Infamy! Infamy! Friday Night Laager - Gothic wars 378AD Thrace

After the break out from Marcianople, the Goths raided across Thrace with the Romans trying to concentrate enough forces in the area to first of all, contain them and secondly, bring them to battle.

The Goths used Laagers of wagons to protect themselves as well as store their loot. 

One such laager has been located by a Roman force and they intend to destroy it and scatter the warbands.

We used Infamy! Infamy! with some tweaks to the forces in order to suit that later era. The Roman Comitatenses troops were given medium armour rather than heavy and didn't have access to Pila. They did however have 3 rounds of javelins to simulate the use of darts (plumbatae) as well as throwing spears of various types. The Limitanei troops were made poor warriors with poor drill and were only given light armour. The archers were groups of 6 skirmishers.

In total the Romans has 4 groups of Comitatenses, 4 groups of Limitanei and 2 groups of archers. 2 level 3 leaders, 2 level 2 leaders and two Supra numerum leadaers.

The Goths had two types of infantry. the 3 groups of Nobles were armed with Mixed weapons and medium armour while the 6 groups of Warriors only had light armour. All these could operate in Mobs and therfore were subject to the fervour rules. There was also two groups of skirmishing archers and 1 group of Noble cavalry with medium armour.

The Romans objecvtive was to reach the Laager and destroy at least one wagon by setting fire to it or reduce the Goths moral to 0. The Goth had to stop the Romans reaching the Laager or reduce their morale to 0.

The Goth archers were the first to turn up on the field coming out of the woods. The other archers used the rough ground to deploy from and a warband clambered out of the Laager and formed up shouting encouragement to each other while they built up their fervour.

The Limitanei were the first Romans to appear and, along with the archers, tried to push the Goth skirmishers back to avoid encroaching into the roman deployment area.

A second Goth warband emerged from the Laager and started to form a battle line with others, again building up fervour, probably being rude about the Romans mothers.

The Roman archers continued to harass their Goth Counterparts from the ruins, forcing the unit in the south to pull back to the safety of the woods.

But a thunder of hooves signalled a more deadly foe was racing to replace the fleeing archers. A group of Noble cavalry thundered towards the flank of the Limitanei unit. Only just failing to connect to the shame of their commander.

The failed charge coincided with the appearnce of the first of the Comitatenses who advanced rapidly up the middle of the field and....

Parked themselves in front of the ruins, ready to face off the Goth warbands who posed a serious threat to the outclassed Limitanei units.

The Goths surged forward..

With one Mob heading straight for the weaker target...

And the other colliding with the Comitatenses. The Limitanei hold but the Comitatenses fold with one of the groups falling back from the barbarian charge.

Seeing an opportunity the second Limitanei charge into the flank of the Goths, breaking the formation. This leaves one Goth unit facing the remnants of the Comitatenses and one fighting the Limitanei.

Unfortuntaly the Limitanei were not up to the standards of their Brethren and are forced to flee from the goths....straight into the path of the 3rd Gothic warband.

The 2nd Comitatenses had deployed to gaurd the roman flank. The limitanei had lost one unit but the remainder were still hold on. The Goths had pulled back to lick their wounds. The Nobles in both warbands had taken the majority of the damage and both sides were taken chunks out of each others morale.

In the North the Limitanei were clinging on against the new warband...

And as all the combats had separated momentarily, everyone took a moment to survey the battlefield. With Morale dropping on both sides, the battle was in the balance. 

Seeing their moment, the Comitatenses charged the Goth warband from both sides...

The Goths attempt to wrap round the other side to swing the numbers in their favour but it's too late. Their morale fails and the remaining Goths head for the hills.