[AAR] RTW: The Danubian Watchword

[Legio]

Author: snuggans
Original Thread: The Danubian Watchword

The Danubian Watchword

The year is 553 AUC and it would be quite the inaccuracy to call The Roman Empire a humble group of mere Italians. From the persistent stone walls of the city of Rome, its borders now stretched north to south from the tranquil Mediterranean coasts of southern Italia to the most brutal reaches of northern Britannia; east to west from the doors of the Black Sea in Thracia to the end of the world (western Hispania). It was extremely apparent that timidity and idleness had not taken residence in the higher seats of power governing Rome. Granted, its leaders had their differences-- as is the case in any flowering empire --, but the ambitions of the more influential families had always led them to believe all the world should take notes from this great ascent, this ever intensifying sculpture of an Empire that will someday make even the late Alexander’s conquest look like child’s play.

The Front

Shortly after pacifying the quarreling Greeks-- a nigh impossible task mostly due to several chaotic events, including the fact that the city of Sparta had to be retaken twice -- and establishing a firm hold of the terra firma south of the Danube, the settling conquerors were the subject of constant raids from many groups, most notably a cooperative effort of Illyrian-Thracian tribes and of course the odd contingent of Macedonian rebels protesting the Roman encroachment. Two different legions had been sent on campaign earlier that same year: the XXII Primigenia, led by Marcellus Junius, a budding yet brilliant tactician from one of the most prominent of the Roman families; the XII Fvlminata, extremely experienced veterans which have toured through Britannia and Hispania, recently assigned to the eastern frontier under the command of Lentulus Livius, the most decorated of Legates operating in Macedonia and Illyrium.

The Last Macedonian Stronghold

The 12th was specifically assigned to mop up what was left of Macedonian sovereignty, a region which was originally Thracian, now only recently annexed into their control. The main target? The colossal city of Seutopolis, previously a hub for many Thracian peoples and in the past a major northern trading partner of the Macedonians, now the only organized Macedonian bulwark left. The lack of artillery support netted a shortage in onagers in the area, and as a result Lentulus was forced to abandon his plan of quickly taking the walls, instead engaging in a battle of attrition. The siege was now underway…

Dacian Encounter

Farther north, in the inferior part of the Moesia region, the 22nd was making much headway in extending Rome’s borders. Military tacticians back in Rome were expecting two different outcomes from the fall of this region: firstly, it would deny any southeastern expansion of the deadly Getae tribes, which at the moment posed the greatest threat in and around the Danube. This occupation would then lead to the consequential opening of a new front should there ever erupt a Roman-Getae war, thereby effectively creating new tactical opportunities. The major target in this region would be the city of Odessus, which the Proconsul in command erroneously expected to be protected by mere wooden walls. Not Marcellus, he had made the mistake of underestimating the enemy before, and he was determined not to needlessly lose more men, especially not because of some “half expectations” made by some pompous hog back in a comfortable palace, he thought.

An ominously cold wind swept down from the eastern mountains, perhaps only to be combated by the warmth of the marching blood in the men’s veins. After they had reached the climax of a grassy hill, Marcellus knew they would catch the sight of Odessus. As his horse rose over the slope, so did his brows rise. Standing yonder beyond the hill and upon a clearing was the Dacian tribe’s army, ready and defiant. They knew the Romans were coming.

The Dacians had decided to take the fight to Romans and they had clearly caught them off their guard, for most of the legionnaires were still in traveling columns. As the centurion asked for orders, Marcellus quickly looked around his surroundings and assessed the situation. It was no more than a few moments before a general retreat was ordered and the army descended back down the hill. He had decided to sacrifice the terrain advantage to allow for an organized formation farther down on the base of the hill. The young general knew the fierce Dacians would have taken chase after seeing them fall back, but just to arrest any doubt, he ordered one of the archers to fire a flaming arrow over the hill.

Soon enough and just as he had predicted, the Dacian tribe appeared over the horizon just as the Romans were forming up. The enemy seemed much swifter in their movements, the legionnaires barely managing a formation throughout all the rush while the auxilia in the back stumbled around, trying to deploy in a somewhat coherent fashion.

As the distance between the two shortened, the Dacians slowed down to a louder, more synchronized march. This makeshift stare-off happened to be the tensest and most nerve-racking part of any battle, the calm before the storm.

The difference in training, experience, and hardiness soon became clear; most of the auxilia line looked as if they had seen a ghost, while the legionnaires in front of them stood tall and calm. However, it seemed nobody was as harmonious as the detachment of cavalry alongside Marcellus; any true Roman would have recognized them: snow white vertical plumes and sinister black capes, the Praetorians.

Although their presence seemed to alleviate the throbbing worries of mostly the shaky auxilia, their mere participation in this battle did much for general morale. Marcellus himself was feeling a minimal amount of luck due to the fact that only a few select generals received Praetorian support in the form of a cavalry force.

The threatening marching sounds echoed throughout the valley for a good minute or two. During this time, Marcellus’s eyes had been scanning the ground that separated both forces. As soon as he felt the breeze cease to caress his face, he looked to his right and gave a nod to the archer centurion. Almost immediately, a new resonance was introduced to the battle orchestra: the sharp whistles of hundreds of arrows ripping through the air.

Marcellus had never been truly threatened by the speed at which the Dacians had advanced with. He knew it was mostly due to the fact that they wore a small amount of armor. Now it was their turn to feel threatened, as continuous barrages of arrows plunged into their first wave of infantry.

As they came closer, the tempo and volume of the battle increased. The cacophony and the mere sight of a multitude of javelins and pila soaring through the air had a psychological effect tenfold the amount of the Dacian’s march (which had now dissipated to nothing more than a weak clatter). This was only superseded by the combination of the physical wreckage and consequential screams caused afterwards. Half of the Dacian’s first wave was effectively decimated in under ten seconds.

As the rest of the first wave hesitantly charged towards the Roman line, there were a few who, although not having been injured, stopped completely or dropped to their knees at the sudden realization of what had just happened. Finally the lines had met, with the Romans initiating a well timed counter-charge at the last moment, being able to completely knock over many of the enemy spearmen with the sheer force of their shields.

Marcellus noticed their intent was to break through the center, but had then paused after the initial barrage of pila due to fear of being enveloped by the idle yet ready Roman flanks. After relaying orders to all the flank centurions to perform a general advance on his signal, he took advantage of the confusion that seemed to consume the rest of the Dacian army and led his entire cavalry force forward.

At this point, whatever was left of the first wave had turned around and started scampering back to the main army. The legionnaires chased them for a short distance and promptly returned to the formation.

Marcellus, along with the Praetorians, descended upon the Dacian cavalry guarding their wing. This unnerved the nearby Dii warriors which had been peppering the Roman lines with javelins.

The Dacian phalanx had finally been committed to the fight. Fighting the deadly Macedonian version had given the legionnaires an incomparable amount of confidence; as a result they were more than ardent to cast themselves into this weaker looking one.

The rest of the Dacian cavalry, keeping true to their intent of breaking through the center, crept up behind their phalanx and charged into the Roman line.

Even with the added pressure from the phalanx, the line held. As the remainder of the enemy cavalry retreated to attempt to help their allies, they met the Praetorians.

During the melee, Marcellus ordered the cornicen to signal the advance. A loud horn roared above the dissonance of the battle. It was then that both Roman flanks erupted into a sprint towards the center, quite a terrifying sight to the enemy.

The phalanx, along with the rest of the Dacian army, was almost entirely engulfed by the white Roman shields and started to whittle away.

Effectively ending what little resistance was left, the Praetorians leaped into the Dii warriors once and for all; their sheer mass crushing many of them instantly.

A mass rout ensued.

Marcellus simply exhaled as he watched the survivors fleeing back to Odessus. That day, the baneful colored sky seemed to almost emulate the body-littered ground.

As the Romans entered Odessus, literally unhindered except by sneers and glances, it was evident that the survivors of the battle had merged into the general populace. The usual protocol was established in setting up new governance and the revitalization of infrastructure. Any form of organized rebellion would be (hopefully) subdued by preemptive counter spying. A new front had been created, but the battle for the Danube had only just begun.

Notes & Disclaimer

Comments, suggestions, advice are always welcome (and wanted)!

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The Last Macedonian Stand

553 AUC

Outside Seutopolis, last Macedonian stronghold

[under siege]

Lentulus awoke to the loud clamor of the movement & creaking of wagons, the hoof beats of horses, and the rambunctious yells of the men. The small crevice in the entrance to his tent allowed a rogue ray of sunlight to sneak deep inside; a sign that the time for rest was at an end. Although he surely did not have the energy to get up, he managed to pull himself up and walk over to his armor, all the while wondering where his servant was located. The least he could do was maintain morale at stable levels, and so he wearily set out on his daily walk to revise the legion.

Fatigue, a heavy case of it too.

But could anyone blame him? The odd scream in the night as a result of archer fire from the walls kept him up for hours on end. Now.. make no mistake about it, his judgment was still intact; the camp was a reasonable distance from the walls but this did not change the fact that the Greeks had employed their aces in an effort to even the odds. A rather futile attempt, Lentulus had once thought, but alas now with his sanity at stake, he was beginning to grow tiresome.. and not just from the lack of sleep.

His determination was unfaltering however; he knew Seutopolis was running dangerously low on grain and other sustenance, a result of the city only recently falling into Macedonian hands from the Thracians. With the Romans eating away at what remained of their lands they simply had little time to reinforce the city with supplies.

A vast number of days came and went, it was almost as if they themselves had grown wings. The only thing to rival the amount of sleepless nights was the number of diplomats the Macedonians sent, all uniformly desperate and tactless. Anyhow, they really had no chance: strict Senate mandates laid on a table inside Lentulus’s tent, a quick glance through them confirmed what he already felt they wanted him to achieve: the unconditional surrender of the Macedonians.

Pitiful tributes and empty promises were wastes of breaths.

And so he waited. He waited until the day those gates would open and the heavy sound of marching would free him from the dreadful stalling. It wasn’t until a slightly rainy yet sunny day that his wish came true. The calming sound of rain drops softly landing on his tent was drowned out by the blaring horns of the Macedonians. Lentulus rushed out of his tent, and soon enough the entire camp was deserted in an orderly manner. The rest of the army rendezvoused at a predetermined point near the outskirt of the city, carefully timing their pace so as to lure the desperate Macedonians into territory disadvantageous for their phalanx, which formed the bulwark of their army. Lentulus sought a clean end to the Macedonian threat; he was tired of suffering an unacceptable amount of casualties at the hands of the formidable phalanx formation, they did nothing but taint his victories.

And then as if on cue, the rain ceased.

XII Fulminata arrived at an isolated stone watchtower which seemed to have been abandoned decades ago. Lentulus ordered the cohorts to march past the tower and then come about-face to meet the Macedonians eye to eye. The enemy was not too far behind, their forest of spears sprouted up from the horizon and soon enough their entire forces were in full view. It almost appeared as if a large palisade had suddenly grown from the ground before them, only these walls were moving.

The lone watchtower now lay between the Romans and the Macedonians; in Lentulus’s mind it would soon serve a grand purpose.

The Roman’s flanks were composed of Praetorians; the emperor had been surprisingly generous with their allocation to military campaigns but Lentulus rarely deployed them into combat. Today was an exception, as the Macedonians had brought out Companions to support the phalanx. Lentulus had anticipated the trouble any regular ala of legionary cavalry would be overcome with had they fought the Macedonian elite face to face.

He waited until the Macedonian battle line inched closer before giving a slight nod to the highly trusted tribune in front of him. Almost empathically, the officer knew what Lentulus wanted him to do; he turned to his left, lifted up his gladius and shouted an order, effectively beginning the battle. The entire Praetorian turmae on the left wing of the Roman line exploded into a charge towards the supporting hoplites and cavalry on the Macedonians’ right flank.

From the eyes of a common soldier

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

Out of many, one particular Macedonian hoplite looked at what was approaching and could not believe it, were his eyes deceiving him? He wanted to run, he wanted to drop his shield and sword and just escape far away from this madness, back to his wife and children. It was only at this moment, when his life was endangered, that countless doubts started growing in his mind, now a garden of confusion. Seeking courage, he fell back to what his training taught him; his barrack instructors’ words echoing throughout his mind now seemed to muffle the ever-increasing volume of the fast approaching death.

The sound of a battering ram smashing against the doors of a city wall had become a common sound familiar to most Macedonians, soldiers and civilians alike. Compared to what happened during the next few seconds that familiar sound was reduced into nothing but that of a child’s whisper. That soldier held his shield forward as hard as he could and although he worked up the determination to keep his eyes on what was coming, the impact on his head alone almost took the consciousness away from him.

He ascended into the air, almost like an angel, his helmet still shaking from the vibrations, a wound on his torso and the bruises on his head went largely unnoticed. The orchestra of the battle faded the higher he went, his blurry vision fixated on the sky, lost in reverie.

The two seconds he spent airborne seemed to have lasted for an eternity. He did nothing but think of his wife, the peculiar way she picked the tomatoes from the vines, and how his boy and girl laughed as they played in the street. The sky changed its hues to the tune of his every last and lagging heartbeat, a transition from the murky red that befitted the battle to a serene, almost divine blue. It was a gift for his eyes and his eyes only.

He was gone before he hit the ground.

Only about half of the Roman cavalry on the left wing had engaged the hoplites, the rest were diverted towards the now provoked Companions; distinctive black feathers decorated their helmets, their tunics a strong shade of purple, the mark of royalty. It was a battle of the elite versus the elite, the noblemen’s brawl.

Lentulus’s strategy had begun to take shape for the Macedonian’s phalanx towards the center had begun to circle around the obstruction in the middle of the battlefield: the watchtower. This created two new flanking opportunities, which although temporary could decide the battle should the rest of the phalanx line commit to a melee.

The Praetorians targeting the hoplites conducted a devastating series of hit-and-run charges, which cleverly lured the enemy into javelin range. This proved crucial towards achievement of victory on the left flank as the Macedonians were now dealt the fatal blow of a cooperative effort consisting of accurate javelin showers and well timed cavalry charges. The routing would soon begin.

Combat was delayed over on the Roman’s right wing, but things began differently. The Companions broke into a swift uphill sprint towards the vulnerable legionnaires before the Praetorians could get into position. A shouted order hidden between the cacophonies of hoof beats triggered a cataclysmic reaction from the legionnaires.

The Companions faithfully broke through the pila storm, slamming into the legionnaires and thereby sparking a minor disaster on the Roman line.

On cue, the Praetorians swung in from the right and engulfed both the engaged Companions and the approaching hoplites.

The main phalanx battle line advanced steadily towards the legionnaires, but had first to endure against the peppering of both pila and javelins alike. Unlike their more vulnerable Companion brothers, a good portion of enemy fire was rendered ineffective simply by their shielded and compact form.

Up until now the legionnaires and the phalanx pikemen had been eyeing each other like two mortal enemies across a crowded room; the cavalry and the hoplites had been in the fray for awhile now, and now all that remained was them. Knowing that they would decide the battle strengthened their determination and pushed them to double their efforts for what was about to come, the bloodiest part of the battle.

The sound of the first sarissa thrusting into a Roman shield marked the start of the engagement of each of the main forces. The absence of the center phalanx led the Macedonian general to shift both of the divided parts towards the watchtower to try and close off the obvious gap. Lentulus read this strategy like a book based on troop movement and sent the easternmost cohort forward and past the phalanx line, only to perform a U-turn and come back crashing down into the phalanx’s line.

While all of this had been going on, a contingent of Macedonian archers had been wreaking havoc on the Roman auxiliaries, a surprisingly clever target since they were less-armored than their counterparts and had to constantly expose themselves to fire their javelins.

Lentulus looked towards both sides of the battle, noticing that the cavalry on the left was still engaged even though having committed earlier; the Praetorians on the right were in the process of reforming and were soon ordered to circle around the approaching phalanx to confront the archers.

The legionnaires west of the watchtower had finally been engaged by the phalanx, however no flanking maneuver near the middle could be made as the delayed phalanx groups were now filling in the gaps quickly. With the decimation of the westernmost supporting hoplites, the Macedonian’s left flank was now extremely exposed and Lentulus exploited this to full effect.

Several cohorts sprang forward, striking the reforming phalanx with a cascade of pila, effectively pinning them down in place.

As more and more Macedonians routed (hoplite, pikemen, & Companions alike), the freed up legionnaires quickly gave up chase and helped in overwhelming the rest of the enemy force.

Lentulus contemplated the aftermath from his horse. With this final defeat dealt to the Macedonians, the eastern Balkans would now be handed over to the Roman Empire. What was next for this general, and more importantly, what was next for the Roman Empire?

(comments but more importantly suggestions are welcomed!)

Note: This AAR is finished, albeit abandoned.