Infamy Infamy or where did we leave those tools

We played Scenario 5, "Ubique", from the rulebook where a Group of Roman engineers / surveyors are located in the central region of the table. The engineers are surveying the ground for the future Antonine wall but they have been informed by the scouts that some hairy barbarians are in the area. They have to pack up their kit and exit via either of the short table edges and they have an Auxiliary Cohors Peditatae as escort.

Unfortunately for the Caledonians most of the terrain features were within 12" of the Roman deployment area and this restricted where they could put the deployment/ambush markers...

so they were located in the woods to the north west and north east, the hill to the west and the eastern swamp. This was going to be tricky to prevent the engineers escaping, especially since the Roman Exploratores scouted the deployment marker in the hills. So it looks like the way to the west is open. With this is mind the Caledonians deployed the slingers and three groups of levy warriors from the north western woods to attempt to cut off the escape route.

 

Two groups of warriors and a group of household warriors, led by chief Nowall Ere and Siddecik, emerged from the north eastern woods, just in case the Romans decided to try and escape to the east. To counter all this, and screen the engineers, the Romans split their auxila into two groups so that they faced off both sets of warrior mobs.

The auxila tried to charge down the hill into the warrior levy but our friend "Roll a 1" Greg was obviously about as they rolled two 1s for movement...

with the levy turning to face this new threat throwing spears and with the slingers helping, both causing casualties.

The auxila finally managed to get themselves to charge into the levy but came off worst and were pushed back up the hill. On the other flank the warriors advanced and threw spears, resulting in some damage to the auxilia.

Out from the warriors charged a group of fanatics straight into the auxila. A bucket of dice was rolled for not much effect. That was unhelpful chief Nowall Ere was heard to mutter.

Although the rest of the warriors moved up to join the fight and the pressure worked as they started to push the auxila back. However, Siddecik was wounded and knocked out for the rest of the game. On the other flank the auxilia facing the levy started to retire with the levy following up but finding the going in the swamp difficult.

The engineers were making a run for it with the Caledonian slingers trying to cut them off.

The fanatics and warriors managed to break through the auxila and watched the quickly departing engineers. The levy warriors continued their slow trudge through the swamp whilst the auxila retired back to help out the engineers.

It was looking highly likely that the engineers would get away so the Caledonians decided that they would take out their frustration on the auxila, with the lonely unit on the hill being attacked in the rear and quickly driven off. Meanwhile the levy at last exited the swamp and attacked the other auxila unit causing it to break also. The engineers escaped but not many auxiliaries did so a draw was called.

 

 

A good game although I think the auxila would have done better if they had managed to get into close order.