Category: Wargaming

This year’s battle for the Society of Ancients Battle Day is the Battle of the Catalunian Fields, aka the Battle of Chalons, in 453AD. It is regarded as a pivotal battle of late antiquity, stopping Attila’s Huns in their tracks and saving western Europe from them, although actually it doesn’t seem to have really had such an effect, and western Europe was saved more by his marital over-exertion and the inability of his successors to control their German vassals.

Anyway, next post will deal with the two armies. This one will be about where it was fought. It is one of those battles where we just have a few fragmentary accounts of what is going on, all of which seem rather unreliable. The primary source is Jordanes, a Romanized Goth writing in the 6th century. The consensus seems to be that Attila, on a up-til-then successful plundering expedition through Gaul, was besieging Orleans. Aetius, the Magister Militum of the West, came north from Ravenna, assumed command of the relic field army of Gaul and forged an alliance between the various Germanic tribes that had carved up most of Gaul between them by this stage, and who therefore actually had more to lose to Attila than Aetius did.

This combined army then moved on Orleans, forcing Attila to raise the siege. Attila then appears to start retreating back towards the Rhine, presumably happy with the plunder gathered so far and unwilling to risk his men in an unnecessary battle. At some point along this line of retreat, Aetius catches him and forces him to give battle. We are told that the site of the battle is somewhere near Chalons, and the only two physical details we are given about the battle are that there is an important ridge that is fought over at the beginning of the battle, and that after the battle the streams ran red with blood. Given that these streams are not mentioned during the battle, they cannot be one of the major rivers that cross the area though.

Most authorities place the site of the battle on the open plain between Troyes (on the Seine) and Chalons (on the Marne). Retreating from Orleans (on the Loire) to the Rhine involves crossing both of these rivers at some point. I think we can probably also assume that Attila, probably encumbered by considerable baggage, used the Roman road network to move his army around. The obvious initial route is Orleans-Sens-Troyes. At this point you reach the Seine which is the first significant obstacle and which is going to slow down your army as you cross it, probably by a single bridge. If Aetius is hard behind Attila then this is the first place that he can catch up, and Attila might end up in the awkward position of being caught with half his army on the far side of the river and out of action.

This line of enquiry was sparked by an article that Duncan found in an old French journal that outlined a possible battlefield to the west of Troyes. The road from Sens passes through a range of hills before debouching onto a plain in front of Troyes. On the north side of the plain, there is a prominent ridge, with the village of Montgueux on top of it. This seems to be a prime candidate for Jordanes’ ridge. There is also a small stream that appears to rise in the plain, near the modern village of Torvilliers, which would be the stream of blood. A snapshot of the battlefield from Google maps, annotated by me, is shown below, with the potential site for the battle that we have decided to use.

 

Tried out iteration 3 of the Late Imperial Romans last night. Not a great performance by me, but I think the command structure is getting better and I am slowly learning how to use the army. More thoughts here.

This week’s rather poor efforts on the figure painting front. Two elements of Gothic Kn(F) for my Late Imperial Romans. Not inked or based yet either. And I can’t get the shields to look right on the guys with the cloaks. The figures are Legio Heroica.

I took a War of the Roses and Tudor English army to Warfare this year in the 25mm post-500 AD period, and came a very pleasing 3rd. The army was mainly chosen because of the excellent Perry Miniatures plastic range for the period, and because its a simple and tough army that suits 25mm on a 6×4 board very well. The choice of generals was based on the army of Richard III at Bosworth, and hopefully everyone is in their correct livery and with correct standards and banners.

The Order of Battle was:

Richard III’s Command:

1 x Reg Kn(S) C-in-C, 2 x Reg Kn(S), 5 x Reg Bw(S), 1 x reg Art(I) = 16 ME

John Howard, Duke of Norfolk’s Command:

1 x Reg Kn(O) SG, 6 x Reg Bd(S), 6 x Reg Bw(S) = 24 ME

Henry Percy, Earl of Northhumberland’s Command:

1 x Reg Kn(O) AG, 3 x Reg Bd(S), 4 x Reg Bw(S) = 16 ME

William Stanley, King of Mann’s Command:

1 x Reg Kn(O) Inert AG, 3 x Reg Bd(S), 4 x Reg Bw(S) = 16 ME

Baggage Command:

8 x Irr Bge(I) Army Baggage

Pictures to follow.

Giving Dr P a practice game for Britcon next week, and he is looking to fight ‘an army with elephants or warband’. Thought about Malay, but think I might try out Later Muslim Indian – the very early Sultanate of Delhi version between 1206 and 1220 before the ex-Ghurids get converted to Jagirs. I don’t have the right elephant figures, but my turks should do for most of the rest of the army.

1 x Reg Cv(S) C-in-C, 3 x Reg Cv(S), 5 x Irr El(S), 3 x Irr Ps(S), 1 x Irr Hd(O)

1 x Reg Cv(S) SG, 5 x Reg Cv(S), 2 x Irr LH(O)

1 x Reg Cv(S) SG, 1 x Reg Cv(S), 16 x Irr LH(S)

6 x Irr Bge(I)

So 3 Cv(S) generals, 9 Reg Cv(S) listed as Mumluks, but I think it means Ghilmen [list is 4-12], 5 Irr El(S) [list is 3-6], 16 x Irr LH(S) Turks [list is 8-24].

The 1 x Hd(O) is irritatingly compulsory otherwise I would go for an all mounted army. The Ps(S) are there to protect the elephants from other Ps.

So the elephants in the centre are the strike force. The Ghilmen command is to delay a flank. The large Turkish command is to envelop the other flank. Despite the elephants, who will get the highest PIP, it should be a fairly manoeuvrable army so should be able to chose its point of attack, unlike most Indian armies.

Figure-wise, I have a load of Turkish/Mongol LH. 6 bases are painted and based, another 5 painted and not based, and 16 more unpainted and unbased, so this will encourage me to paint some of them. My Essex turkish Cv(S) are also quite serviceable, if a little static. So actually all I really need are some armoured elephants with howdahs. Essex do some, but not with howdahs. Need to have a look around. Timurid ones would also be suitable I think.

Update: and while looking for suitable armoured elephants (and finding very few) I have found who made the turkish LH. They are Museum miniatures, which I would have never though – having been unimpressed by their Byzantine range. These are really nice though with lots of variety and very dynamic. I might splash out on some of their lancers when I have finished painting the LH.

The battle for next year’s Battle Day (13th April 2013) has been announced as Chalons (451AD) – the classic Huns vs Romans battle if it wasn’t that the Hunnic army was probably mainly Ostrogothic and the Roman army we certainly mainly Visigothic.

And probably is the big word here. We know that there were lots of Goths involved. And that there was a ridge that was key to the battle. We don’t know where the ridge was, relative to the Goths, or indeed where the Goths were, relative to the ridge. We do know that the battle started late in the day and went on into the night and that there was a fair bit of bed swapping going on – a Visigothic prince tried to kip down in the Hunnic camp but was kicked out, and Aetius spent the night in the Visigothic camp (he wasn’t kicked out).

The good thing is that I have just started on a Late Imperial Roman army; the bad thing is that there were very few Romans in the battle, although some of the local contingents sound like they might have been former garrisons that have become semi-independent principalities, so there might be a bunch of Bd(I) and Ax(O) pseudocomitatenses.

All this means that I need to paint more Gothic cavalry and infantry, which is good because I wanted to do that anyway. So far I think that I will try and use a mixture of Khurasan, Legio Heroica and Old Glory for the cavalry and Legio Heroica (when they come out), Buaeda and Old Glory for the infantry. The Romans are all Legio Heroica who are nicely sculpted, if rather static and chunky. But there is a lot of head variation and they have open hands, which I like. For regulars they look formed and drilled without being uniform.

Continue reading “SoA Battle Day 2013 – Chalons”

The army I took was Marian Roman and the list was (queue somebody spotting its illegal or something like that):

Command 1:
Lucius Licinius Lucullus as a Brilliant Reg Cv(O) C-in-C, 8 Reg Bd(S), 2 Irr Ax(S), 3 Irr Ps(S), 1 Reg Ps(O), 1 Irr El(I) = 29 ME

Command 2:
Appius Claudius Pulcher as a Reg Cv(O) SG, 6 Reg Bd(S), 4 Irr Ax(S) = 24 ME

Command 3:
Gaius Sornatius Barber as a Reg Cv(O) SG, 6 Reg Ax(S), 2 Reg Ps(S), 2 Reg Ps(O) = 16 ME

Baggage Command:
6 Reg Bge(O), 10 TF = 12 ME

For a grand total of 81 ME. Although I was probably the smallest army there at only 52 elements including the baggage, I think I had more ME than most of my opponents because of the Bd(S). OTOH, that means that they can be lost pretty quickly.

The army is a refinement of the one I took to Warfare last year. The main changes were to make the commands more asymmetric to allow one to have the low PIPs (which involved concentrating the Bd(S), to drop the Cv(O) (that just got themselves into trouble), to add the El(I) to try and counter the nasty wedged Kn(F) and to have space to put some real elements to defend the camp.

The strategy was that we would normally try and deploy on just one side of the table and turn a flank, hoping that we could destroy that before the other flank of the enemy could wheel across and engage. Against a mobile steppe enemy we would just hunker down and rely on the toughness of the Bd(S) and Ax(S) rather than advance and risk the flanks as they just evaded away. Lucullus’ command would normally go in the centre as the main fighting command, and get the middle die. One flank command would then be the hinge and would deploy with its auxilia in the camp, giving them a factor of 6 behind the TF and making them very difficult to winkle out. The other flank would then get the high die and push forward as far and fast as possible, using the Auxilia to deploy in the flank zone and push through any terrain on the side of the table. If I defended then a BUA could help push the hinge point as far forward as possible.
Continue reading “Battle Reports from RollCall”

Impressive run out for the Marians at the weekend – two wins and two winning draws. I think I have finally cracked the right about of berserk aggression to cope with an army that is so tough yet so small. You need to be very cavalier about casualties on the hinge command as well. Full battle reports to follow (need to copy them from the Yahoo group).