More Barbarians at the City Gates

Jim's Barbarians v. Rich & Simon's Romans

Another go at our Barbarians at the City gates Scenario.

When the Roman relief army came on, the Barbarians tried to about face their 2 infantry divisions to go and meet them, leaving their cavalry and engines to face the city garrison.

The Roman cavalry charged down the road to meet the Barbarian infantry head on.  They were eventually pushed back and broken, but they broke 2 warbands and hurt some more as well as giving the legions time to deploy.

As the Barbarian infantry struggled to get though the camp and the farm and sort themselves out the 1st legion deployed out to the right to outflank the Samartan cavalry.








The Samartans countered by charging with the cataphracts while covering their left with horse archers.   The horse archers were smashed by a cohort, but they did their job, the cataphracts rode down 2 cohorts  to split the Roman army in two.  

The cataphracts wheeled right as the warbands swarmed forward crowding the 2nd legion into a corner while the remaining half of the other legion was too far away to help.

Meanwhile, the city garrison was sallying out of the city.  The artillery kept them at bay for a while, but was over-run.  One cavalry unit was broken attacking the citizens, but the others were doing enough to keep the camp safe for the time being.






The 2nd legion might have been almost surrounded, but it was a tough nut to crack.  The cataphracts bounced off and then had to face about to hold off the 1st legion.

But the Barbarians had plenty of warbands to throw in with one to spare to help the cataphracts.

Finally the Romans cracked, both legions breaking at the same time giving the barbarians victory.

The battle featured 2 devastating cavalry charges. The Romans looked well on top when their cavalry smashed 2 warbands in a pre-emptive strike, but the legions were too far back to exploit the gap & the barbarians reformed.  Then the Samartan cataphracts returned the favour, smashing thru 2 cohorts.  But this split the Roman army and the barbarian infantry was close enough to exploit the resulting opportunities.

The sortie from the city was an interesting sideshow, but ultimately not decisive, the barbarians had left just enough behind to protect the camp for long enough.


,