The Serpent Shield (Getian AAR)

255BC, Spring, Patavium

It is fifteen years since the Getae fought a full-scale battle of field armies, when my father broke the Skythians. Since then it’s been all sieges and a few bandit hunts. So I felt a little clumsy. And it rained on our bowstrings, which were half the army. But we got through, it went roughly as I wanted.

Our three phalanxes made a line, foot archers behind them, slingers left and falx men right. The horse archers took the wings. Everybody started in loose order except the phalanxes, because the Romani carried many javelins. They closed up when necessary. The Romani attacked piecemeal, and we more or less managed to take their attacks on the phalanxes while the slingers went wide and the horse archers went behind. There was a bad moment when Kallindrones chased some routers into a banquet of the Celtic Spear Levy’s Guild, and another bad moment when their tricky light cavalry got amongst our slingers. We need some cavalry who can stand and fight…

But we coped. We came to the field with seven hundred men each. They killed forty-five and we killed five or six hundred. Then we attacked Patavium, and Diales opened the gates for us. We shot up a mercenary pike phalanx in the square.

I have no particular plan in Italia. I will strike where I get the chance and try to destroy their ability to make war. The odds are poor, but it seems best. I am almost two years from Sarmiszegethusa now; few reinforcements will come. I wonder if there are mercenaries to be had? I must not get bogged down in garrison and government, better to break their backs and leave something for Epeiros to fight.

255BC, Autumn, Patavium

We destroyed a mighty army, or I should say Kallindrones destroyed it because my judgement failed, but we’re back in Patavium.

At the end of summer, I decided to move an army to the river west of town. It’s very defensible, and from there they threatened multiple targets. But I had to stay in Patavium, since my name – I am famous for some reason – keeps down unrest. So I sent Kallindrones to lead them. He is a clever man, and sure of himself, but this was his first time as commander. Just as he was ready to pounce on Mediolanum a huge army of Romani appeared out of a northern pass to attack me in Patavium.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...avium1oppo.jpg

I had no idea they were up there. They must have gone to attack one of the mountain tribes. So Kallindrones swung back to their north. He hired three units of Gallic light lancers at ruinous expense, since there would be plenty of backs to charge if our phalanxes could fix their infantry. And he reeled in a band of our horse archers who were arriving late from home. Then he waited for a break in the snow and laid into the Romani, as I came out from town behind them with my small force.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...m1generals.jpg

Kallindrones built a solid centre of phalanxes with his archers and slingers close by, and kept back one of the lancer troops to charge whatever came around their flanks. Wide on each wing he spread lancers and horse archers. As usual, we would try to form a bag around our enemies. This is what the Skythians did to us fifteen years ago, but my father turned it back on them because he had so many foot archers and slingers and he moved them with purpose. These Romani had javelins, and not so many of those if the new spy was right.

But there were a lot of Romani, all fresh, many of them heavier troops like their “Principes” and “Triarii”, with armour that stops arrows. They could have us, and I knew it. When their big line of infantry came rolling over the snow, twice as wide as Kallindrones’, they needed only to pin the phalanxes and wrap around them. Then we’d be down to light horse, and there just weren’t enough arrows to shoot them all. Since we were defending a town for a change we needed to actually win, not just survive.

They threw their chance away. Kallindrones feinted left to pull in their far side then feinted right to do it again, and now they were a block instead of a line. Meanwhile some of his wide horse drew their reserve away to play cat and mouse. Seven heavy infantry units hit our three phalanxes, but they hit the front. Mostly the Romani stumbled around in the snow and got in each other’s way. I think less than a quarter were fighting at any time. The phalanxes held them in the centre – every day I give thanks for real phalanxes, not just spearmen – and the cavalry chewed their backs. Eventually falx men from town got at their backs and butchered them. There were heads and limbs all over the ground, and one dandy left the field wearing Romani guts as a necklace. Then most of them broke, and we hunted them down, and we broke the others and murdered them all.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...avium1rout.jpg

Few Romani made it off the field, and I heard the survivors deserted rather than returning to barracks.

http://www.joel-benford.co.uk/posts/...vium1score.jpg

Once more their cavalry mauled our slingers, and once more we had nothing that could catch their cavalry then stand and fight them. I could do with more slingers here, because the Romani have armour much better than the tribes we’ve filled with arrows, but I need some heavy cavalry to team with them.

So, what do you guys think I should do in Italy? Raid, conquer, or hold my very defensible border at Patavium? Remember, reinforcements are two years away.

The obsessive and plain weird amongst you may have noticed that I labelled the last entry as "winter" because there was snow on the ground, but it was actually autumn so I had to edit it. Now very weird stuff is happening in my game, with snow around Roma in autumn that vanishes and reappears as I scroll etc. I'm getting lots of CTDs, despite applying the fixes. I think I may have "map corruption in my save" or whatever it's called. So I don't know how much longer this AAR will last. Well, I'll try to disembowl some more Romani before the end...

255BC, Late Winter, Patavium, Alone

The Macedonian army in Tylis moved out. Tarsa followed it southwest, and saw it move up the pass southeast of Sardika – not the one without fort, the next to the east. With a hard march in the snow, they could just about reach Sardika this season, though without time to build siege works. The fort garrison would get back to town in time, if it came to that. Then they stood on the border facing our land, as if they were waiting. Then something shocking happened: their diplomat came up to town, bold as a fighting cock, and demanded two hundred and thirty mnai not to attack! And the governor was Rhemaxos, he who was spurned by Zalmoxis, trusted by no man and quietly ignored by most. He paid – I can only guess at how his mind works after that terrible blow to his soul – and their army marched off towards Epeiros.

Now I sit here in the hall at Patavium, with my mead and my dogs, and I am all alone. Kallindrones is gone west with the armies, all of them save my bodyguard, and he will sit on a strategic ford and challenge the Romani to take it back. I’ve no doubt he’ll kill whoever comes, then take Mediolanum or Bononia or some other Gallic town where the people hate us less than they hate the Romani. And one day when the Getae and the Epeirotes are done feasting on Roma, Mediolanum will be our regional capital and a strategic fortress by the passes, to keep the Gauls beyond the Alps.

Or else the sarissae of Macedon will spit us first.

But I won’t see that. For there is poison in my mead, and cramps in my belly, and I have spared the chiefs the shame of putting it there. I spied archers coming from Segestica this morning, they can hold the town until Brasos is crowned and comes west. The Getae may conquer or die; they are skilled in war and well placed amongst terrible enemies. They will do it better without a doomed king.


Isn’t he a miserable sod?

Well, that wraps it up. The crashes and so on were getting too much, and I need to start a new game.

The Getae are pretty good fun – decent military, viable economy, exciting location. I think the next level of MICs would have seen troops that kick them up a gear: Getian medium phalanxes and Scythian heavy cavalry. Balanced Gallic sword and shield infantry would be useful too, or Samnites. They might even turn out pike phalanxes in Macedonia (Sardika is a Mac region 1 city). With an army like that and the five or so mines I had in the works, plus a population that’s gone right up since the game started, they would have been a real power who could give anyone a fight. If they’d made it through the next twenty years their biggest problem would be the lack of paved roads.

Well, time to play something a bit different.

Sad you have to stop here...hope your next AAR will be as good as this one was.