King Decebalus, Warband Five and Roman Archer Cohort

Another update on progress with the Romano-Dacian collection with additions to both the Roman and Dacian forces.

First up we have King Decebalus which is a conversion job using the Wargames Foundry mounted Dacian commanders but with my lead figure getting a head swap with a Warlord Games helmeted head to create the look of the great king.

The king is accompanied by his standard bearer, again using the Veni Vidi Vici decal set BB3 from Magister Militum which offers some Greco-Thracian designs that may well have influenced Dacian designs given that there was a lot of sharing between the neighbouring cultures.

I was really pleased with how the head conversion turned out in the end and the horse is a particularly nice model which benefited from a suitably stand-out dapple-grey paint job.

The picture in Radu Oltean's 'Dacia The Roman Wars Volume One' was the inspiration for this group.

Next up, my Dacian host continues to grow, as does my knowledge on what works with these figures and possible conversions and range mixes.

This is the fifth thirty-six figure warband created and leaves another eight to go which should make an impressive show when on the table en-mass.

I mention conversions and range mixes as this is my first group to mix Warlord and Wargames Foundry figures, plus I have been doing a bit of cutting and swapping out of hands and weapon arrangements to help create a more varied look between my different bands.

I mentioned in my post covering the first game using the collection at the DWG meeting a month ago that I was using tokens to indicate each time the warband used a brave warrior to add to their combat score in a hand to hand battle and that I intended to replace them in time with suitable figures.

All my warbands now have two figures attached to indicate their allotment of brave warriors and they can be removed one by one as they are used.

The individual figures will also come in handy to do some skirmish games with the collection as well.

I was really pleased with how nicely the Foundry figures broke up the Warlord look and I intend to add more to each unit as I go.

I am also thinking about mixing in some casualties to add yet more interest for the eye to catch.

The Romans also got some new units added with another two groups of skirmishing archers and slingers together with a Cohortal command group for my archers.

The inclusion of a centurion, optio, standard and musician enables two skirmish groups of auxiliary archers to be combined into a cohort to fight on table as another formed unit.

Roman Archer Cohort with four figure command group added in the centre

Of course even those these guys are armoured and carry short swords they don't have shields and were not designed to mix it with warbands or equivalent heavy infantry.

That said, it seems the Romans found a use for these combined archer cohorts to be able to deliver a significant amount of arrows onto a particular target when the fighting tactics required.

Specific examples might include Germanicus' battle at Idavisto vs the German tribes under Arminius where the archers were used in strength to break up the charge of the Germans before being met by the Auxiliary spearmen.

Likewise Arrian's tactics against the Alans positioning archers behind in-depth cohorts of legionaries to receive the charges of the cataphracts whilst firing volleys of arrows into them overhead.

Augustus to Aurelian facilitates the use of these combined formations and the cohortal acies that allow units such as formed archers to fire and retire behind their supports.

An archer-spearmen combined cohort ready to deal with Vince's Parthian horde

So there we are onwards and upwards towards getting a largish game up and running for Xmas

If you would like to see my thoughts about the collection, some of the books and materials I am reading to inspire and develop my thoughts about the games I want to play using them then I have put together a short video clip looking at these and some other units from the collection so far.

Lots to come on JJ's this month with a report on Clotted Lard, the Lardy Day this weekend at the Devon Wargames Group meeting, then I am off next week on another two day walk with Mr Steve along the border with South Wales taking in Offas Dyke and the Three Castles, then next weekend we are off to Colours which is always fun to do and report back on

In between I have another book review planned plus more on Chester and Roman London and maybe a few more figures painted up to talk about.

Hold the Pass - Augustus to Aurelian

Yesterday's meeting of the Devon Wargames Group was a buzz as we had four games up and running together with over twenty members in attendance.

Not only that but I got to play my first game with the new Romano-Dacian collection using a scenario from the Warlord Games Scenario book which sees a Dacian force blocking a mountain pass before a Roman supply column.

Having been away this week in London, I still needed to add one more unit to the collection and was thus getting my Praetorian Guard cavalry finished yesterday morning, literally an hour before they went on the table.

The game also featured the first two of a collection of wagons and crews I got recently from Colonel Bill's wargames supply depot, and they looked really great alongside the troops.

I intend to put up some close ups of these models a bit later but in the meantime you can see the game and read about the result on the Devon Wargames Group club blog

Devon Wargames Group - Hold the Pass, Augustus to Aurelian

Dacian Light Infantry, Artillery and General Officers

It was back in mid June that I last posted on progress with the Roman-Dacian collection, mainly down to my focus on getting the first units pulled together to run my first game with them at the Devon Wargames Group 'Clotted Lard' event to be held in September.

Dacian Warband Host and General Officer

As the weeks get ticked off and my intent to run a practise game or two in August to test run my scenario plan I have focused as much time as I can on the painting desk to help deliver the project.

So the last post left off with four warbands and a general officer completed. I had hoped to get another two warbands done but with work on the Saxon/Viking collection earlier in the year that seems unlikely now and so I decided on getting the balance of the Dacians finished before turning to the Romans.

So first up we have four units of Dacian skirmishers or light infantry armed with javelins and bows.

The stat card for my Dacian archers, with an explanation of their meaning below

These chaps will operate in 'tiny' units as defined under Augustus to Aurelian which equates to eight figures in each.

The examples of my unit cards, that I have created for player reference, details the effectiveness of these units.

Thus in combat (1/2) or shooting (1/4) the unit gets to roll one d10 with a Combat Attack Factor of 2 or a Shooting Attack Factor of 4.

The table below illustrates the use of these factors with a shooting factor of 4 using that column against the armour of the target, showing the less than or equal to D10 score required to obtain a hit.

The table is also subject to adjustments in column shifts left or right according to factors that could influence the attack be that range, movement or, in a combat situation, factors such as attacking from the rear or flank etc.

Other factors on the card show the 'Outlook' which is a simple measure of the unit's training affected by size (these units represent about two hundred men), with tiny units such as these often being quite low at 2 which means that when two casualties are inflicted on them they will become 'shaken' and all the problems that that term implies.

The rating of 5 is a measure of the units morale and is the number rolled against with a d10 requiring an equal to or less than result to pass reaction tests

Finally we have a movement rating of 6 which is six inches, a little bit quicker than most formed types which usually come in with a five inch move.

My Dacian skirmish bands are using the 28mm figures in the Warlord range which I think offer a nice ready mix of poses and suitably irregular looking warriors.

Following on from my previous post showing the Dacian warbands with my first commander, I have added another three command groups on foot.

These figures are from the Wargames Foundry range and I picked them up on our recent visits to the shop on our last two trips to Partizan.

The Dacian banners posed a bit of a challenge but I managed to find some suitably looking designs from the Veni Vidi Vici range supplied by the nice people at Magister Militum

https://www.magistermilitum.com/type/decals-shield-transfers-tank-markings.html

The figures work well with the Warlord range and I intend to add a standing and mounted King Decebalus group to finish off my command teams.

Finally to complete my Dacian force I have put together two Scorpio bolt throwers which should help to convince any Roman commander not to linger too long before moving into combat.

With shooting factors similar to the skirmish units, the Scorpios offer the Dacian commander a chance to start picking away at formed Roman units at a much greater range, up to a maximum of 36 inches, which could have any Roman unit caught in the open forced to endure several rounds of annoying fire.

Probably even more annoying to the Romans is that a fair proportion of these weapons were likely manned by Roman deserters using technology supplied as part of a rather badly negotiated peace treaty.

Again these figures hail from the Warlord range and though limited with just the two poses of figure make a nice addition to any Dacian force.

I decided to liven up my scorpio models by adding some taught bow strings made from brass rod to imply the death dealing missile about to be launched.

The way I like to build new collections of figures is all about getting a suitable group of representative units together to allow me to start playing sooner rather than later and this initial group of Dacian units is about a quarter of what I intend to build but form a good core to develop some smaller games around before getting to a position to turn out some much bigger games.

So with this post I will leave the Dacians and turn my attention to the units I have added in recent weeks as part of finishing off a suitably sized Roman force to take them on with.

I am off to Chester or should I say Roman Castra Deeva at the weekend, home base of the XX Valeria Victrix Legion and the final major Roman base visited after trips to York and Caerleon, home bases of the other British legions reported about here on JJ's.

So that would seem like a good time to start showing you the additions to the Roman collection along with posts about our trip and another really interesting visit we made to the Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire a few weeks ago.

Battle of Honiton Bridge, 5th century Romano-British vs Saxons - Augustus to Aurelian

Illustration by Angus McBride

It was back in 2016 that I first got a chance to play-test Augustus to Aurelian (AtoA), following my dissatisfaction with the crop of Ancient Rules titles that had hit the wargames market in the preceding years.

As an early adopter of the concepts of friction and limited control of ones forces, expressed by Richard Clark and Nick Skinner at the Too Fat Lardies, I was immediately drawn to the attraction of AtoA in that the game engine was developed around those very ideas by the use of cards or chits to determine activation.

This idea has become more common and much more accepted now as an idea to the point that now the debate has moved on to can we describe any game a wargame if we don't include friction.

It was probably the noise created around some of the other large game ancient sets published at the same time as AtoA that caused them to get somewhat overlooked and a few of us are now inclined to develop collections around them to illustrate what a good set of rules Phil Hendry came up with and to look at expanding them to cover other large battle periods we are interested in.

You can look at some of the early games played together with materials developed by club members here and on the DWG Club Blog.

Devon Wargames Group - Augustus to Aurelian
JJ's Wargames - Augustus to Aurelian

Too Fat Lardies - Augustus to Aurelian

As followers of the blog will know I am deep into building my Romano-Dacian collection which in time is planned to include Sarmatian and German forces together with a larger collection of Romans to allow civil conflict battles from the Principate era. I also have plans to take that collection further with the addition of a British/Caledonian army and possibly a Parthian force to top and tail the most likely enemies a Principate Roman force could expect to face.

Alongside my own collection, which is designed to model forces that the rules were principally designed for, fellow DWG member and friend Nick has already put together a large collection of Dark Age figures that he was keen to use with the rules, which after some considered tweaking has worked for the games we wanted to do.

Likewise Nick has experimented with the earlier Roman Republican era by recreating some Roman-Italian wars scenarios incorporating the odd pike phalanx to see how they coped with the needs in that period and again AtoA proves to be a very solid engine to work with.

Despite being quite a different period to the one I am working towards, the similarities presented in the game reported here and played this weekend are very stark with warbands predominating and the use of pilum or dart like throwing weapons prior to close-combat.

Those factors and that Nick's size of collection closely mirrors the planned tables I intend to produce proved a huge attraction to play in this game, not to mention getting to play with such a lovely collection of figures and with friends from the DWG. 

The game was also another 'proof of concept' scenario where we were tweaking the use of command levels and the play of the initiative seizing 'carpe diem' chits and seeing how many turns of play were possible with the rules with this size of game over a day of play.

Map to illustrate the deployment and where the action occurred

Romano-British Briefing

Commanders
All commanders are classed as Level 3, this gives more flexibility when it comes to orders. Each
commander also has a sub-commander which can be deployed at any time to take command of some
units within division. This will be explained fully on the day.

Jon Jones: aka Aulus Paulinus
Steve Huntsman: aka Grasientus
Steve Land: aka Functio

Unit list
Romano-British - Number of Units Stands per Unit
Infantry Units 
Companions 1/3
Nobles 2/4
Legionaries 4/4
Limitanei 6/4
Bowmen 2/3

Cavalry Units
Body Guard 1/4
Heavy Cavalry 1/4
Medium Cavalry 2/4
Light Cavalry 2/2

Skirmisher Units
Bow 4/2
Javelin 4/2

Romano-British deployment is anywhere alone the southern edge, the river is classed as difficult terrain.

Other hazards may appear on the table top, as your troops have not been able to fully scout the battlefield.

The table at the start with the Roman-British on the right and with their march stealing forces in place on hill 4 (top right)
and in the village (top centre)

Stealing the March - Key Objectives
There are five key objectives which can be captured and held, which are numbered on the map. Each commander can attempt to steal the march on their opponent, and try and take and hold the objectives before the battle begins.

How does this work.
Each army commander has five steal points, each point represents a unit, these can be any units which are within your army.

For example
The British player wants to steal the march on two objectives, and bids 3 points on objective 3, the village and 2 points on objective 5 the hill.
Units for objective 3
• 1 x Noble Heavy Infantry
• 2 x Legionaries medium Infantry
Units for objective 5
• 1 x Heavy Cavalry
• 1 x Light Cavalry

A command stand must be placed with each bidding group, this can be a sub commander (level 1) who is operating independently from their division. Which is only in play as long as the units are separated from their division. Alternatively, a player may take control of them with their commander. It should also be pointed out if the enemy player also bids on the same objectives, that all troops of both sides which had been placed as a bid will be placed around the objective just outside of charge range.

Saxon warbands and light troops in the centre

Saxon and Irish warbands behind the river opposite the bridge

With both commands having sent in their deployment plans prior to our gathering the table top set revealed that the Romano British had gained a hold on both hill 4 and the village allowing the army to see the Saxon deployment before deploying their own follow up forces.

This was, as it turned out, a double edged sword in that the Romano Brits could arrange their divisions appropriately on their pre-planned deployment areas but that it would mean a race to support the 'speed bump' forces particularly in the village which they would need to defend until the close of play.

As it turned out they came very close to doing just that despite overwhelming numbers of enemy thrown at their position.

Two Roman-British Limitanei and javelin skirmishers hold the village awaiting support

Romano-British light forces out on the left flank around the broken ground below hill 5

The centre of the Roman-British line with legionaries, nobles and companions

The Romano-British right with two warbands of Foedarati on the extreme flank added before the start of play

The nature of these stand up battles where features are key objectives is that you see a typical attack and defence game and with a bit of a slogging match as the two sides seek to make breakthroughs.

The Romano-British are Romano in name only as they are not using the triplex-acies that their Principate forebears would use thus able to batter the first warbands that hit the line and then replenish the forward units with fresh ones fed in to replace them, something that AtoA models quite well.

The small force in the village prepare to resist whilst the rest of the army closes up

The two lines start to come to grips

Thus we had a typical dark-age set to with the use of our Level I commanders very helpful in directing the initial clashes as their senior commanders brought up reserves.

The cavalry, something the Romano-British excelled in come to grips first with the struggle on hill 5

A fierce struggle ensued in the meadows close to the village

This was a really quite large battle for this size of table and thus the Romano-British were unable to take advantage of their cavalry superiority by infiltrating the rear area of the Saxon line as they pressed forward to contest key areas of ground.

That said the size of the battle really tested the ability of the rules to cope and keep the game moving along with lunch and pre-battle coffee breaks.

In the end we managed to cycle through seven turns of play having started at about 10.30 and finished at about 17.30.

Leaders need to be close to the action

Saxons and Irish pressed on over the river

The Romano-British forces holding hill 4 went over to the attack as the Saxons came across the river

As the infantry close the javelins and pila start to fly

With regard to the use of the 'carpe diem' chits, the distribution was similar between the two forces but with the added twist that they were not added to the bag when played but simply used just once to influence play.

An interesting idea that is all what AtoA is about, allowing players to tailor the rules to the situation they want to model.

The pressure on the Roman garrison in the village builds

Massed Saxon warbands press forward

The view of the Romano-British left flank viewed from the Saxon held hill 5

The cavalry melees turned into a too-and-fro affair as they often do as both sides attempted to gain dominance

As we got to the close of the game both sides were giving each other a good battering but with many of the better Romano British infantry units not involved due to limited access to the front line.

The small better quality Romano-British legionary units seemed very capable of giving an account of themselves against the much larger warbands when one or two of them got into the battle.

That said the Limitanei with their light armour and less effective weaponry performed marvels in their staying power and kept the game in their favour right up to the last turn when they finally broke after heroic resistance.

I have a feeling that my better equipped auxiliaries will be able to give an ever better account of themselves.

The Romano-British centre closes up on the village and meadows

The fighting went on all day in the centre with the Romano-British begrudgingly giving ground

The close terrain limited the options other than to keep on attacking what was in front

The attacking posture of the Romano-British right flank forced the Saxon left to pivot and meet the threat

The lines were gradually grinding the forward units down with many close to their break point but desperately holding on

As you might imagine, I came away from this big game very enthused with the rules and my own plans which now include getting some movement trays for my own collection following seeing how Nick's set up greatly improved moving such large forces about the table.

The Romano-British cavalry couldn't break through 

The Saxon left flank looked the more exposed part of their line as the battle came to a close

Having held all day the Limitanei in the village finally broke on the last turn giving the Saxons a one point advantage in key areas held.

Thanks to Steve L for his hospitality and table, to Nick for setting up the game and providing the bulk of his collection and to Steve H, Steve M, Stephen H, Ian and everyone for making a very fun day rolling bones.