In AD 60, Queen Boudica led a revolt against the Imperial Romans who occupied Britain. She marched on Lindinium to wreak havoc on the oppressors. The Imperials were caught off-guard.
This battle uses Scenario 3 from One Hour Wargames. The western ford is shown in picture 1. Boudica's forces are on the left (north). Boudica had two cavalry units, one light infantry and three heavy infantry units. The second picture shows the eastern ford. The Imperial Romans had one archer, two light infantry at the western ford, and three heavy infantry units at the eastern ford.
Most of the action took place in the fords. Two units could engage two other units face to face on the narrow passages. Flanking was only possible after one of the facing units was destroyed. In addition, the Roman archer unit was able to pepper the Celtic heavy infantry unit that was waiting in reserve. Those Celts finally had to withdraw out of range because they was taking hits while not giving any. Both Celtic cavalry units were shattered. This was not good for Boudica, but meanwhile the cards and the dice were helping her army. The eastern ford was taken by the Celts. In the next turn, the western ford fell also. Only the Roman archers survived (picture 3).
The battle was exciting and lasted 29 minutes. This was my first ancient-era battle and I enjoyed it. The OHW scenarios work as well for the ancient era as they do for machine era or any other. Being short of ancient cavalry, I substituted Maid Marion from the Merry Men set and one WWI cavalry rider from the WWI horse artillery.
Note: My figures are individually based instead of based with a frontage of 4-6 inches as recommended by Thomas. This battle finally showed me the reason for the recommended basing. Had I based them correctly, only one unit could have been in a ford at a home time. No flanking would have been possible. More units would have been forced to wait in reserve until the units in combat were broken. This would have extended the battle.
No comments:
Post a Comment