The idea of pitching a Scottish medieval army against a Romano British army had been buzzing in my head for quite a while. So, I constructed 2 representative armies and let the dice decide; which players commanded which armies; table side; first deployment and first move. We employed the assistance of James F from another game to choose and layout the terrain features so that the entire set-up was dictated by the various dice rolls. Sometimes, this produces a very fair and often multi-faceted scenario, but in all honesty I think it’s fair to say that from the out-set the Romano Brits were very much fighting against the dice rolls!
The complex terrain with central 8 and 7 hex escarpments, low hills and scattered small areas of woodland, certainly suited the more static Scotts with their 10 slower units of lowland pikemen. So, Tim and Chris (the Romano Brits), could only feel that the odds were even more stacked against them when Tony, James and myself (the Scotts), won the key dice roll for first move. Tony had opted to keep his central Scottish pike units in units of 4 rather than blocks of 6. This enabled these units to move quickly in column formation and advance to the central hill and 7 hex escarpment, which in turn gave him the up-slope advantage in hand-to-hand combat.
Chris and Tim formed a shield wall with their warriors formed into hordes of 6 interspersed with B class spear units. James had advanced to take up a defensive position in a wood on the far right of the Scottish line while I took 3 units of Scottish cavalry and 2 hordes of highland warriors on a wide flanking move to try and get behind Chris’s British right. This entailed scaling and getting around an 8 hex escarpment which would take some time. Meanwhile, Chris, Tim and Tony were already engaged in a missile shoot out in the centre. On the other wing James was demonstrating his excellent shooting skills once again, which kept Tim’s warriors from assaulting the woodland in force.
The centre of the table quickly became the hot spot as the 2 lines smashed against each other on the central escarpment and hill. The British chariots and archers used their shooting to recoil and disrupt the Scottish pike but more units from the reverse slope of the hill simply filled the gaps. The hand-to-hand combat factors in general favoured the Scottish pike units and the combat dice were also favouring the Scotts. This battle of attrition whittled down both centres whilst on both wings the opposing sides had still not fully engaged. My Scottish cavalry and warriors were waiting for the Brits to commit their cavalry reserve before attacking the British right flank.
Tim’s British warriors finally pushed James’s highlanders from the wood, but once more good shooting from James’s archers disrupted this advance. In the centre a charge by a unit of Scottish knights bashed a hole through the Brits before being swamped and destroyed by warrior hordes. At this point of the game both battle lines were breaking-up into what could only be described as organised chaos. The British chariots and cavalry were now committed, and this was my cue to launch my cavalry flank attack led by the Scottish hero general.
Up to this point the losses on both sides had been pretty even, but the Scotts now enjoyed a much better tactical position with control of both escarpments and fighting with the up-slope in their favour. The terrain advantage was then compounded by a hand-to-hand combat phase which saw some pretty awful dice rolls on behalf of the Brits. The Scottish dice rolls could only be described as average but the relative position of the British units, many of which were now fighting from a downhill position in a partial salient caused recoils, routes and major losses.
With true British grit Chris and Tim fought on for 2 more game turns but there was no way of orchestrating a fight back from this position. Again, when it came to combat dice the Brits managed to produce some pretty awful dice rolls which flattered the Scottish performance somewhat. The Scottish centre was too battered to launch a quick advance to victory but both wings of the Sottish
army were still in relatively good condition and would push and eventually squeeze the last resistance from the British centre.
Game Analysis
In this game it seemed that virtually every dice roll before and during the game seemed to go against the Brits to some degree. The race for terrain was won by the Scotts with the first move of the game, and a more mobile battle which might have favoured the Brits was as a result never going to materialise.
