Late Romans vs Avars in 6mm using TDIC

[Justin Taylor]

Battle report on my blog here.

Pushed for time so I will just post the link for now.

But the main point of interest was could a smaller army defeat a much larger (numerically) army which is supposed to be an equal points game - so balanced for both sides.

[Justin Swanton]

A good example of why large armies deployed in depth, rather than putting a mass of troops on the flanks.

The Roman shooting ability seems pretty nasty. As the Avar commander I would have put skirmishers forward to absorb it whilst the better stuff got to within charge range. Anything vulnerable would sit behind as a reserve to avoid getting killed and pushing the army nearer the breakpoint.

Am I right in thinking that several lines sent in one after the other may have broken, but would have softened up the Romans for a final punch by the elite troops? Does TDIC cater for that?

[Justin Taylor]

Yes that hill was murder with 8 bases (elements) of archers and 4 light bolt shooters on top of it, 12 dice rolled for shooting a move (front ranks need 3 or less on a D12 to get a hit against skirmishing cavalry, the rear ranks 2 or less). The archers were upgraded auxila so counted as steady and veteran, so even a charge against them would have been unlikely to succeed.

The Avar commander did indeed screen his heavy cavalry with 4 units of light cavalry but lost them all: two units destroyed, 2 routed. Nearest target is indeed the target priority so you have to shoot at them instead of the good stuff.

Extra armoured cavalry (with front armour for the horses) probably would have stopped much of bow fire and of course in the Avar army they have bows as well. But for any cavalry, frontally uphill against veteran infantry is a tall ask. An infantry attack would have been a better idea, but none in the area - it was bad deployment by the Avar general and I think he has learned the lessons.

You could send in waves of attack (each doing some damage) but would have to worry about the routing units causing the units behind to rout as well. But the general he had with the troops would have helped mitigate that (a bit).

[aligern]

Does the destruction of the light cavalry not affect the morale of the heavy cavalry?
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

I note the comment: "Next time we will see if it works if the Avars play better."

Why did they attack the hill in the first place?

[Justin Taylor]

Sorry in the delay in getting back to the questions.

First, Roy simply answered no, skirmishers are ignored by other troop types for morale (section 17 of the rules).

As to why the Avars did what they did at all is a moot point. Army spread out all over the table, so that in effect only the Avar cavalry got to fight.

Certainly the Romans chose the hill as a defensive point and then proceeded to move away from it!

Attack on the hill might have succeeded if infantry had been used or better quality cavalry. And a successful attack could have been decisive, perhaps 4 units of routing Romans might have been enough to break the Roman army.