All at Sea - Trafalgar Project Update

The Battle of Trafalgar - Montague Dawson

So, as promised, I thought I would do a bit of an update on the Trafalgar Collection and the project to wargame this most famous of sea battles in the glorious scale of 1:700th and what remains to be done in the period of lockdown but with the vaccine roll-out here in the UK promising better times ahead and hopefully a return to gatherings around a table-top game.

Anyone with the slightest interest in the age of sail and naval history, and most folks with a basic knowledge of world history and the key events that have shaped it will probably know the basics of the Battle of Trafalgar and many others in the hobby have set out to wargame it on the table, particularly in 2005 during the bicentennial commemoration of Lord Horatio Nelson's most famous victory.

However not many games have attempted this battle in scales much larger than 1:1200 which with the possible exception of a few chaps who spent their time scratch building 1:600th Airfix models of HMS Victory and Shannon into passable 3rd and 5th rates for all the ships of the British, French and Spanish navies, has meant that the former scale has been the traditional way of gaming this battle, until now!

One of the display cabinets about two-third full, seen last year and now with only one shelf left to take the last few models! 

Regular followers of the blog will know that since October 2019, I have been very much focussed on building a collection of Warlord Games, Black Seas range of 1:700th Napoleonic era ships, which has seen me showcase the models available in the generic Third Rate and Frigate & Brig boxes, through the various Fleet boxes and Third Rates of Renown of the British, French and Spanish navies with the collection growing through 2020 as more models were completed.

The British collection on show for Naval Wargames Day last year complete with additional brigs and sloops that will not be on the table for Trafalgar
http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2020/08/international-naval-wargames-day-2020.html

During the process I showed occasional pictures of the collection as a whole gradually filling my display cabinets or as in August last year in support of Naval Wargames Day the three fleet groups, just about making up reasonable sized squadrons.

In December, and my review of the blog for 2020 together with my usual look forward into 2021, I announced my plan to complete the orders of battle for the Trafalgar fleets with a view to staging several games in support of our usual veterans charities, as we have done previously with the Talavera 208 project and more recently with the Devon Wargames Group and Too Fat Lardies at our annual club Lardy Day.

The pictures below shows the collection as of last weekend with the addition of the six French third rates completed then and with just twelve more models required to complete the build part of the project.

The three navies that participated in the Battle of Trafalgar with the British line up to the right followed by the Spanish and French , in order of rating with the three decker 1st and 2nd rates closest to camera, then the 80's 74's 64s, 5th rates and two French brigs.

The scale of these models, especially when painted in the style of their historical predecessors and fully rigged really makes a feast for the eye as you take the time to scan the look of the different fleets with their own peculiarities and the line ups help to give an idea of the look of the table when all the models are out in full battle array and amid gun-smoke markers.

From the other end of the lines with the diminutive French brigs to the right 

Trafalgar is one of those games that I think occupies a spot on the bucket list of many table-top gamers and has certainly been on mine since my first years in the hobby but I never really felt that the smaller scales were able to quite create that 'Grand Manner' look established by the late, great, Peter Gilder who epitomised that style of game with Napoleonic land battles and the pictures of his games that appeared in the books and magazines of the seventies.

As well as completing the last twelve models I am very much thinking about the game plan, with my previous post looking at potential rule sets which has led me to consider table size and player numbers required to manage sixty odd ships through a six to eight hour game.

This aspect will be the first to get tested with some games once we can get back around a table and I can organise a few of the chaps at club to help me sort out what will work and what will not.

Another consideration, early on was settling on a potential venue to stage the game where we will have the space and security to run the game over a day with plenty of easy access and parking for the players and anyone else who cares to come along and see the game up and running.

Finally I'm working out what I need in the way of containers to be able to safely transport this lot around as an when required. 

HMS Victory next to the Royal Sovereign and with the mighty Santisima Trinidad and Santa Anna just behind, stand out dramatically from the more numerous third rates

The plan of battle, likely requiring a table of twelve feet or more in length and about five or six feet in width to allow enough sea room for the two British and Combined Fleets, with five commanders on the British side and six on the Combined Fleet together with a Flag Captain on each side to take care of game admin.

So the final models are already being prepared in the dockyard with a British and Spanish first rate, two French and one British third rate and a French frigate forming the next group of six to join the line up, to be followed by three British and one Spanish first rate and the schooner HMS Pickle and the cutter HMS Entreprenante, yes even all the unrated vessels will be on the table.

The penultimate group of six models are on the stocks at the time of writing.

Finally I would like to record by thanks and gratitude to the chaps at Warlord Games and specifically Gabrio Tolentino who heads up the Black Seas project and who perhaps is responsible for the fact that a lot of age of sail naval gamers are getting into 1:700th as a scale these days, with the additions on the 3D printed circuit showing the popularity of this scale, and with the Warlord offerings of high quality and readily adaptable to scratch building and other modifications as I have shown here on the blog.

I had to reach out to Warlord this week to help me rectify an issue with two of the final build models, which they sorted immediately as well as providing some other models for a future project and a marvellous gift that will be offered as a raffle prize for our charity raising games and a particular thank you to my Customer Support contact Conor Trainer who made things happen and was very helpful when I phoned earlier this week.

I intend to showcase the builds I'm working on, some of which are intended to portray some very key ships from the battle and when the collection is finished I'll put up some pictures of the three navies and a closer look at the models.

If you are interested in the models built so far and the books I've reviewed in conjunction, plus rigging and modelling tutorials on the JJ's YouTube channel, then just click on the 'All at Sea' tab at the top of the blog to link to all the posts covering the collection.

Next up: Steve and I are fast reaching a dramatic conclusion to our Ardennes'44 game on Vassal which has provided a lot of entertainment as the Germans struggle to capture enough victory point areas in the first three days of the offensive to get a win, and I have a book review to do before returning to the next six models to join the Trafalgar collection.

Dacian Warband

So following a slight detour into WWII and my collection of British bombers and German nightfighters brought to completion with the few purchases made at Salute, it was back to my main project, the Romano-Dacian collection which sees Warband number eight added to my Dacian host and about two-thirds of the force completed.

If you are interested in looking back on the others in the collection since work started back in September 2017 with Warband number one I have put links below to the other posts, together with a link to all the work on the collection completed too date with terrain and games played.

Dacian Warband One
Dacian Warband Two
Dacian Warband Three
Dacian Warband Four
Dacian Warband Five
Dacian Warbands Six and Seven

JJ's Dacian Wars

As with previous builds, my Dacians are primarily composed of the Warlord plastics with a few strategically placed additions from Wargames Foundry, which work well with Warlord, to help add further variety to the look of the unit as a whole.

With an eye to the army as a whole I have given this warband a blue and white themed draco standard to compliment that carried by number seven, thus pairing my warbands into regimental groupings of about two-thousand men.

Each thirty-six figure warband is accompanied by a two figure 'brave warrior' marker that is used to indicate when the unit has used it brave warriors to gain an advantage in combat, rather similar to Romans throwing pila and I try to have these markers looking that little bit more aggressive with multiple weapons in hand or carrying the odd head, careless of their own preservation as they launch themselves into the hated invader's ranks.

The plan will see at least twelve, possibly fourteen of these warbands available to the Dacian player to line up alongside the Sarmatians and really create a big battle look to the table opposite a Roman line.

I was really excited to see the plans for the Victrix Dacians and will no doubt add a few units of their offerings to add further variation to my host as well as all the loveliness that Victrix brings to any collection.

Talking of Victrix loveliness, next up will be my first cohort of Victix Roman Auxiliaries complete with heads held aloft on spear points, which I am really looking forward to taking a brush to.

As mentioned my warband is composed of figures from Warlord and Wargames Foundry and the shield decals are from Little Big Men

Dacian Warbands

So onwards and upwards with the Dacians and an opportunity to bring progress up to date with my Dacian Warbands recently outlined in my project update that stated boldly that I had six warbands done and planned to press on with the next six.

Romano Dacian Collection Update

It was on the completion of warband number seven that I realised that I hadn't taken any parade shots of warband number six completed back in the early autumn of 2018 before I started work on my Sarmatians and so when I went back to put links to the previous units in this post I suddenly realised my error; this despite the previous unit taking part in Will's and my Xmas game and appearing in that post - doh!

So here are the previous posts for those interested on looking back or seeing them for the first time and here I will feature units six and seven.

Dacian Warband One
Dacian Warband Two
Dacian Warband Three
Dacian Warband Four
Dacian Warband Five

Warbands six on the right and seven on the left

As will be seen from previous posts I have looked at the wargaming features of these large units that like most warband armies focus their hitting power in the initial charge and by using their size in manpower to hopefully overwhelm the smaller Roman units they are most likely to come up against.

In addition a Dacian force offers added extras in terms of slightly better protected and more enthusiastic warriors in the form of their Cap-Wearer elite units and the added punch of their falx wielding ones.

Illustration by G Embleton - Osprey - Rome's Enemies - Germanics and Dacians

What little information there is on the look of these units is based primarily on the visual references left from antiquity in the form of Trajan's column and the Adamclisi monument which gives tantalizing hints as to the look and dress of Dacian soldiers captured in the illustration above and which informs the look of my units.

Warband number six with its 'brave warriors' out front 

As for the way the Dacians organised their forces and how they operated on the battlefield it is left to the imagination and educated guesswork but based on more recent periods I have wargamed in I think units or groups of infantry anywhere between five hundred and a thousand warriors wouldn't have been unreasonable to have seen used; allowing for command and control issues with sizes greater than that, with these groups representing the upper end of that scale and twice the size of my Roman cohorts.

As a warband force the Dacians tend to get lumped alongside the Celts and Germans who engaged the Romans along the Rhine-Danube frontier particularly as the delineation between empire and barbarian tribal areas became more established.

However whilst showcasing these new additions to the collection I thought it might be interesting to look at the early clash between Rome and Dacia just prior to Trajan assuming the purple and describing the challenge that they posed to the empire.

Moesia, Pannonia and Dacia - 117AD
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RomanEmpire_117_-_Moesia_Superior_and_Moesia_Inferior.svg

The Dacians were a Thracian people, but Dacia was also occupied by Daco-Germans and Celto Dacians supported by allies such as the Roxolani Sarmatians as outlined in my post covering the Sarmatian units.

Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus 51 - 96 AD - Domitian
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Domiziano_da_collezione_albani,_fine_del_I_sec._dc._02.JPG

In the winter of 85/86 AD Dacian forces attacked Roman defences in Moesia, ravaging the wider country and killing the Roman Governor, Oppius Sabinus, in a battle which is reported to have seen the loss of three thousand legionaries; which prompted Emperor Domitian to reorganize Moesia into two provinces before leading the operation to clear the provinces of the invaders.

The Dacian ruler at this time is thought to have been Diurapaneus (Durpaneus) who either forcibly or willingly yielded power to Decebalus.

The new king attempted to sue for peace but his approaches were contemptuously rejected by the Romans and Decebalus is reported to have sent a second messenger, mockingly advising Domitian to buy peace from him by forcing every Roman citizen to pay him two coins each year if they could not expect war and great misery - talk about nerve!

In the spring of 87 AD the jibe had its effect with Praetorian Prefect Cornelius Fuscus leading, what is described as, a large army built around Legio V Alaudae and many auxiliaries across the Danube via a floating bridge where the river narrows above the Iron Gates, an eighty-three mile long narrow gorge on the central Danube.

Little is known from the few surviving accounts of this campaign other than Fuscus' army was seemingly crushed by the Dacians to the extent that Fuscus was killed and Legio V lost standards and artillery pieces that were not recovered until fifteen years later in 102 AD by Trajan's troops.

The latest addition to the growing Dacian host, warband number seven, with plenty of flesh on show.

Rome renewed the offensive in the following year led by General Tettius Julianus (Iulianus) who already had considerable experience fighting tribes on the Lower Danube, leading a much more powerful force of four legions (III Sythica, V Macedonica, II Audiutrix and VII Claudia), again taking the direct route towards Sarmizegetuza via a pontoon bridge of boats and engaging the Dacian army in the narrow mountain valley at Tarpae, not for the last time.

The battle reported by Cassius Dio was described as fierce with countless Dacians killed and Vezina (Avezina) one of Decebalus' chief aides surviving by hiding among the dead to wait for darkness to make his escape.

Tapae erased the shame of Sabinus and Fuscus' defeats but victory was soon eclipsed with a rebellious uprising on the Rhine lead by Antonius Saturninus, Governor of Germania Superior, forcing Domitian to order a rapid withdrawal from Dacia to redeploy his forces in response.

If that were not the only issue Domitian was facing he was also attempting to prosecute a war against the Germanic tribes in Pannonia (Marcomanni and Quadi) and the Sarmatian Iazyges for not supporting Rome in its war with Dacia and thus indirectly supporting the latter.

However according to Dio the operation against Marcomanni ended in disaster, much to Dacia's benefit and to quote.

"Domitian, having been defeated by the Marcomanni, took to flight, and hastily sending messages to Decebalus, king of the Dacians, induced him to make a truce, though he himself had refused to grant one in response to the frequent requests of Decebalus. And so Decebalus accepted his overtures, for he had suffered grievous hardships; yet he did not wish to hold a conference with Domitian personally, but instead sent Diegis (his brother) with the men, to give him the arms and a few captives who, he pretended, were the only ones he had."

When Diegis arrived in Rome he went before the Senate and symbolically handed over the weapons and in an impressive ceremony was crowned with a gold diadem by Domitian himself, however Dio states that:

"the truce had cost (Domitian) something besides his losses, for he had given large sums of money to Decebalus on the spot, as well as artisans of every trade pertaining to both peace and war, and had promised to keep on giving large sums in future."

Dio then went on to describe the festivities that followed to celebrate his victory!

"He graced the festival that followed with many exhibits appropriate to a triumph, though they came from no booty that he had captured; ... The exhibits which he displayed really came from the store of imperial furniture."

The stage was set for what would be increasingly seen as Rome's humiliation at the hands of Decebalus and his Dacians.

 Following Domitian's assassination in September 96 AD and the following rebuke placed on his reign by the Senate 'damnatio memoriae' or condemnation after death, both Emperors Nerva and Trajan who followed him actively distanced themselves from his memory and in the case of the latter used his record to provide the 'casus belli' or justification for the war that followed in the winter of 100/101 AD.

Sarmatian Light Cavalry

With the completion of my first two units of Sarmatian cataphracts I decided to complete a small division of Sarmatian cavalry by adding two units of light cavalry, one with light bows and javelins and the other purely a horse archer unit.

Sarmatian Cataphracts

As covered in my last post looking at my second cataphtact unit I took time to describe the Sarmatian people that joined the Dacians in their war with Rome and the fact that they were a cavalry based army centred around their nomadic traditions of living on the Eurasian Steppe on horseback and moving their families with them in covered wagons.

The Sarmatian Light Cavalry stat card for Augustus to Aurelian

Alongside the heavily armoured and armed cataphracts the Sarmatian tribes could also call on multiple units of lightly armed horse archers and light cavalry, perfect troops for raiding and for adding their missilery in major battles.

The mounted archers gain the special rule of 'Parthian Shot' allowing them to make a full move and shoot with no penalty and then immediately make a second full move after shooting, effectively moving at charge speed whilst harassing the enemy.

These light units are based in groups of just six figures and so rate as small units but with their lack of armour are not designed for close combat with Attack Factors of '2' for the horse archers and '3' for the light cavalry, which cross referencing those factors on the combat table below against, for example, medium armoured heavier cavalry, such as Roman auxiliaries, sees them scoring hits on their two D10 with scores of three or less and four or less respectively, before any additional factors.

The strength of these units lies in their rapid mobility and sting offered by their shooting factors of '3' for the light cavalry and '4' for the archers as shown below on the stat card.

Thus the horse archers get to shoot with two D10 each time with a 50% chance of hitting, before additional factors, against medium armoured targets such as Roman cavalry or infantry and with relative impunity using the 'Parthian Shot' rule and getting the benefit of being skirmishers if shot back at.

The combined Shooting and Combat table from August to Aurelian

However the Sarmatians will have to be cautious operating in the close country that typifies Dacia which will offer the Romans terrain that could neutralise these cavalry units and with the use of Roman combined units, marrying their own archers in with their formed infantry and able to shoot overhead, enable some return shooting back at these lightly clad troops.

Both these units are composed of figures from the Warlord range using their Sarmatian Horse Archer and Sarmatian Light Cavalry packs. Interestingly the light cavalry although carrying bows are not modelled with the requisite bow and arrow quivers, but thanks to the the very nice team at Warlord Games I was able to rectify that with some extra parts.

These two units complete my first batch of Sarmatians and in the next unit post I am going back to complete the next six units of Dacian Warbands, starting with Warband number seven, that will compose the heavy punch for my Dacian forces.

Next up though I will be showing off my new Command Sabot Bases and putting together a YouTube presentation on the plans going into 2019 for the additions to my Romano-Dacian collection. Plus the final play-test of the Battle of Pinhoe, for Dux Bellorum, was played last night and, thanks to inputs from Bob and Steve M, I now have an interesting challenging scenario to take to the club this weekend; with an AAR to come on the DWG blog and a PDF of the scenario to be posted here on JJ's.

German Light Cavalry and Dacian Skirmishers

In among all the walks, shows and room reorganisations, the work to progress the Romano-Dacian collection has continued which the post covering the changes to my games room revealed with an early sneak preview of these charming gentlemen.

I picked these German light cavalry up at Partizan earlier this year and they are the new Warlord offering in their Hail Caesar range of figures.

I really liked the modelling of these warriors complete with a range of severed heads to be arranged around the bridles and complete with a command group with cornyx, standard and leader bearing an axe and sword whilst heading along at seemingly full tilt.

However if I were to add some small criticism, the legs and ankles or should that be fetlocks on these steeds are very thin and can be easily bent with uncareful rough handling.

In addition these chaps are illustrated on the box artwork carrying shields which look very much like those offered in the Warlord German warrior warband boxes, however if you are expecting to find shields contained you will be slightly disappointed.

Thus my hairy horseman have had shields supplied from some left over Gripping Beast plastic types from my recent Saxon/Viking collection build and I think they help complete the look of the unit.

German light cavalry are a ubiquitous type to have on hand when building an Early Imperial Roman collection as they can come in handy for supplying German style cavalry for my Dacian, Roman and German armies as required.

I also have some Wargames Foundry German cavalry waiting to be painted up so they should compliment these chaps quite nicely with the variety of looks to entertain the eye when out on the table.

Alongside my Germans I have added another couple of Dacian skirmish units of which Dacian armies seem to be well endowed.

This brings my Dacian skirmish groups up to six with three javelin groups, two archers and now one of slingers.

The intention is to allow my four divisions of Dacian warbands to be potentially accompanied by two groups of these annoying skirmishing types which should please the Roman player no end.

As with the German cavalry, all these light skirmishing groups are pretty ubiquitous and should serve pretty well all my ancient armies when required.

So these last groups complete phase one of the collection build which I have documented here on JJs and which can be reviewed by looking through the posts labelled JJ's Dacian Wars.

With the run into Xmas I am intending to hold fire on the start of phase two as I have some US 7th cavalry to complete in time for the Gus Murchie Memorial game, our annual big Christmas game in December at the DWG and they will form my small contribution to the game alongside some Plains Indians I painted up years ago but should be adequate for our purposes.

In addition I promised Steve M that I would help complete his FIW Seven Years War British collection by doing some British artillery teams and a Colour party to join the 60th Foot chaps I painted earlier, see the link below if you haven't seen that earlier work.

The 60th Royal American Regiment

So phase two of the Romano Dacians will see another six warbands, plus around fifteen units of Sarmatian cavalry added to the Dacian force alongside about another five cohorts of Roman legionaries and auxiliaries plus more Roman cavalry and artillery, which I hope to get the bulk of them finished by the end of next year along with some new terrain items as well.