TTS AAR: Venice Abroad versus Marian Romans
/Here’s an After Action Report of a game of To The Strongest played as a practice session for this year’s Briton competition: my Venetians versus Peter’s Marian Romans.
I have Marian Romans, so I know how manoeuvrable they are, so it was no surprise when Peter set up with all his troops in one quarter of the battlefield with a command of light cavalry on the other flank: his intention being to either fight his whole army against only part of mine, or have the light cavalry get around my flank with disastrous results, or use the Romans’ manouevrability to react to whatever I did, or a combination of all three!
My plan was to send my knights forward into the Roman half of the battlefield, and then turn to the right and hopefully hammer the Romans from front and flank as my infantry came forward.
First, however, I needed to make sure that I kept an idea on that enemy light cavalry. This was a job for my mounted crossbowmen, who quickly shot down the veteran Numidians, removing one threat to my left flank.
Meanwhile, the Romans had expanded out of their initial tight formation, and were manouevring into a position where they could fight to both front and flank.
I did see an opportunity to kill another of the light cavalry units by squishing them between two unit of Knights, but unfortunately the cards were having none of it and the moment quickly passed.
Despite this minor setback, my plan unfolded nicely, and when contact was properly made with the Romans, it was generally with my troops having the advantage either from flank charges or being able to get two units onto one enemy one.
Unfortunately, although the cards I’d had for moving around the battlefield were decent enough, that good fortune didn’t extend to the actual combats themselves, and the initial clash left the Venetians down a unit of Knights and Spearmen having destroyed only one small unit of legionaries.
Meanwhile, on the right, the Venetian Alabardiers drove the Roman cavalry back towards their camp. For a moment I had visions of killing the enemy horse and taking the Roman camp, but forcing Peter withdrew a Legionary unit from the front line to combat this threat, and soon my right flank was empty of all Venetian troops except a couple of units of handgunner lights!
The battle was definitely not going my way: the manoeuvrability of the Romans combined with their veteran status making them very hard to kill.
I did, however, still have some Knights out of the left flank and, in a glorious charge back into the centre of the field, the “Broken Lances” rode down and destroyed an entire Legionary unit in one legendary thump from the flank!
That put me right back in the game, especially as the Roman formation had now got slightly extended, with the game breaking up into a series of individual combats.
So all I needed was one more turn where my flank charges went in and my shooting was effective and I could still win the game.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. At this crucial moment my veteran Knights (technically saving on a five, but obviously wearing their cardboard armour) were knocked off the table by a unit of Legionaries pulling a ten and then a decent melee card to get one final successful attack before Peter’s turn ended.
That was a very frustrating end to what had been a great game: and the closest I have come to beating Mr Riding for some time…but I was at least pleased that I had dealt with the initial Roman deployment and first phase of the battle well, even if the actual fighting bits hadn’t gone my way. Previously I would have let the enemy light cavalry harrass me from the flank and ended up with my Knights fighting air whilst the rest of the Romans mashed through my infantry to give Peter an easy victory…so an improvement of sorts at least!