The Forum

We let the dice decide that Tony, James and Chris commanded the Romans and Tim and I the Dacians. The choice of table edge gave Tim and I the slightly more advantageous table edge with the steep slope of an 8 hex escarpment facing the Romans on our left. A scattering of small areas of woodland punctuated the rest of the table with a 4 hex escarpment located within easy reach of a Roman advance.
The first move went to the Romans and they advanced with the 7 units of legionaries in the centre and the Roman cavalry on their right and the Auxillery Spearmen and archers on their left. We matched this advance with the Dacian cavalry facing their mounted Roman opponents, the Dacian warriors and falxmen in the centre and right along with a couple more units of Dacian cavalry.
As the armies closed on each other, Tony’s Roman cavalry units quickly advanced through the single hex gap between the 8 hex escarpment and an area of woodland. This gave my Dacian cavalry the difficult choice of evading or standing their ground. With the assistance of a couple of Dacian hordes they decided to stand and fight. Meanwhile, James’s legionaries continued their slow advance in the centre while Chris’s Roman Auxillaries formed up along the ridge of the small escarpment and woodland.
Tim and I decided to pull back away from the Auxillaries but confront the Legionaries head on in the centre. The cavalry confrontation went decidedly in favour of our Dacians which gave us full control of the 8 hex escarpment where we proceeded to line up our archers. These well positioned missile troops then engaged in a shooting match with Roman archers from the protection of the escarpment ridge line. The resulting shooting and hand-to hand combats all favoured the Dacians. This resulted in the opportunity to trap in combat and demolish 3 of the 4 Roman cavalry units and force the Roman archers to retreat.
In the centre Tim’s Dacian warrior hordes smashed into James’s Roman Legionaries stopping their advance and the resulting losses reduced the number of Legionary units from 7 to 5. Chris’s Roman Auxillaries were still to far away to offer support to the now battered Roman centre and right wing. Tim and I held a quick conference on how to finish off the Romans before the Auillaries could even get involved in the battle. Everything had gone from bad to worse for the Roman right wing and the Dacian cavalry was already behind the Roman centre. The single Sarmation heavy cavalry unit waited behind the Dacian warriors ready to inflict more punishment on the Roman centre. It would be game over for the Romans in less than an hour!
A Roman field ballista located and a single unit of Roman archers were all that stood in the way of the Dacian cavalry hitting the Roman centre from behind. In an astonishing round of shooting the ballista and archers hit with every dice roll and saved the day. I send the Sarmation cavalry around the escarpment in support of the Dacian cavalry who were now in a heap trouble. The Dacian warriors in the centre were suddenly recoiled disrupted as James’s remaining Legionaries found their targets with their pilum. The following hand-to-hand combat went in favour of the Romans and the Roman Auxillary spears and archers had now finally arrived in the centre and our once victorious Dacian Warriors were now being forced back into the woods.
The game had started to swing against all odds from quick Dacian victory, through Romans just about hanging on, to Roman gaining the upper-hand. The Sarmation heavy cavalry unit had wasted the game running between the Dacian left and centre without contributing anything to the Dacian cause! Soon the much diminished Roman army was now heading for victory. Tim and I looked at each other in disbelief; we had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
Game Analysis
I have absolutely no idea how we lost this one!