Regular readers will know that I’ve recently suffered a series of defeats at the hands of the Marian Romans. One of my regular opponents, Peter, has crushed my Classical Indians twice and then the Sasanid Persians twice; my other regular opponent, Bevan, had beaten the Summerians twice. This despite the fact that I’m regularly told that the Marian Romans aren’t that good (too much heavy infantry, not enough cavalry) and certainly not a tournament army.

Well you could have fooled me!

It was obviously time for me to have a go with Caesar’s boys and see whether I had managed to learn anything from the somewhat painful lessons described above: for our next encounter, I would use the Marian Romans and Bevan would play the Gauls.

This was the second clash between the two, with Bevan winning the last game (I have been going through a bad patch lately!) fairly decisively.

At this point I must confess that rather than put together a list myself I used Peter’s Marian Roman army list: 130 points of veteran infantry with three camps, a standard, and three units of cavalry.

I set up as you can see, above, with my camps in one corner and my Roman infantry in a fairly tight block. That was lesson one: keep your legionaries where they can mutually support each other.

There did seem to be an awful lot of Gauls facing me: six warbands liberally sprinkled with heroes, and four good cavalry units.

As I suspected, the Gauls attempted to lap their cavalry around my main battle line. My cavalry were tasked with holding the right flank, with a unit of legionaries turned that way as a back up, whilst the rest of the army beat the Gauls in the centre. The Gallic cavalry on my left flank would have to be dealt with by the infantry.

The two sides advanced towards each other fairly smartly, with Bevan suffering some unlucky cards with his left flank cavalry meaning that they were delayed getting into the fight. This was excellent news, as I didn’t think my outnumbered and outclassed cavalry would be able to hold the opposition for long once battle was actually joined.

On my left flank, two units of Gauls had started lapping round, but my infantry snapped to face them and dealt with the flanking units fairly easily. His cavalry was still late to the party on my right, giving me the chance to disorder one of his warbands without breaking formation.

The Gallic cavalry and warband at the front of the picture are about to be mullered by my legionaries

The main battle lines were now joined, but the superior quality of my troops meant that in the centre I had now killed one warband, and disordered two more. One legionary unit had, however, been lost and, over on the right, another was being hit front and rear at the same time. I desperately needed to get my successful units on the left over into the centre.

rushing back to the centre! thank jupiter the romans manoeuvre well. note the legionary unit fighting front and back top right!

If there’s one thing the Romans do very well, it’s march: and before anything had had a chance to happen on my right flank, I had four legionary units pushing back warbands on the left and centre.

the left and centre legionary units are grinding down the opposition

Meanwhile the legionary unit on the right wing that had been attacked front and back had actually managed to repel both units: driving the warband back and destroying the cavalry: these Romans can fight as well as march!

Unbelievably, my cavalry were still holding their own: the lights kept evading and returning, and my one decent unit was still around despite being attacked in the front and flank at the same time.

With the four main Gallic warbands now disordered and my legionaries almost unscathed, it was now just a matter of time. The cards fell evenly, but with me hitting on a 6+ and saving on a 5+, and the disordered Gauls hitting on an 8+ and saving on a 7+, the advantage was all mine. One warband after another broke and fled the table until all the Gallic victory coins were gone.