Warhammer Ancient Battles - River Sambre Report
As one of the most popular sets of rules for Ancients wargaming, Warhammer
Ancient Battles was rather conspicuous in its absence from last year's
Society of Ancients games day, so I volunteered to rectify that this
time around. My wonderful club mates at Southend-on-Sea Wargames
Group (SSWG) were easily coerced into helping me out and the project
begun. Warfare in antiquity has undergone something of a renaissance in
interest at our club since the release of WAB, so we already had most
of the figures needed, but were lacking a decent bit of terrain to play
on. Fortunately, terrain building is something of a passion for us.
Regulars at the SELWG or SALUTE shows may remember some of our previous
demonstration games. The bad news was that we were
simultaneously building a vast Caribbean harbour, complete with attacking Pirates, for SALUTE, the week after the SoA
games day. So much for our plan to concentrate on one thing at a time
but these things can't be helped, so we knuckled down and got to work.
Having
a rough idea of the scale and number of figures we would be using, we
decided on a 12' x 6' battlefield. We constructed this in three 6' x 4'
sections with the river running across the middle of all three. A box
structure was built from plywood, over a light wooden frame. We have
found this method works best, as it gives strength without too much
weight. The battlefield itself was plywood with cloth strips soaked in
PVA covering the gaps. We then layered the entire surface with several
coats of a plaster-PVA mix, to blend out the imperfections of
construction, and finished off with a light sand-gravel mix to provide
texture. Once this was done, we painted the whole board a flat earth
brown and dry brushed a lighter shade to bring out the detail. For the
river we used boat varnish. The varnish is evil stuff and must
definitely be used in a well-ventilated room. It also takes numerous
coats to get the depth, each requiring a day or two to dry. However, the
results are little short of spectacular giving a deep clear glossy
finish at a reasonable price.
While
on the subject of cost, I should point out that this whole project was
done on a shoestring budget scraped together from our own pockets or the
club's surplus funds. I mention this as on the day some people seemed
under the impression, we were in league with Games Workshop and reacted
as if terrain of this scope was beyond the ken of mortal gamers.
However, besides a little play testing, and saying hello at shows, this
is not the case. We have no official affiliation to Warhammer Historicals
or any other games manufacturer and nearly all the materials we used
are easily and cheaply available from builder's merchants or DIY shops.
Anyway,
getting back to the board, we next added vegetation along the
riverbanks. For the most part this was made from the bristles of an old
broom that we had cut off in clumps and stuck into filler coloured
with brown paint. The bristles make passable reeds and can be made
more plant-like with a quick brush of PVA and sprinkle of flock. The
next thing to add was the static grass. This was the most expensive
part of the terrain and something of a new feature for us, as in the
past we have either painted the boards green or made terrain without
much grass. I understand from a recent conversation with a model trader
though, that it is known as Dralon fibre, is available in almost any colour
you can name and can be acquired much more cheaply in industrial
quantities. If anyway knows more about this I'd be interested to hear
from them. At first, we tried applying the static grass with PVA, just
sprinkling it on with our fingers. This stuck okay but gave a rather
patchy effect. We tried lighter brushing to distribute the PVA better
and sprinkling from a bowl but neither was ideal. This process had
covered most of the main areas of the board though, so all we now needed
was to blend in the areas done to make the table less patchy. This we
did by using matt spray model varnish and sprinkling the static grass
from a great height to get a thinner coating. This method rectified the
patchiness, much to our relief. After a few finishing touches, such as
dry brushing up some of the rocks the board was ready.
The
trees we had already made for a previous game and these were made from
ruthlessly pruned rose bushes, with the thorns removed and horsehair,
from an old cushion, covered in green flock for the foliage. The
horsehair is not easy to come by but alternatives will work nearly as
well and most clubs have model trees anyway. We fixed the trees to the
boards by drilling small, and thus nearly invisible, holes randomly
across the board. We had added cocktail stick points to the bottoms of
the trees, so these could then be placed in the holes. The advantage of
doing this is that the trees can be varied or removed entirely as
required for other games. By the time of writing the boards have been
used as a treeless east European steppe for a 17th century Turco-Polish battle and as a heavily conifer-forested valley for a 1942 Russian front game.
With
the board completed we turned our attention to the man-made features of
the battlefield. The most important were the Roman camp and the
hedges. The hedges we already had, obsessive terrain building
accumulates quite a stock of re-usable pieces, but the camp was a
something new. The ditch and earth banks were simply made as smaller
versions of the main table, with hardboard bases, cut to shape, and then
polystyrene and plaster/PVA etc. over the top. The camp was supposed
to be unfinished and of negligible tactical value in the battle, so the
ditches were little more than scrapes and the earth banks low. To add a
little style to these rather grubby earth banks, we constructed a few
of the spiked defences
the Romans used on the earth banks. These were made from 1st Corps'
cast lead stakes. They come in a long straight palisade but we cut them
up and put them together in the caltrop-like shape proposed by Kate Gilliver.
This looked rather good and if complete would no doubt have provided a
serious obstacle for any attackers to cross. To complete the camp, we
needed a few tents. to make these a pro forma was made from a wooden
block covered in mastic putty and marked to give the effect of sewn
leather. A rubber mould was made from this and a half dozen resin tents
turned out. This is a more advanced procedure but not as difficult as
you might think. Tents could even be made to order, for a small fee, if
anyone needs them.
For
the armies in the scenario we adopted a scale of 200:1. This allowed
the most prominent tactical unit in Caesar's account, namely the Legion,
to be represented by an average sized WAB unit of 24 figures. For the Belgae we arbitrarily chose large unwieldy 50 figure units to help represent their inferior manoeuvrability.
The troop stats for the battle were all drawn from the lists provided
in the main WAB rulebook, with some slight alterations as discussed
below. The figures we used were 28mm and from a variety of
manufacturers including Gripping beast, Foundry, Matchlock, Old Glory,
Navigator and 1st Corps. Special mention goes to 1st Corps' excellent
Roman engineers, who really added to the look of the camp.
We made Caesar's original four legions (VIIth-Xth)
veteran legionaries. This was contrary to the scenario document's
request to make them average quality but we felt that they had been
undervalued. These four legions predated Caesar's arrival in Gaul
and there is a good chance they had even been involved in prior
campaigning. What's more they had fought in two successful campaigns
the previous year and as such we felt they would be both well trained,
experienced and motivated. The two legions Caesar had raised in 58BC (XIth and XIIth)
we felt would have, by mid 57BC, been properly trained and with a
victory against the Germans under their belt were rated as regular
legionaries. The newly raised legions (XIIIth and XIVth)
were obviously raw legionaries. With the cavalry, we again slightly
departed from the scenario outline and allowed Caesar 2000 Gallic
horse. The Gauls had provided 4000 horse the year before and even taking into account the missing Treveri, and assuming others were away scouting, 1000 just seemed too low a number. These, and the late arriving Treveri,
were unsurprisingly graded as barbarian noble cavalry. Due to the
large game scale, the auxiliary light infantry were barely worth
representing but we included them anyway to add a little variety to the
Roman army. To minimise
their impact however we chose to represent them as three five figure
units. This is the smallest unit allowed in WAB and as such has very
little staying power and is therefore unlikely to be a battle winner.
Lastly, we added some scorpios
to the camp. Although not actually mentioned by Caesar they were
typical equipment and it seemed reasonable that, if present, they would
be set up early in laying out the camp. As far as characters went, we
chose to restrict their impact on the game and limit them to only those
directly mentioned in Caesar's text. Therefore, only Caesar himself and Labienus were represented on the Roman side.
In summary the Roman Army List was as follows:
Roman Army Standard Bearer
4 x 24 Veteran Legionaries (VIIth-Xth)
2 x 24 Regular Legionaries (XIth & XIIth)
2 x 24 Raw Legionaries (XIIIth & XIVth) (off table at start)
1 x 10 Allied Noble Cavalry
1 x 5 Allied Barbarian Skirmishers (Numidian Javelinmen)
1 x 5 Allied Barbarian Skirmishers (Balearic Slingers)
1 x 5 Auxiliary Archers (Cretans)
4 x Scorpio Light artillery (must be placed in the camp)
1 x 5 Allied Noble Cavalry (Treveri) (off table at start)
Caesar's account of the battle portrays the Nervii
as brave warriors, fighting to the death, so we decided to give them
above average morale. This was accomplished by raising their Leadership
stat a point. For the rest of the Belgae's
stats, we used the latest barbarian warrior stats from the Spartacus
supplement, rather than the original rulebook stats. We did this as we
felt these newer stats better represented the Celtic warriors of the
period. We decided not to further raise the fighting ability of the Nervii though, as despite their bravery, we felt they did not show any exceptional skill during the battle itself. For the Atrebates and Veromandui the numbers given by Caesar were not actually for their contingents at the Sambre itself but for the Belgic confederation army earlier in the year. The scenario document suggested using these numbers anyway but as the Nervii at the Sambre
were 20% greater than their confederation force, we felt the other
tribes should be likewise increased when fighting with their immediate neighbours. This gave us 18,000 and 12,000 for the Atrebates and Veromandui respectively. The Belgic noble cavalry were represented in token force only as the Nervii are specifically described as weak in cavalry and the other tribes were small. The only Belgic character named in the sources is the chieftain Boduognatus. Caesar says he was acting as war leader for the Nervii but does not specify he was commanding the whole army, so we made the non-Nervii allied tribes, which in WAB means they cannot use the Army General's leadership bonuses.
In summary the Belgic Army List was as follows:
Nervii 6 x 50 Warriors with throwing spear upgrade (+2 pts) and +1 Ld (+1 pt)
Atrebates 2 x 45 Allied Warriors with throwing spear upgrade (+2 pts)
Veromandui 2 x 30 Allied Warriors with throwing spear upgrade (+2 pts)
Cavalry 1 x 6 Allied Noble Cavalry with thrusting spears
For the scenario details we started from a web published scenario written several years ago by WAB's
author, Jervis Johnson. However, as time went on we changed many
features of Jervis' original scenario and our finished product
eventually bore little resemblance to Jervis' original. Still it helped
to have a pro forma to work from, so thanks to Jervis for that and the
features of his original that still remain.
For
the game length we opted for nine turns. This is a bit longer than the
common six turn WAB tournament game format but due to the nature of the
scenario was required to give the Xth
legion any chance of covering the ground they did historically. Nine
turns was intended to make it difficult, but not impossible, for the
Roman left to beat the allied tribes, and close in on the rear and flank
of the Nervii
before the Roman right collapsed. Victory would be decided by the
usual WAB victory point mechanisms at the end of the game, or earlier if
one side destroyed or routed over 50% of the opposing army.
The
Roman Camp was set up as shown on the scenario pack map. Half the
figures from each legion, representing the guard cohorts, were set up in
formed units up to 18" in from the Roman bank of the river. The
remaining figures from each legion were placed in a loose formation
around the camp to represent foragers and workers. Some were replaced
with Roman engineer models to improve the aesthetics. These men would
rejoin their units at a randomly determined rate during the early turns
of the game. In previous play test games we'd opted for the more
radical approach of having no guard cohorts, as in fact was suggested by
Phil Sabin
in his introductory talk, but increasing the number of figures that
rally to the standards each turn. This approach made little practical
difference to the game but did help intimidate the Roman players and add
to the sense of surprise and panic they felt at deployment. At the
beginning of the battle, Caesar was overseeing the camp's construction
and so we initially placed him within the bounds of the camp. The Roman
Scorpios were also deployed within the bounds of the camp and no closer
than 6" to each other. Labienus was in command of the Roman left and so we stipulated he must be placed within 6" of one of the two left-hand Roman legions (IXth and Xth). The Roman auxiliaries were deployed on the Belgic
side of the river up to 18" from the tree line. We also required them
to be placed on the left-hand side of the table, from the Roman
perspective, so that they faced off against the Atrebates and Veromandui. We felt this was appropriate, as historically they had previously been engaged with the Belgic cavalry, who would have been primarily drawn from these tribes. No Belgic figures were required to be placed at the start of the game as they are assumed to be hiding in the edge of the woods. Our Belgae players however, did in fact deploy their troops in the woods to intimidate the Roman players with their numbers.
Caesar gives us an unusually detailed picture of the Sambre
battlefield in his commentaries and there are several distinctive
terrain features that need representing in the scenario. However,
reading between the lines they do not overly impact the course of the
battle, so we felt moderation was needed when assigning game effects.
The hills themselves were gentle and do not seem to have been difficult
to climb. So we assigned the standard WAB combat bonus to the higher
unit when fighting on the slopes but no movement penalty. The river
posed slightly more of a problem. From Caesar's description, the river,
despite having steep banks, was relatively shallow and does not seem to
have greatly impeded the movement of troops in either direction.
However, in WAB, rivers are quite major obstacles in rules terms. As
rough terrain they not only half your standard movement, but also
prevent march moving. As such they effectively quarter the movement of
troops not closely engaged with the enemy, as the Belgae would be in this case. With the approximately 4" wide river we had modelled
on our terrain piece this would mean a crossing time of 2-3 turns,
which seemed rather excessive. Of perhaps even greater impact is that
rough terrain negates the addition of the combat ranks that are vital to
winning combats in WAB. Therefore a unit could sit close by the edge
of a piece of rough terrain and engage any unit emerging before they had
had a chance to clear the terrain and form up properly. This could
make the river into a more of a defensive obstacle than we felt it
should be. As a result of these issues, we ignored the river for both
movement and combat penalties. However, on closer inspection I have
since noticed that 'fords', to which group any fordable section of a
river presumably belongs, are exempt from this last effect and so
perhaps the river could have been counted as rough terrain after all.
The hedges on the battlefield are an altogether different kettle of
fish. Described by Caesar as not even letting light through, these must
have been serious obstacles. We therefore counted them as WAB rules
obstacles, with all their associated movement and combat penalties. In
fact we even increased these to stipulate that they block line of sight
and the special leadership and break test re-roll functions of Army
Generals and Army Standard Bearers. Movement through them was possible
but would be slow and leave the unit vulnerable as discussed above.
This effectively cuts the Roman side of the river into three sections
that are not easily traversed.
In
addition to the grading discussed above we also created or borrowed
some special scenario rules to add historical details to the game. The
flexibility and ease with which such details can be added is one of WAB's main strengths and in my opinion WAB is well suited to scenario play. The special rules used were as follows:
"Caesar had every thing to do at once"
The Belgae
caught Caesar by surprise with many of his troops dispersed while
constructing their camp. To represent this, no Roman Legionary unit may
move for the first 2 turns of the game, as they are assumed to be
forming their ranks and recovering stragglers. Those legionaries
dispersed as workers and foragers rejoin their legions at d6 figures per
turn at the beginning of the Roman movement phase.
"They rushed out suddenly"
On their first turn the Belgae
units may move out their full unmodified charge distance from the edge
of the woods within their deployment area. Any Roman units within this
distance are considered charged and must respond accordingly. The full
charge distance may still be moved, even if the target unit flees.
The
Roman reinforcements arrive on the fifth and sixth Roman turns at the
start of the movement phase. On the fifth Roman turn one Roman player
may place the Treveri
cavalry on the Roman baseline up to 18" to the left of the camp and one
of the two Raw legions on the Roman baseline up to 18" to the right of
the Roman camp. On the sixth Roman turn one Roman player may place the
remaining Raw Legion up to 18" to the right of the Roman camp. These
units deploy following the rules for flank marching troops in the Flank
Attack scenario in the Warhammer Ancient Battles rulebook.
The Treveri were renowned as the finest cavalry in Gaul, yet at this battle they turned tail and fled without a fight. It is likely that on arriving to see the Belgae
in the Roman camp, they assumed Caesar had been defeated and not being
the most loyal of allies simply chose to ride off rather than support a
doomed cause. To represent this possibility, if any Belgic unit is visible in the Roman camp, the Roman player deploying the Treveri should roll a die and remove them again on a roll of 1-3.
Caesar says that he ordered the tribunes of the XIIth and VIIth
legions to draw their legions together and form a double front. This
special formation protected the rear and flanks of the Roman troops and
enabled them to hold their ground until help arrived. In game terms it
is a special formation that may be formed by any Roman legionary unit
much like the squares of the Napoleonic era. The unit must reform to
adopt or abandon it and cannot move whilst it is maintained.
A unit in all round defence
must be formed into as square a formation as possible and once done so
has no flanks or rear. Additionally the formation receives a +1 armour save versus missile attacks and calculates its rank bonus on the number of figures in the unit.
18 or more....+3 rank bonus
12-18.........+2 rank bonus
6-12..........+1 rank bonus
Caesar
was one of the great captains of history and the game should reflect
his exceptional talents. As such Caesar uses the stats for a Roman
general but adds one to Initiative, to represent his famous speed of
thought and action (Celeritas), and one to Leadership to represent his manly demeanour (Veritas). In addition Caesar is also Inspirational and a Great Orator as described below.
Caesar's
oratory skills were widely respected and this special rule represents
his ability to set men's heart's aflame with purpose. On any turn that
Caesar is stationary and in base-to-base contact with an unengaged Roman
unit, he may use his oratory skills to encourage them. Any unit so
encouraged may re-roll all it's missed to hit rolls in their next
hand-to-hand combat phase.
Caesar
was an extremely brave and Charismatic man. To represent this any unit
led by Caesar will exert itself that little bit harder in combat, and
may therefore add +1 to its combat results score.
The
game itself was played with three players a side, each controlling one
of the sectors of the battle. Five of the players were from my own
club. Our master terrain builder, Andy F, Andrew 'Freddy' S and our industrial quantity painter, Alan C, played the Belgae.
While our young patrician, James B, special guest star, Adrian
G, and myself played the Romans. We were a bit disappointed
that we didn't have more volunteers from amongst the other attendees,
particularly as Adrian
was rather kidnapped for interrogation after his talk but apparently
two expected players had had to drop out at the last minute. Still, we
had fun and will probably run the game in full again at our club if
anyone is interested.
I
won't go into excessive detail on the battle itself as blow-by-blow
accounts of games mechanisms are rarely gripping. However, here is a
summary of the action.
The Belgae
rushed out of the woods as expected and unsurprisingly saw off the
Roman light troops deployed in front of them. Caesar, in historical
fashion, dashed to the Xth
legion to deliver his oration and then made his way to the centre of
the field. The legions themselves had little or no time to adjust their
positions prior to the Belgic attack but had mostly recovered their stragglers in time. The Xth heroically fought off a flank attack by the Belgic cavalry and then, in concert with the IXth, threw the Atrebates back across the river, the Xth
destroying one group in the pursuit across the river, just as Caesar
says happened historically. Some of the light troops rallied and
supported this attack, whilst the terrified Numidians continued to run for the camp. The allied Gallic horse rallied but achieved little as they and the, by now also rallied, Belgic cavalry were then locked in combat for the rest of the battle. Meanwhile, in the centre the Veromandui
advanced more cautiously. The Tribune 'Hadrian', commanding the Roman
centre, quickly threw out his legions into a shallow formation, by
virtue of their excellent drill, and charged, much as Caesar did
historically with the legions on the right. The reason for this was to
get the maximum number of men fighting but it is a risky endeavour
in WAB as retaining the maximum +3 rank bonus is usually the better
option for achieving victory in close combat. However, the gamble paid
off and the Veromandui were routed and many slain trying to flee across the river. The XIth chased the remaining Veromandui into the trees, while the veteran VIIIth remained on the Roman bank to protect the camp. The huge numbers of the Nervii
made it difficult for them all to get into the battle and so, while
their main force crossed the river and attempted to surround the Roman
right, several large groups broke away and moved to the centre of the
field. The unfortunate VIIIth
were consequently thrown back from the water's edge, and rapidly
surrounded. These grim veterans were not so easily broken however, and
forming into an all round defence, dug in to weather the storm.
Back on the Roman left the IXth began to re-cross the river into the centre of the field towards their now surrounded comrades of the VIIIth. The Xth were unable to join them as some of the Atrebates had rallied in the trees and they were forced to engage them. In the centre the XIth had chased the remnants of the Veromandui from the field and now joined the IXth in marching to the relief of the VIIIth. Time was not on their side though as the surrounded legionaries of the VIIIth fought bravely on against impossible odds as Caesar looked on unable to help. Fortunately for these brave sons of Rome, Nike was smiling down on them and the cavalry, in the shape of the Treveri, and in the best tradition of 50s westerns, arrived just in time. With the Roman camp secure, the Terveri were undaunted by the Belgic presence and charged straight into the rear of Nervii surrounding the VIIIth. The morale of the Nervii collapsed, many being killed in the resulting rout and others fleeing in panic upon the destruction of their kin.
Just before this death-or-glory charge was taking place, the Belgae finally launched a full-scale attack against the Roman right, who had been gradually withdrawing in the face of the Nervic horde. The will of the Nervii
was obviously failing however, as there was no conviction in their
charge and they rapidly found themselves fleeing back to the river,
hotly pursued by the VIIth and XIIth legions. Rallying on their own side of the river the Nervii managed to grab a tiny consolation as one group forced back the XIIth but the VIIth broke Boduognatus' own warband and cut down the Warlord in the pursuit. With the Belgic Chieftain slain, his army in tatters and the newly arrived XIIIth and XIVth
legions mopping up the last barbarians on the Roman side of the river,
Caesar was free to retire to camp and begin to consider how best to
inform the Roman people of this latest victory.
As
far as the result goes I think it was on the whole very historical,
perhaps even surprisingly so. Many of the features of the real battle
were recreated and although at the detailed mechanism level some aspects
were probably a little gamey, overall I don't think there was much that
couldn't be justified. Admittedly, the scenario was quite heavily
tailored in places but I see the ease with which this can be done as a
strength of WAB, in that the rule set provides the necessary palette of
stats and rules with which to fine tune the game. The Romans, with the
exception of the crippled VIIIth,
probably had a slightly easier time of things than their historical
counterparts, particularly on the right flank but the result is
deceptive and with a few different dice rolls things could easily have
looked very different for the Belgae and the game was actually much closer then the outcome suggests.
Having now played the game a few more times it does seem that the odds are somewhat stacked in the Romans favour.
The barbarians can overcome the legionaries but need quite a bit of
luck to do this in more than one isolated case and although they have
given the Romans a bloody nose is some of our games they are yet to win a
decisive victory. In terms of hard numbers, the Romans have a slight
overall points advantage but not all their troops are present from the
start and while they have the initial terrain advantage, they also have
some restrictive special rules. All this probably matches history very
well in that the Gauls
did eventually learn that taking the legions on head to head was
suicide but in order to make for a more balanced game players may like
to add a little extra fighting power to the Gallic side. This can be achieved quite easily by the addition of a few extra chieftains or possibly upgrading some of the Nervii warbands
to WS4 as suggested in Jervis original scenario. Another alternative
is to reduce the number of Romans. Caesar did have a ready source of
citizen recruits in Cisalpine Gaul and he supplemented this with volunteers from Italy and even men not officially allowed to serve, such as Latins and even Gauls.
However in only the second year of campaigning his reputation as a
military genius was not yet assured and after two hard fought battles
the year before his veteran legions may not have been at full strength.
Reducing these to 20 figures or less, instead of 24 may therefore be
historical and have quite a significant game effect as it gives the Gauls
a greater chance to retain the 2:1 ratio needed to Fall back in good
order. If anyone does try this scenario I'd be interested to hear the
results.
FIN
It's funny to read all this back fifteen years later. The optimism and passion for WAB sadly ran it's course but it was a pretty good run before the end. I'm slightly cringing at the obvious chip I had on my shoulder for the po-faced (pun intended) welcome we got from some of the more 'serious' wargamers at the SoA back then. Terrain building has moved on a lot too but we still use many of the techniques and I don't think it holds up too badly despite the terrible photos. Some happy memories though.
