now run out he was charged with bribery over Argos, he was acquitted when he claimed that the Delphic Oracle had told him to take Argos, which coincidentally was the name of the sacred wood. He did more interesting stuff including bribing the Oracle at Delphi, tried to depose the other king, fled Sparta, gathered an army to attack the city but returned under a promise of forgiveness, was arrested and then mysteriously died by slicing himself into strips.

Chapter nine, The Spartan army I will also skip over, shields, spears, armour, formations, training etc. The usual stuff.

The final chapters ten, eleven and twelve cover the Persian wars, chapter ten is on the Battle of Marathon so not much Spartan interest in that chapter as they deliberately didn’t turn up until the next day.

Thermopylae, probably a bit more realistic than the film 300

Chapter eleven covers Thermopylae, again well known stuff and rightly deserves a chapter by itself, the author quite correctly points out the importance of the simultaneous nearby sea battle of Artemesium, The battle content is very thin but I don’t think there is much more to say on it anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Artemisium

The final chapter is on the Battle of Plataea and the defeat of the second Persian invasion, here the Spartans did play a major role but with King Leonidas dead at Thermopylae the allied army was led by king Number Two, Pausanias who wasn’t really that good at the soldier stuff, fortunately for him his soldiers were. After ten days sitting in the hills Pausanias decides on a night march to be nearer fresh food and water supplies, it was of course a total cock up with the Spartans who were forming the rearguard not even having begun their march when day started to break. The Persians attacked the disorganised shambles but fortunately by this time the Spartans were now the all conquering killing machine and sliced the Persians up a treat, the other allies led by the Athenians returned and joined the battle with only the Thebans, who were fighting for the Persians, putting up much resistance.

Battle of Plataea

Matysazak ends this book by saying that this victory at Plataea marked the end of the rise of Sparta and from now on it was the start of the decline, I don’t fully agree with him and after all I have played several wargames with Greeks and watched some stuff on the history channel so I should know.

I agree there are signs in the upcoming Peloponnesian war that Sparta is being left behind both militarily and commercially, you see the first signs that there is a limit to the number of Spartans available and the decline in numbers becomes very noticeable. Also their vaunted principles are broken more frequently especially when it comes to obtaining Persian funding plus the increase in corruption every time their leaders are away from the city and even starting to affect the Ephors.

But they do win a long protracted war, maintaining both their dominance over the Peloponnese and now extending it to the rest of Greece and to the Greek cities in Ionia, their power and influence has never been greater so I slightly disagree. Indeed I suggest that it is at this stage when they have over reached themselves and setbacks start to become more regular that sees the start of the decline in Sparta.

With book two ‘The Fall of a Warrior Nation’ commencing with the start of the Peloponnesian war I suppose it makes a convenient place to split the books but it does look a little like trying to avoid having a very short second book. More on this when I review it.

Overall an easy read and covers the subject well, could some of the battles have been fleshed out more? Possibly but we don’t get a lot of usable information passed down by the original sources. The book is about Sparta so no non-Spartan events get covered and then there are the maps. The map showing Sparta’s location has only three other towns named and the one set around the Ionian Sea is the only one that shows Argos, Athens Thebes but not Sparta. The other two maps are of  Thermopylae and ancient Sparta and they look like they have been drawn by a five year old on his first day of free expression, it might have been more useful if the four pages had been left blank for this very purpose. I used my Atlas of Classical History and I suggest you do something similar.

Click the link below to see if you agree with me as you are able to peek inside and see the actual maps.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sparta-Warrior-Nation-Philip-Matyszak/dp/1473874645

I realise this review is extra long but its not as if you have anything else to do with your time right now and I also thought that I should try to follow the apparent editorial direction of late.

I have almost finished reading book two so more anon.

Pen and Sword Publications £19.99

It’s a book that has held its price and even after three years it took me some time to find it at £15, today I see it is available on ABE Books for £13.85 which is annoying.
.
ABE Books

Hardback only
Readable pages 183
More on the price, book length and maps in the book two review (there aren’t any maps)

This has been a Mr Steve presentation.

Augustus to Aurelian - River Crossing

Regular followers of the blog this year may have noticed a distinct lack of pictures of games played in the wargames room and other than a few pictures from my terrain building session in the first quarter of 2019, with my table covered in new terrain items being created on the covered table, the room has featured very little this year.

The main reason for this is that Chez JJ has been receiving some key home improvements that has meant my wargames table has been covered in all the boxes of figures and other associated wargaming materials that would have normally been stored in other parts of the house.

Thus with no table, no games have been played in the room for the best part of nine months and now with the build work completed in the week before Christmas Eve I was keen to recommission the room and table and get wargaming as normal.

The room is back in commission with the first game set up since a nine month layoff

What to play on the table, once things were tidied up was simple as both Will and Tom were keen to get in a game over the Christmas break with time off from University studies and apprenticeships and both opting for a game of Augustus to Aurelian (AtoA) with the Romano-Dacian collection.

The Romano-Dacians are back together with some of my new terrain created at the start of the year

More troops have been added to the collection since Will and I played with them over Christmas last year, with a division of Sarmatian cavalry, four units, added to compliment the now eight Dacian warbands, plus three Leigionary cohorts and an Auxilliary cohort added to the Romans.

The Sarmatian cavalry got to grace the table for their first outing

Thus I turned to the Hail Caesar Dacian War Campaign supplement and picked out the river crossing scenario and with adjustments made to the orders of battle together with the rules to better suit AtoA, I laid out the table as seen with the river dividing the opposing armies, each of three divisions, two infantry and one cavalry.

The Dacians are bolstered by the addition of three more warbands

To keep things interesting and uncertain, something AtoA offers in spades with its chit draw activation system, I also put out the unit cards for the three varieties of 'Untried', 'Experienced' and 'Hardened' options of units, as se in the first pictures, with the commanders dicing to see what kind of units they had in their army before play, keeping the result secret from the enemy.

A D10 was rolled for each unit with 1-2 = Untried, 3-9 = Experienced and 0 + Hardened.

In addition I allowed the Dacians to field two of the eight warbands as heavily falx armed versions and one of the cataphract units as 'Noble'.

 For the Romans the Praetorian Guard cavalry would only reveal its quality to both sides on first contact with the enemy, so leaving the Romans unsure as to how good they really were.

And the Romans are fielding four more Legionary and Auxiliaru cohorts

The dicing for quality left the two orders of battle looking thus;

DACIANS
1 x Falx Warband - Hardened
1 x Falx Warband - Untried
6 x Warbands - 1 x Hardened, 1 x Untried, 4 x Experienced
1 x Archers - Hardened
1 x Archers - Experienced
1 x Slingers - Untried
1 x Javelins Experienced

SARMATIANS
1 x Noble Cataphract - Experienced
1 x Cataphract - Experienced
1 x Horse Archers - Experienced
1 x Light Cavalry - Untried

Oh and I nearly forgot the German Auxiliary cavalry getting their first time out on the table

Romans
4 x Legionary Cohorts - Experienced
6 x Auxiliary Cohorts - 1 x Hardened, 1 x Untried, 4 x Experienced
1 x Auxiliary Archer Cohort - Experienced
1 x Slingers - Experienced
1 x Slingers - Untried
1 x Scorpio - Experienced
1 x Praetorian Guard Cavalry - Pseudo Guard (Good but not as good as they think they are)
1 x Auxiliary Ala - Experienced
1 x Auxiliary German Light Ala - Experienced
1 x Numidian Light Ala - Experienced

Two divisions, equating to eight Dacian warbands with supporting light troops make a formidable showing

The Dacians would set up first anywhere along the length of the river in their half of the table, then the Romans would set up within six inches of their table edge.

The Romans had 24 points of time to get six formed infantry or cavalry units, not skirmish infantry or cavalry, across onto the enemy side of the river at game end.

The Points system works by further varying the time the game will end by rolling a D6 at the end of a phase of play determined by two Meridiatio chits appearing, with the score deducted from the time points.

Thus the game could end anytime between four and twenty four phases of play, with each phase variable depending on how many units activated before the Meridiatio chits ended it.

In the end we played nine phases with some phases only wiping off one point and two phases costing five points.

The Roman line glowers at the enemy as the table awaits the commanders to take the field on the morrow

The final variable to our game was to include consulting the favour, or not, of the respective gods for the upcoming clash, by rolling a D6 with 1 indicating a very unfavourable set of goat entrails, whilst a 6 showed the finest looking goat liver this side of the Danubius.

Tom managed to roll a 1 twice, once outside of the dice tower and once in it so the Romans were penalised with a '-1' on all their reaction tests until they successfully passed one and reassured the rest of the army that Jupiter was only messing with their heads.

All set and ready to go

For our day of family fun we were joined by a wargaming 'Newbie', and classics scholar, Ben, who fancied joining Will in running out the forces of the Dacian King Decebalus and he and Will set up first with Tom adjusting his set up afterwards and opting to make a dash for the river with his cavalry, on seeing the Dacians hedge their bets as to which flank the Romans might go for, by deploying the Sarmatians in their rear-centre.

Our commanders for the day, Will (left) and Ben (centre) commanding the Dacians and Tom (right) commanding the Romans. The Roman cavalry nearest to camera on the Roman left with the Sarmatian cavalry in the rear-centre of the Dacian lines opposite.

With the fist moves played and Tom has made a bold advance on his left with the Roman cavalry advancing rapidly to get across the river as the Roman infantry division to their right closes up on the first bend in the river to be met by four Dacian warbands. The Sarmatian cavalry is galloping across the rear to contest the Roman cavalry advance.

The terrain was open on either side of the river with the few trees simply for decoration, with the principle terrain feature, the river, fordable across its length and offering a defender on its banks a positive combat modifier when counter-charging a struggling foe attempting to come across.

The light troops on both sides are the first to engage the enemy

Will and Ben were keen to get as close to the river as possible to ensure they had a chance of using its defensive qualities, but, not knowing exactly where the Romans would head for, set up centrally with the two divisions of warbands, keeping the more mobile cavalry in the central reserve ready to move out once they could see where the enemy were heading.

One potential problem when trying to hold a position with warbands is their propensity to go impetuous once Romans get within charge range and certainly when getting shot at by skirmishers, so Tom was aiming to try and provoke such a reaction where possible.

Massed ranks of Roman cavalry prepare to cross the river

The Romans had the advantage of setting up to take advantage, if they could, of the Dacian set up but with a limited time to get across would have to commit to their plan or risk running out of time.

As it proved this was the key factor that influenced the result.

The small red casualty die indicates the first hits are starting to occur

The Roman Auxiliary Light Infantry Cohort armed with composite bows move up ready to support their forward cohorts

Tom immediately identified the Roman left as offering the best chance of getting units across quickly, looking to march move (a double move of sixteen inches and not moving withing enemy charge range, ten to twelve inches) the cavalry to the extreme flank and thus get two of the six formed units across without having to fight first.

With their pilum marker still in play these legionaries still carry a volley of their formidable melee weapons

Following them up in march move were the first division of Roman cohorts with the hardened auxiliary cohort forming a combined unit with the archer cohort shooting overhead, smashing the warband sent to contest its crossing, soon to be followed by two legionary cohorts driving back the warbands opposing them.

Decebalus with his Carpe Diem chit still to hand watches the early Roman moves

The Dacian left moves up to the river bank with the Roman skirmishers content in trying to provoke a barbarian charge across it into the waiting cohorts

However this was the high point of the Roman advance as their cavalry were pounced on with accurate javelin and archery from the Sarmatian light cavalry which allowed the cataphracts to follow up and smash both the Praetorian and Auxiliary alas that were forced to fight individually due to the limited deployment space on the flank.

With two of the Roman formed units destroyed and just three over the river as the game entered the second half, Tom tried to get other units on to the river as quickly as possible to give him a chance of grabbing back the initiative.

Dacian slingers attempt to soften up the legionary lines as Trajan moves up to encourage the troops

Roman slingers start to cause casualties on the Dacian defenders

The Praetorian Guard lead the cavalry advance 

A mass of Dacians resist the goading legionaries and hold their line on the river bank

The Numidian and German light cavalry fell back to hold the river line they had so boldly advanced over, as one unit of cataphracts turned to support the hard pressed warbands.

The climax of the battle - The Romans in the centre have forced a crossing with two auxiliary cohorts and the legionaries to their left have just pushed the next warband off the river with a volley of pila and close in gladius work. However the Roman cavalry have been crushed by the Sarmatians with the German and Numidian light cavalry falling back behind the river to protect the flank and rear of their infantry. Casualties litter the field where the main fighting has occurred.

The Roman light cavalry struggle to hold back their Sarmatian opposites

The Roman auxiliaries closely supported in a combined formation by the archer cohort are victorious with Trajan on hand to witness the events

Turning to the second Roman division which had struggled to get forward without recourse to using Trajan to get them moving, as their commanders chit seemed to refuse to come out in normal play, they tramped towards the river only to find four fresh warbands glowering from the other bank.

The Dacian warband has managed to rally back after being driven off, but the Romans are pressing forward looking to expand their crossing

Not taking the bait of being goaded into charging and with time running out Tom sent a unit of auxiliary infantry over at the charge, lobbing javelin as they went and causing a couple of casualties.

However only managing to cause one hit in the hand to hand combat that followed, the Roman unit recoiled as it was met by the hardened falx warband that clouted it with four hits and forced it back from whence it had come.

Meanwhile of the Roman right the refused flank has now closed on the river, but perhaps a little too slowly

The Dacians mass to oppose a Roman advance on their left flank as the fighting reaches a crescendo further up river

The Dacian archers are running and the warband to their left have just rallied but are badly disordered after losing the fight on the river

The victorious Sarmatian cataphracts come over to help the Dacian infantry in their struggle with the legionaries, weighed down with the heads of Praetorian guardsmen strapped to their bridles

The Romans make a last final push to try and snatch a victory as the game threatens to end before they can seal a win

The Dacian left is comparatively tranquil as the focus falls elsewhere in the closing stages

Suddenly the last Meridiatio chit had been drawn as the roll of the dice declared the Romans had run out of time and with just three units across on the other side the game ended in favour of the Dacians.

An Auxiliary cohort charges towards the opposite bank only to be met by a 'Hardened' Falx wielding warband that smashes it in the first round of combat

On reflection Tom decided he would have dispensed with the Duplex Acies deployment he opted for and would have closed up to bring more of his infantry closer to one point of attack and possibly to have used his advantage in Carpe Diem chits to have got both his divisions of infantry up more quickly.

That said the first attacks by the Romans were extremely effective and as usual the pila attacks hurt warbands .

The combined auxiliary cohorts were also very effective with the overhead shooting a useful tactic on the attack.

The legionaries have more success driving back their opposite numbers, but its not enough!

The Sarmatians mop up on the scene of their ambush giving no mercy to wounded Romans trying to get back to the river

AtoA gave a great game with lots of unpredictability that combined with the variable length phases and turns added pressure to the commanders to make decisions and back them and with only one Carpe Diem chit for the Dacians and two for the Romans meant that the commanders were very reluctant to throw that control away frivolously.

A good game and a fun scenario to end the year on and it was nice to have the table back in action.

Thanks to Tom, Will and Ben for a very fun day