The battle for Hrolmar Bay

A Naumachiae battle report.

The rebel fleet lost the battle on the Mariol coast and fled with the Vilmirian fleet in pursuit. Being forced to keep speed, the rebels where unable to embark the heavy infantry marines that Kalvan had placed to guard his city, Kletch. Thus the rebels was without high quality marines. The rebels sailed in haste down to The Isle Of The Purple Towns to meet up with the Argimiliari reserve fleet and the transports holding a large force og some 7000 mercenaries from the south. The Vilmiran fleet then guarded the shore along Vilmir to prevent the reinforcements to land. The rebels and Argimiliarites then chose to sail into open seas to avoid the Vilmir fleet and to be able to disembark the mercenary force. The result was several days in open seas. Though crew exhausted and thirsty, the transports did manage to disembark the mercenaries, but at a high cost. The fleet had to screen the landing and thus a naval battle in unfavorable conditions commenced.

The rebel movement.

The Vilmiran movement

The Vilmir fleet portrayed by Romans and the Argimiliarites and rebels by Carthaginians.

The rebels had inexperienced marines and the crew was exhausted with few rations left after four days at sea. The ships where waterlogged as well, but they where in greater numbers and had faster triremes.

The Vilmirians had good marines and rested crews with hulls kept out of sea at night.

The battle could still be won by the rebels if they could amass their numbers and prevent speed in the Vilmiran fleet.

The fleets deployed, but due to cultural differences and conflict in the command structure, the rebels made their plan before taking a view of the enemy positions…

Vilmiran battle plan. Concentrate in mass against a flank and delaying the other flank. Deploy in depth to overwhelm.

Rebel battle plan. Deploying in echelon, like a scythe, to envelope the enemy. Alas, the rebels camoe out of position.

Deployment of rebel fleet.

Battle lines seen from Vilmirs fleet.

Vilmiran deployment in line abrest.

After a few turns of movement, the lines meet.

With poor marines the rebels would be hard pressed in boarding actions.

So, the rebels deployed their commanders in a second line behind the wedge to accommodate.

Many of the Vilmiran Triremes had reinforced bows, that made it hard to do a bow ram test.

As the lines clash on the right flank, the scythe formation with Kalvans treacherous pirates are late for the engagement.

The center receives hard fighting.

But heavy threes from Vilmir break apart the far right flank.

As the pirates turn toward the enemy flank, opening their secret orders dictated from a far distant Kalvan,…..

The poor morale start to break apart the rebel fleet.

The center and right is a mess of smashed ships.

The far right flank is torn to pieces and the Argimiliarite admiral is killed and one captured.

The triumphant Dux Bellorum Elgar Esholta takes no prisoners and very few prices. The enemy is almost completely destroyed.

Wrecks of a dramatic battle and a hard turn of events for the rebels.

The treacherous rebel pirates under Klavan loyal, Admiral Andronicus, escape without seeing combat, once again!

The bitter remnants of the Argimiliarite fleet flee south to meet up with the rebel transport fleet.

The battle was a disaster for the rebel cause. Without a functioning fleet, sorely needed reinforcements will be impossible to transport safely. The Argimiliarites will have to rebuild their fleet and put on a defensive strategy with their land forces to survive. A crucial mistake for the rebel plan was to have a definitive plan before deployment. Not willing to sacrifice the small light ships as a breaking screen was also making it hard for the Argimiliarite fleet to cope with the strong mass of Vilmirian ships. But, Kalvan kept his pirate fleet and still holds his little kingdom of Kletch, kept safe by Argimiliarite heavy marines. The fickle nature of politics i guess.

The rebels also had a very hard time with poor marines and tired crew. We will make some adjustments to the morale range effect, as it still is a bit too destructive on the game.

Next up from our rpg campaign is the land battle that takes place at the same time as the naval battle. A Vilmiran army will try to break its way through the half finished siege lines of a rebel leader outside the rebel stronghold of Hrolmar. The battle will have some similarities with one of Mithridates the Great`s breakout from a campsite in Armenia (if my memory is correct.)

The battle of the Mariol coast.

At the same time as the battle of Mariol, on the 11 of Arkenan, the rebel fleet with their Argimiliarite backers, returned to the war zone. To avoid an attack through the unprotected harbor by Vilmirans marines, the rebels decided to attack the Vilmiran fleet led by the war master Duke Elgar Esholta.

Elgar Esholta, sailed the fleet to an apropriate spot for defence as his fleet was outnumbered. The rebels had earlier in the campaign disembarked their marines for the land campaign in Kletch and had now embarked new ones, though unexperienced. With their superior numbers the rebels, under Admiral Lupus Barka, would be able to swarm the Vilmiran fleet with smaller ships and then send in their heavy vessels. But, this was to prove otherwise.

We played the battle with Langton models. The Vilmirians are represented by the Republican Romans, and the rebels as pirates and Carthaginians.

The rebel fleet have more and faster ships with incendiary ammunition on many ships. They have inferior marines.

The Vilmrians have heavier ships with better Marines.

We have made a lot of adjustments to the Naumachiae game to make it faster, better and less mind boggling. The game has good core mechanincs but needs speed.

The Vilmirans where outnumbered. So i elected to place terrain to my defensive advantage as i was the one attacked. I wanted to place my main line abreast with two squadrons in two lines. My admiral was then placed on “flank sailing” meaning he will not turn up before turn 3 at the earliest. He is an inspired admiral wich makes it more likely that he will appear on time. Being outnumbered i had to defeat the enemy piecemeal. Optionally i would create a narrower battlefield.

The rebels wanted to overwhelm the center and engage the flanks to avoid maneuverability. They where not sure as to which flank i would appear on so they placed a squadron as a buffer, hoping that i would appear there but not at the first possible turn.

The fleets appear.

The rebels deployed in echelon to easier adjust their attack angle for later. And to create multiple lines

The biremes belong to the pirate rebels and deploy in line astern.

The Vilmirans deploy in echelon.

The rebel flagship take the lead, surrounded by the quinqeremes. The light threes and pirate pentekonters deploy in the rear to approach the far flank.

The Vilmirans position themselves protected by the coast and islands.

The ominous mass of ships approach, but due to bad ship handling, many are thrown of course and fail to accelerate. This disrupts the fleet formations.

The light threes and especially the pirate pentekonters suffer from these failed maneuvers.

The fishing islands prove as good protection.

At turn three the flanking squadron of heavy threes under my admiral appear. They approach as fast as possible on the mixed squad of triremes and biremes. By turn six they are ready for the attack.

The rebels try to outrun the heavy threes, maybe do draw them into the vicinity of the heavy squadrons. The rebel admiral squad turns to face the heavy threes.

The light squadron is smashed to pieces as the Vilmirian admiral attacks. One pirate admiral is taken captive. This deteriorates the moral of the rest of the rebel fleet severely.

Several rebel ships surrender.

The rebel admiral comes to the rescue, over evaluating the strength of his ships.

The Vilmiran main line under the two vice admirals is ready.

The pirate fleet of Kalvan, under admrial Andronicus, lags behind and do not have the momentum as the rest of the fleet. They suffer from fatigue as well. Evil tongues will later speculate if it was Andronicus self interest that delayed his squadron.

From the rebel lines. The fleet is still numerous.

Admiral Esholta with his heavy threes and Vilmiran marines attack head on. The resulting bow ram test fails and the Vilmiran admirals ship is severly damaged. Hard fighting ensues.

The fighting is even as the two admiral squads prepare boarders and artillery. The triremes are maneuvering around the quinqeremes.

The light threes finally make it into contact on the flank close to the shore. The rebels prepare an all in attack. But the Vilmirans backup squad in the second line make an attack on the flanking squad.

The rebels are realizing that they are loosing the battle and try to plunge through the Vilmiran lines to escape with their ships.

This does not go well as they do not have the range to escape with all their ships and boarding and ramming from the enemy is the result of the failure.

The early destruction of the rebel light squadron turned out to have severe impact on the fleet morale. But had the main rebel fleet not fallen into disarray, they could easily have overwhelmed the Vilmirian main line.

The Vilmiran tactis, although outnumbered, proved to be working and winning. sadly for the rebels, their tactic was corrupted by bad seamanship and tight space. Misjudging the efficiency of the Vilmirian flanking squadron proved fatal.

Several ships did survive though and would escape further south. The Kletchian pirates, dealyed and having not seen combat turn around by order of Andronicus “The Waiting”.

The battle was very satisfying for the Vilmirian player as the tactics proved to work. The rebel chief admiral Lupus Barka was taken captive and the prisoners prepared for the slave market. The rebels could have been luckier as the number of ships gave them a good advantage. They could have made multiple rams on many ships as this would be very important in winning a combat, but alas the formations did not hold and they rebels rushed into combat. Great glory and victory to the Vilmirans and Admiral Esholta.

Without a functioning fleet, the main rebel army is now locked between two major Vilmiran forces, and the rebel cities lie open for attack. A critical time for the rebellion. And in the rebel camp, disloyalty and self interest threatens the fight for freedom.

Movement took very long this time, as the ships where positioned at odd angles and far away. For the Vilmirans this was good. But for the next battle we might double the speed rates and missile values to speed up play. This means that a lot could depend on who has the turn, so alternate squad movement might be vise to include.

A Naumachiae battle

The following battle was between Carthage and Rome. We wanted to test out further improvements to the Naumachiae game, to speed up and streamline play. I also wanted to test out how the “flanking” fleet order would play out in the game. The fleets where roughly the same size with the carthaginians having light triremes as opposed to heavy. The fleets where also designed to reflect the type of ships in our rpg campaign.

The fleets meet in the center. Seen from the roman side. I wanted to place heavy pressure on the flanks of the carthaginians.

There was no corvus present on any of the roman ships.

The carthaginians speed towards the romans witht their fast triremes.

But, the romans have deployed far away, limiting the carthaginian fleet efficiency.

Turn three allowed for the heavy triremes of the romans to emerge on the designated flank.

The romans and carthaginians clash with their quinqeremes. The fighting is even.

Triremes in fast speed.

Altough the models have sails, they count as having none.

The Carthaginian flagship is attacked by a Roman quinqereme.

If the Triremes make it in time the battle could turn towards Carthage victory.

The romans defeat the Carthaginian quinqeremes as the morale fails one ship after another.

The roman triremes are closing. We called it a night and concluded that the Romans would probably win the engagement.

The morale of ships is crucial in Naumachiae. The more ships you loose, the higher the risk of loosing a combat, resulting in a domino effect.

 

The rules adjustments get better as play turned out fast and with a minimum of bookkeeping.

2mm ancients progress

I have collected some 2mm miniatures from Irregular miniatures recently. They look better than one would think taking in account what is generally represented through the pics you would find on the web. I have based them to be used with Hails Cæsar and tried to follow what historical documentation there is with the setup and structure of the soldiers.

The legionaries follow the Polybian structure. I chose to place the frontline Hastati in a battle line, as i guess this is the way they would fight when done with manouvering about with their handy maniples. They are two maniples to a base with 80 man in each maniple.

The gauls or celtiberians are about 150 – 160 man to a base.

Hoplites are placed in 6 ranks, as this is a little more economic than the 8 ranks, and is more proportional to the other units. 240 men to a base.

The macedonian phalanx is 300 men to a base. I wanted them to be 16 deep as this was probably the standard used in ancient times. 10 blocks of pike make up one base.

Heavy infantry/light infantry is otherwise placed in 4 ranks deepth. H inf 160 men. Light inf 100.

Skirmishers are about 30-40 men.

Cavalry is between 30-50

Light cav is 15-30

I placed some selvat dust clouds behind some of the troops to make some effects. I really love the way you can pley around with formation movement and individual models as well as blocks. I will make some “in fight” bases in the future. I also used some skirmish troops as casualty markers in the same fashion as we do for our 6mm figuers.

The models accompany my langton ships quite well and the lan is to have enough soldiers to field some battles historical or fictional in 1:1 ratio without problems. As Hails Cæsar is a very versatile system, all i have to do to get a faster game is to double the base width. I hope more people start using this scale to represent model battles, because you can really do great and epic things with them. Apart from Irregular miniatures, Langton makes superb ships and buildings. Brigade models makes a great assortement of buildings. To my eye 1:900 and 1:1200 goes well with eachother.

Right now there are about 10 000 2mm soldiers. 4000 of these are in a Polybian legion.

Legionaries with light troops in front

Carthaginian infantry or similiar. Casualty markers in front.

Carthaginian infantry with skirmish screen.

Hastati form battle line. Principes and Triarii await.

Phalanx.

Phalanx with command squad/broken formation.

Part of the battle line.

The Carthaginian cavalry together with Gallic and Numidian cavalry ride forth.

Skytian archers i front of celtiberians.

Elephants on the flank of the barbarian infantry.

Chariots rumble forward next to the elephants.

Naumachiae Naval battle Rome vs Carthage

We had ourselves a battle of Naumachiae to test some simplifications. There are some nice mechanisms that makes it a great game, but we are trying to scale down the book-keeping and make a large naval action playable in an evening.

The fleets line up. I decided on echelon and line astern.

Light fives with tower and extra marines makes them a little slower.

We simplified the movement rules by a standard penalty on turning.

Snaking away.

The ship classes have changeg from letters to numbers. We call them hitpoints instead.

All modifiers are calculated and written down on the roster sheet to avoid following a list of 50 modifiers.

The distance between ships have been standardized to 3cm for all ships. Hand of god moving triremes into flanking positions.

Wreck markers put to good use during the battle.

There are still some things that should be simplified. The morale system and fatigue system among them.

We ignored weather in this scenario.

We could possibly make the movement system even more streamlined as it can be a bit fiddly, moving the boats around.

half cm is will be the smallest measuring unit.

All in all this was a nice game. I won the engagement an was happy to see my tactics working, for the most part.

The hulking of the Carthaginian admirals ship concluded the battle, as four enemy ships surrendered in the following morale test.

 

We had a good game in the evening, landing on approx 5 hours.

The reason i like the rules so much is that they take in consideration how ships and fleets moved with communication limits and that speed and maneuver is crucial for success. I`m opposed to the idea that naval battles are just land battles at sea, and i think it`s important to try to emphasize the different tactical aspects of a land battle and a sea battle. So, that is why we simplify this good, but too complex game.

 

The battle of Mariol

Dux Elgar Esholta, Ongar Octaviar, Admiral Rhesus and Legat Castor attacked the main argimiliarite (Carthaginian) fleet with vigor and aggression. Loaded with heavy equipment, this proved to be a disaster for the Vilmirian (Roman) navy. We used the Naumachiae rules to fight the battle. This was a challenge as the rules are quite complex and we had no greek book-keper slave available.

The fleets seemed to be balanced, but I would swap speed for heavy equipment any day, I realized. The Vilmiran (romans) had heavy threes, quinqeremes stuffed with marines, catapults, corvus and towers mixed about. The argimiliarites (carthage) had incindiary ammunition and more ships of a lighter and faster class.

Each model represents 5 ships.

The heavy three`s from the right flank of the Vilmirian fleet.

The light three`s of the argimiliarite left flank opposite the heavy threes`s.

Overview. The heavy quinqeremes of both side face each other.

The heavy fives of Vilmir. Lots of heavy equipment.

The heavy fives on the right flank with heavy three`s advancing in echelon from behind. (placed on table for reference)

Emilio Bandras and his Shazars and Vargians guard the shores. Making it Friendly shores for the rebels.

Admiral Lupus Barka in his flagship, eight, guarded by heavy fives.

The rebel light fleet guards the right flank. I suspect the rebels would hold them back to “stab” the vilmirian quinqeremes in the flank as soon as they where engaged with the main body of the Argimilite fleet.

The rest of the Kletchian Pirates with Admiral Andronicus in a six. Flanked by captured light three`s. The renaissance models proxy for the six and the three`s.

The light three`s of argimiliar are fast and dangerous.

Tension builds and orders are written.

The signal is given. The waters are calm.

The fleets move. The Vilmiran right flank advances to confront the racing light three`s of argimiliar. I realize that the quinqeremes are extremely slow due to the overburdening, but keep going as i believe the equipment to make its mark once in close contact. The small Vilmirian light fleet to the upper left is heading for the light piriate fleet, upper right, to create havoc and hinder the planned flank attack on the quinqeremes.

The argimiliarites hold their main line back to await the enemy. My vilmirian rowers are getting dangerously fast fatigued.

As things went on it was difficult to concentrate on anything else but the game, photography was one element partly neglected. The two trireme squadrons and the pirates and quinqeremes have rammed each other. Full melee ensued. As my ships was badly damaged by the rebels rams, it is hard to win the close combats. For a while it looks promising as rebel ships surrender, but the quantity of rebel ships makes its mark.

The main heavy bodies move steadily towards one another. Adm Andronicus have rammed a quinqereme together with Triremes. The light fleets engage each other beyond the land tongue.

The light ships are moved by the rebel commander as I have thwarted his plans for the pentekonter pirate fleet.

From the rebels side of the table. The battle looks even, but the Vilmirans have trouble with the maneuvers.

The boarding actions are fierce. A rebel ship in panic must avoid contact with enemy and slips past the battle line.

Andronicus battles the heavy five and the heavy three is boarding a rebel vessel.

The right flank is starting to collapse as the rebels have more ships. (the rebel models have sails btw, not used in the game)

Quinqeremes ram the triremes. Succeeding in bow ram tests. All ships in the battle where of rather high quality.

The boarding actions go well for the Vilmirians with more marines, until the rebel Admiral engages the heavy three in the port side.

The result of the pirates of Andronicu`s ram: A hulked quinqereme.

Hard fighting, the Vilmirian line still holds. The quinqeremes struggle to get their beaks in contact.

The main heavy squadrons are closing. Very fatigued by advancing in fast and ram speed. The light fleet on the left are doing success according to plan, leaving the flank of the heavy fives free.

The whole fleet is engaged in violent combat. Fires spring up in the Vilmiran main line as the incindiary ammo makes its mark. Good crew extinguish the flames.

The disaster is a fact. The main heavy squadron is outmaneuvered and is rammed in the side. Flames spring up, Artillery cause casualty on both sides, but the misjudgement of speed and effectiveness of more marines, corvus, towers and artillery becomes apparent. Esholta realizes the battle is lost as to many of Dux Ongar`s ships are severely damaged. Esholta gives the order of retreat and jettison of equipment. All corvus, artillery and towers are thrown over board for the two following turns. The fleet withdraws along the whole line to save the marines.

The heavy three`s in boarding actions still fight, but inevitable surrender awaits. The ships who are able, row as fast as they can away. Yet to sail another day!

So the battle ended with Ongar Octaviar`s ship smashed. The plan almost worked, except that i should have jettisoned the heavy equipment long before i did and just put my trust in the good crew and speed. The marines would have done the rest.

The right flank was still indecisive, but I think I would have lost it eventually.

The small light fleet vs the many pirate ships. This proved to be a success. Hampering the dirty rebel plans.

Cheering and drinking on Mariol beach as Emilio Bandras and his men awaits the captured sailors. The true scale 2mm irregular models are surprisingly nice.

The remnants of the battle line.

The sunken or shattered ships in the front. Captured Vilmirian vessels in the middle and the remainig victorious rebel fleet at the back.

The escaped fleet of Elgar Esholta and Legat Cator.

Tragedy at sea! What now?! The rebels will have won the seas and to rebuild the fleet will be expensive and time demanding. The battle was fun, although the complicated rules slow things down too much for a large scale action. Naumachia is probably best suited for fleets of five to ten ships per side. I guess these rules are some of the more precise and correct rule- sets when it comes to movement and behaviour, lots of good ideas and mechanics. But, we clocked 22 hours doing this game over a weekend. That is 18 hours continous play. It is not possible to achieve that more than once in the century so we will have to either simplify the rules (they do have great elements) or to find something else. Hail Agrippa have been considered, but since it pretty much removes the way a naval game is different from a land battle, it seems a little pointless. Maybe Poseidon`s Warriors will be a good substitute for naumachiae. I guess we would still use the rules for small scale engagement as the rules are so detailed. There is simply too much book-keeping and to many factors to remember to have an efficient game of 30+ ships per side. I wish there was a fast play version of the game as there is with the other games available from Langton minis.

Anyway, the battle was exiting (although the exitement beeing stretched out). We had guests during the battle, Mercenary Mike from England borrowed my Monteforino helmet and a gladius from our host and supplied the Vilmirian fleet with support and spirit. The phrase “sir, where are our support sir?!” Will be remembered until the next battle. Big thanks to our host whom held the event in this 30c + environment.

Then to the coclusion:

Vilmiran marines

Dead 1590

Prisoners 1435

Vilmirian sailors

Dead 5096

Prisoners 6404

Argimiliar

marines dead 887

sailors dead 1384

Critical advances in the campaign

After moving troops for a while we realized some of the earlier moves by the fleet was wrong. The troops of the Argimiliarite allies (greeks, carthaginians) did not have the freedom to move where they would like to. Their opening orders where to build two fortresses on the coast of the protectorates to establish a future trade colony. Therefore we moved the fleet to this location and had Lysander and his soldiers start building. Hasdrubal, though, had the opportunity to move elsewhere. We moved troops for about eight days (turns) before making critical contact.

A fleet is hired/expropriated/built. It uses two days to sail to Dolgar. One vilmirian army heading for Hrolford trned back to Jadmar. Meanwhile the main fleet of Vilmir, led by Esholta and strengthened by the fleet of duke Ongar Octaviars 25 quinqeremes, starts to hunt for the Argimiliarite fleet who just offloaded 7000 men at the shores of Klethc. This city is then besieged. 2000 retired soldiers man the walls as they prepare to defend their newly conquered homes. The Kletchians have returned for vengeance. Esholta has the opportunity to leave 3200 marines in the city, but wants to keep them for the potential fight with the enemy fleet. The Vilmirians frown upon this decision to abandon them. Meanwhile, Hrolford i further strengthened by a legion. The rebels led by Cato decides to give up the city and withdraws to Old Hrolmar for the defense of the city. From marful marches one of the northern border armies to the aid of the south.

On the tenth day, the fleets made contact and the siege of Kletch was fought.

The fleet from Jadmar reaches Dolgar.

The rebel army of Cato and Altos Longus withdraws to Old Hrolmar.

Lysander builds his fortress colony and then prepares to embark on the Argimiliarite trade fleet.

Klethc is assaulted as the overburdened fleet denies the city assistance through the harbor.

 

Wreck counters for naumachiae

The ancient naval wargames rules naumachiae use wrexked ships as part if the gameplay. The langton miniatures provides wreck models, but i have noe aquired them yet. But, i used spare parts and some green stuff to make a few homemade ones of various size. There are aleays a few spare parts in the langton sets. Very nice for creativity.