The battle for Segestica!

[Kugutsu]

Segestica has become the frontline for my defence of the civilised (roman) world against the barbarian hordes (sweboz). Every turn they send full stack after full stack against the town. Until now I kept a roving band of cavalry handy to keep them at bay, but this particular season I had withdrawn them to Bononia to refit, and the barbarians struck again...

They had a strong army of fairly elite troops from the various reaches of the sweboz realm, I had the battered remnants of a legion which had conquered Carthage, Greece and had been semi-retired for garrison duty in the last city they took, Segestica. Due to earlier barbarian raids, their numbers had been wittled down to a mere 48 triarii, 24 principes, 39 hastati and their surviving support troops, 49 rorarii and two sqads of accencii with 57 and 58 men respectivly. My general added a further 23 men to bring the total to 298 men.

The barbarians assaulted the walls, and my general decided that the only hope lay in trying to hold them in the streets. He chose a chokepoint formed by the arch over the street joining the two halves of a temple, and set out his army. A second street he defended with his slingers and himself, in the hope that the enemy would not attempt it, allowing him to surprise the enemies from behind when the crucial moment arrived. This was a miscalculation. The enemy divided his army in two. The larger half went as planned, and were pinned by the bulk of the army, but a significant portion rushed his position. Following a valient defence, he and his slingers fell back (routed) to the square, followed by the two squads of spearmen who they had been engaged with. The rorarii were drawn back to the square to give assistance, however none of the regular troops could be spared, as the line was barely holding...

The rorarii nobly sacrificed themselves to the last man, allowing the slingers to ply their deadly art at the rear of the enemy, who finally routed, pursued by the general, his signifer and single surviving bodyguard. The slingers were also finally able to take their positions behind the bulk of the enemy army, where they proved decisive (though there were only 16 of them - 3 got stuck on some corpses...)

The enemy general fell on the spearpoints of the triarii, and unit after unit of the enemy succumbed to rout, usually with the combined effect of an immovable roman line, and a hail of stones from behind... Unfortunately the slingers were in the middle of the road the fleeing enemies had to take, and half their number fell to the desperate fleeing barbarians.

Finally the last unit of enemy routed...


The battle had been hard, and the cost huge - a mere 70 men were still standing.


Aftermath: The garrison was reinforced with local mercenarias and illyrian horsemen from less vulnerable provinces to the south. The survivors of the legion returned to Rome as heroes, where they enjoyed well deserved rest and recuperation, while their centurions rounded up recruits to bolster their ranks. Perhaps in the fullness of time they will have the opportunity to take the battle to the heartlands of the barbarians...

[Ancyrean]

Wow Kugutsu that was some close call!!

Nice job on organising the defence! Things had indeed come to the Triarii in your battle!!

May I take this opportunity to ask a question? I'm currently in the middle of a campaign with Romani myself (hard campaign/medium battle) and after reading your account, I realise I totally ignored the accensi in my legions so far. I guess I was biased by the unit stats; if I recall correctly their missile attack stat is ranked as 1 (please correct me if I'm wrong), melee and defence both 8.

As such I thought I could use the money better elsewehere. But I understand the accensi were key in your defence, and I read in other threads some players are using slingers extensively, so what am I missing?

Cheers!

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

Against unarmored/light troops the accensi work rather good. Against troops with big shields they don't work very well. Try to get them behind them and to the weapon side. Although even in that position they won't do much damage against heavily armored troops.

[Kugutsu]

Thanks, I was quite proud of it myself!

As for the accensi, I tend to stick them in front of my legion. They then pepper the approaching enemy, and withdraw through my ranks when the enemy is close. Then depending on the tide of the battle they either wait there for the enemy to rout ( at which point they shoot them over the heads of my troops as they run away) or they are taken round the left side of the battle to sling at the flank/rear of the enemy (this is obviously only viable if the enemy has no cavalry).

Yes, they have weak stats, and in most of my armies you will find their role has been taken by merc balearic slingers or cretan archers. Even gallic slingers (iosatae?) are better, stats wise, but those accensi were a relic from founding of the republic days...

Edit: I like to play with realistic armies. My old legions generally had 2 or 3 units of slingers, 2 rorarii, 3 hastati, 3 principes, 2 triarii, 1 equites and 1 general and some other merc units depending on the legion's role.