Battle Reports

On Campaign with DBMM

Details: Category: Ancients Battle Reports; Published on Saturday, 04 August 2007 17:00; Hits: 1998

Early Byzantines take on all comers at Campaign 2007 and triumph in DBMM

Thanks for the wine, now sit down and let me tell you when I were on campaign in Italy. We had been training under our new Magister Militum, Philius Barkerus, and the Emperor, Justinian, had sent us to deal with some upstart Italian Dux who fancied himself like the old Roman general and dictator Marius, but lucky for us he was no Brilliant General like Marius. He had some old fashioned legionaries, some of who fancied themselves as superior with the rest what you might call ordinary, some German cavalry with supporting infantry and Auxilia brought down from across the Alps and, of all things an elephant!

It was just before dawn when the alarm went up. Lucky we were sleeping on our arms so we were ready in no time, obviously the enemy had thought about attacking whilst we were asleep, but you don’t catch a Byzantine army knapping like that.

Anyway we deployed in our usual formation, on our right flank were some of the cavalry boys and light horse and some of those Moorish light horse. Don’t trust them as far as I could throw them, not well trained enough for my liking. And on our left were the rest of the cavalry and light horse again, with some Auxilia to support them and hide in any trees or bushes they could find. In the centre were us Infantry, legionaries and archers. That’s what I am, good honest infantry, I’ve got my spear, shield, sword and a few darts for good measure. We’re looked down upon by those Superior cavalry boys as being Inferior. But I’ll tell you what, they do like to come and hide behind us if the going gets a bit tough. And we’re quite handy in a toe to toe fight, no mistake.

So there we was. These ‘Marian’ Romans had the Germans on their right flank, a mixture of their tough-nut legions and ordinary legionaries in the middle, and some more legionaries and their Auxilia, superior to ours and better trained, and their cavalry and the elephant on their left flank. We started in some rocky flat ground but we soon moved out of it, it would have helped us deal with any cavalry, but it did slow us down.

There were a couple of hills on our right flank, which the Auxilia spent most of the battle hiding in, from what I could tell. Bloody typical. So as we had been roused from our pleasant slumber, General Bessus, being neither Brilliant like General Belisarius nor Inert like old general Hypatius, decided to carry on and try and get stuck in before we missed our breakfast. As they had set themselves up more over to our right flank, us Infantry and the Cavalry boys on our left were ordered to advance and wheel round to try and face upto the legionaries and the Germans.

The cavalry boys on the right also moved forward, but Bessus being the crafty fox he is, sent the light horse boys in first to try and soften up the legions. He moved round behind them to go after some enemy cavalry on our far right.

The Germans seeing we were trying to get round their flank, moved to try and mirror our formation. The legionaries, obviously up for it, advanced towards us. Their left flank also advanced, especially the Elephant and their Auxilia.

As we carried on advancing towards each other, you could tell this was going to be a real scrap, our archers got off a few shots, to no effect as far as I could tell other than slowing some of their men and making their line a little shorter giving us a slight advantage overlapping either end. We eventually got to see what these pretend old legionaries were really like. Our cavalry got stuck into their German cavalry and some of the German Auxilia, on our left flank whilst the cavalry boys on our right, got involved with the Auxilia, but avoided the elephant. Probably ‘cos our they don’t like fighting things they have to look up at.

Anyway, we had a pretty good slugging match with these old fashioned legionaries, and it looked like the old Dux had trained them well. It was fairly even for a while, even our General Peter got stuck in. Say what you like about him being a greedy bugger, he does like a scrap and lucky for us that he does.

Our cavalry boys on the left didn’t get on that well, too cocky by half if you ask me, some of them even died fighting the Germans, whilst the light horse on our right, just faffed about with the Auxilia, not really doing a great deal, but still avoiding the elephant.

Us Infantry on the other hand, got stuck in big time. These new old legionaries might think they are superior, but we’d missed our breakfasts and were in a mean mood, so we wanted to get them sorted out as soon as. And we did. We punched a hole through their lines and got more men into there immediate flank which stopped them from recoiling. Having someone in front and at the side having a good hack can put you right off this soldering lark.

So we were able to kill more of their infantry than they did of ours. Our left flank cavalry boys did take some casualties fighting the Germans, but then you would. The cavalry boys under Bessus, although they did not really get stuck in did kill some of the Auxilia, but not without a few casualties themselves. The battle was going well for us, we could see that their centre had become disheartened and we were starting to apply more pressure. It was then that I got hit on the head by a huge brute of a legionary. He must have been over six feet tall with big hairy arms and a chest the size of a donkey. And he could move quickly. I saw him coming out of the corner of my eye, as he was cutting a swath through our guys. I only just had time to raise my shield above my head to take the blow. I remembered our training and thrust my spear upwards from behind the shield, but not really seeing where it went. Just as I was hit and knocked out, my arm jarred as my spear bit into flesh and bone. I can only guess it was the big roman, because the next thing I can remember was being picked up from under my broken shield and a few bodies, by my tent mates, John and Isaac.

We had won, but only just from what I could make out. Both sides had suffered, some of our cavalry boys were not in favour because of their poor performance, but luckily for them the enemy had gotten disheartened because of the casualties they had taken from us legionaries and decided that enough was enough. Or so I was told. Well anyway, we spent the rest of the summer in Italy recovering from the fighting and having a well earned rest. We got called back the following Spring, and whilst we were marching back through what used to be Hun land, we had to deal with a bunch of renegade Huns. They had been raiding some Roman settlements and causing real trouble and General Bessus decided we should sort them out and then go home with even more glory and by catching them early they would not have the stamina as the battle went on because their horses had not been able to feed properly over the winter.

We had just crossed this large river and were moving across the flood plain towards some low hills when we came across some of the Hun cavalry. They were in 2 groups a large one to our right with a smaller one left of centre. We were immediately suspicious as we had been told there were a lot more. General Bessus decided that us Infantry should deploy with some archers in an area of boggy ground, horses don’t like it, us legionaries in a long thin line and the bulk of the archers at the other end of the line. And that we should stay put, which turned out to be a good idea. Our centre was then made up of the cavalry and light horse boys, with the Moors, who still had not done a great deal. Our right flank was the rest of our cavalry and light horse under General Bessus himself. They had some boggy ground on their right flank as well and they directly faced the largest group of Huns and their general.

Being Huns we didn’t trust them one little bit. There was a big gap in front of our centre, inviting us to swing round and catch their General in the flank, but we didn’t know where the rest of their army was and they could have been late getting to the battle, or concealed, so we were a bit cautious. We guessed though that there would be some turning up on one of our flanks, so General Bessus decided he should get stuck into the larger group as soon as possible and advanced his cavalry and light horse. The Auxilia, true to form, went off to hide in the boggy ground, which turned out to be lucky for us. The light horse had some early success and we thought this might be over before it began, but our worries about a flank attack turned out to be justified and they appeared on our right flank. At the same time, some big smelly Gepid knights came over the hill in front of us and headed straight for us Infantry. Stood their watching those knights come at us fast and hard across the plain certainly took some nerve I can tell you.

So General Bessus and our right flank are hard pressed. They are having a good slugging match with the Hun General and his group as well as fighting off the Huns that have just turned up. Our Auxilia got scared when they first turned up, and fled away from them at first, but luckily they were in the boggy ground to start with, which slowed the Huns down and helped the Auxilia fight them off. And they made a pretty good job of it actually.

Then the Gepids come crashing into our line, the archers did some damage, but not nearly as much as I would have liked. Although they broke the formation up a little which may have helped, but the knights punched through our line. General Peter got stuck in again not that he had any choice as the Gepids tried to pick on him. Well more fools them. As I said before, General Peter likes a scrap, even against guys on horses and even though they tried several times, he still managed to beat them off.

By this time, our right flank is getting a serious beating and soon got disheartened. Luckily so were the Huns and eventually, both General Bessus and the Hun, broke and decided they had had enough and started to leave the battle. Fortunately for us the Huns had lost more men and did not want to carry on, so we won.

Even though General Bessus was received in triumph when we got back, it was a pretty close run thing and some of his cavalry and light horse need to look to themselves and how they let the rest of the army down and think about who they take on next time.