Return To The Desert Frontier

Fired up by the ADLG game on Thursday, I decided to get some DBA armies out over the weekend. I had a look through my blog and realised that my Roman desert frontier armies hadn't seem the light of day for five years, so I gave a couple of them an airing.

First up were the Parthians, who were attacking an Early Pre-Islamic Arab Nomad army. I selected the armies at random; where there was a choice of elements for a slot I diced for each one (within the limits of my figure collection). This gave the following armies:

Parthians: 1 x 4Kn General, 2 x 4Kn, 9 x LH

Arabs: 1 x Cv General, 1 x LH, 1 x LCm, 2 x Cm, 4 x 4Bd, 2 x 4Bw, 1 x Ps

The Arabs placed a couple of large areas of sand-dunes to slow the Parthian cavalry but allow their own camels free-reign. The Parthians elected to attack out of the dunes, hoping to get deployed before the Arabs could exploit their advantage.

The Arabs placed their swordsmen in the centre, flanked by archers in the scrub and some slingers on a rocky hill to their left. The camels were deployed behind the right flank, ready to swing out and engage the Parthians. The general and the light cavalry were held in reserve.

The Parthians massed their cataphracts in the centre, with horse-archers behind ready to swing out onto the flanks once the army was clear of the dunes. Groups of horse-archers covered the wider flanks.

Both armies got horrible PIP rolls. The Parthians surged forward in the centre, whilst the Arabs struggled to get their camels in position.

The Parthians formed a line, ready to charge, but lost an element of horse-archers to the Arab bowmen in the scrub.

Charge!

The Arab foot melted away before the Parthian cataphracts - three of them destroyed in three combats. A Parthian victory was one element away.

The Arab general rushed in to stave off defeat.

The Parthians slowly pushed the lighter Arab horse back.

Meanwhile Parthian horse-archers engaged the camels that still hadn't made it to the dunes and the Parthian rear.

The Arab archers peppered the attacking Parthians with arrows, as their cavalry slowly fell back.

But had the Parthians over-extended themselves? 

The Arab archery paid off, destroying an element of cataphracts. and that left the Parthian general fighting Arab light horse with no flank support. This roll was just enough to destroy him, and give the Arabs an unexpected 4g-3 win.

I kept the Arabs in play and brought out the Early Imperial Romans. Again, I randomised the Roman element choices and got:

1 x 4Bd General, 4 x 4Bd, 4 x 4Ax, 1 x Cv, 1 x 3Wb, 1 x LCm

I used the same Arab army as in the previous game. Once again the Arabs defended. They opted for a more open terrain, hoping to use their mounted superiority to overlap the slower Romans.

The Legions of Rome!

Both armies opted to advance (I diced for their 'tactical decision'). The Roman right found itself under attack by massed camels, whilst the light Arab left was threatened by auxilia.

A first attack by the camels was easily repulsed.

In the centre the Arab swordsmen clashed with the Roman legionarii.

Some Arab archers fell to Rome's tribal allies.

And the auxilia on the Roman right destroyed some of the camels. In addition the legionarii flanked and destroyed some Arab swordsmen.

A shoving match developed in the centre, but eventually another element of Arab swordsmen was destroyed, and the army broke.

So a 4-0 win for the Romans against an Arab army that should have resisted a frontal assault.

Here's some bonus skirmishing camels, Romans on the left and Arabs on the right.

52 Games - Game 22