We played this scenario using Warhammer Ancient Battles rules with a ton of 25mm miniatures on a 14 foot long table. Some rule modifications and additions were made to simulate the conditions during the time of the ambush. Basically the mods went like this…
" Since the battle is in a forest, all terrain penalties for forest were ignored, this made the game faster since units could move about and charge easier. Shooting was still modified as normal -1 to hit.
" The Romans set up in column first, then the Barbarians set up within 8 inches (charge range).
" The Barbarians went first but had to pass a leadership in order to spot and declare charges on the Romans for the first turn only.
" If a unit caught the enemy in a pursuit, instead of wiping out the enemy unit the victorious unit was allow free whacks with the first two ranks. All hits were automatic so the pursuers only rolled to wound using swords and fleeing troops got a save minus their shields. Rolling to kill the enemy gave the players a sense of satisfaction while allowing the defenders a chance of rallying the remains of the unit.
Rosters - we didn't use points at all, a rough estimate (very rough!) follows
" Barbarians: 14 units of 30-ish Warriors, 2 units of Fanatics (15 & 25), 2 Cavalry units (One Noble) of 10 each and a bunch of skirmishers. 3 Chieftains and a Warlord. All units that could have them, had shields & throwing spears.
" Romans: 5 Regular Legionnaire units (20 each), 2 Veteran legionnaire units, 4 Archer units(10), 4 or 5 Auxiliary infantry (16), 2 units of 10 cavalry. Three officers (Legates) and two Generals with ASB.
The Game
All but 1 unit of the Barbarian army got to charge the first turn. Legionnaire units were targeted but the Roman players wisely decided to flee the first turn. Most of the Barbarian rage was then re-directed to the plentiful Auxiliaries who were quickly dispatched under the sword. Unfortunately for the Germanic tribes, most of the Roman Legionnaires rallied in their half of the turn and were prepared for the next Barbarian turn. Other than the Barbarians that failed their warband tests and continue chasing Auxiliary units, the rest of the Germanic force attempted to defeat the legionnaires head to head. After several turns of wild melee the Romans emerged victorious for the most part. I think on about turn 7 we called it. The Romans had lost all of the Auxiliary troops and had suffered light casualties in their legionnaire units. One Roman cavalry unit had been wiped out. The Barbarians had a bad day, I would guess that 75% of their force was dead or in the process of running away. The Warlord and all of the Chieftain models had also died a solid Roman victory.
Since only 3 of the nine players knew the rules, I kept all units generic in the game and only assigned character figures for each player. While this made the game fast and easy to play it hurt the Barbarians a lot since they depend on their character models to do most of the killing. One thing I would do different next time is to add chieftains to every barbarian unit. The Barbarian players would then be given a Warlord character to represent themselves. Having multiple warlords on a 14 foot long table would help the Barbarian rallying effort.
The Barbarians attacked all along the Roman line of march, a weird tactic. Obviously a better strategy for the Germans would have been to ambush half of the Roman line from both sides with their entire force. Doing this would have definitely put a 'W' in the Barbarian's column. However, for a couple of Romans players this would have been a big boring game and no fun. Gaming a big scenario like this is all about everyone participating, rolling the dice and having fun!
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