To The World's Strongest Game Two: Early Imperial Romans vs Komenonon Byzantines
/After the disaster that was game one, I was looking forward to the chance for redemption in game two. My opponent was Nigel and his Komenonon Byzantines, who I’d fought at Warfare last year, although that was using the Venetians. Let’s see how the Romans would do…
I was facing cavalry on either flank, but was not that concerned about my left: my camp was protected by Impassable ground and defended by elite Lanciarii light infantry, meaning I felt safe to concentrate my veteran cavalry on the right, aiming to overwhelm the enemy horse and, again, loop round to take the rest of his army in the rear. All my infantry needed to do was to hold the centre against the Varangian Guard and all would be good.
I therefore advanced my centre and right forward strongly whilst holding back my left.
My cavalry did indeed “do the business”, with the Equites Alares smashing through on the far right wing and looping around into the rear of the rest of the enemy horse. all was proceeding to plan!
Nigel, however, realised what was about to happen and rapidly transferred his other cavalry command over to this wing, meaning that instead of being able to run riot in his infantry’s rear, my victorious cavalry had to fight more heavy cavalry coming in from the left.
Meanwhile, the Varangian guard had been heading straight for my line, determined to get into contact as soon as possible. That was okay by me: my legionaries were the equal of any infantry, and with the success of the cavalry, all I needed to do was to hold them for a couple of turns.
Unfortunately there was, again, something wrong with my infantry today, with every legionary or auxilia unit that came into contact with the enemy becoming disordered whether they were the attackers or not.
No matter, I had plenty of infantry ready to put the boot in, but some clever use of lights plus the fact that he had one unit of cavalry free to interfere, meant that Nigel was able to take the initiative in the centre.
Would my legionaries like to charge into either (a) the rear of the Varangians or (b) the cavalry threatening the flanks of their comrades?
No, they would not, thank you very much: far too much like hard work.
Worse, when the Byzantine cavalry charged the flank of my veteran legionaries, the “elite” Roman infantry broke and ran…and, like the last game, took the unit next to them with them as well!
Suddenly, from being in a commanding position well on the way to victory, the roles were reversed and I was looking at defeat!
The Varangians charged forward again, and another two legionary units dissolved. What was going on with my milites today?
And that was it: my last two medals gone as I went down to a narrow 11-12 defeat. I had only needed one more victory medal for the game to be mine, but the legionarirs just weren’t up for it.
Congratulations to Nigel for fighting his way back into the game: I think at one stage I was eight victory medals up!
As for my Romans…well, there were still two more game to go, so two more chances for them to redeem themselves or face consequences that could well involve the traditional punishment of decimation, but through the tender application of a large club hammer!
