Dacian War OOC

[Magicman2051]

OOC: As soon as your troops are in "position", I'll post the battle layout.

[Magicman2051]

Full details of the Dacian forces and the Thracian forces should be up before 2000GMT at which point orders may be PMed.

As it stands Pontifex will be doing the Dacian orders, if anyone has any problems with this address them to me in PM or in this thread with clearly outlined reasons.

For the sake of simplicity all the infantry, skirmisher and cavalry forces owned by the Thracians and Dacians are going to be defined by *(Experienced), **(Veteran) or ***(Elite) with no stars representing levy or green. "General" units are going to be defined by ****(General) and will basically be acting not dissimilar to the General Cavalry as represented in most TW games. This means that you can hunt down and kill the enemy general on the battlefield if you so wish. The same rules will not be applied to the Roman forces but if you want to RP your general as being in the field, feel free.

[Magicman2051]

Thracian Forces.

Several skirmishes fought with the Dacians, decided with the dice, ending in stalemates have sapped their forces. Furthermore their King, Cotys, is dead which has adversely affected their morale. Nonetheless the majority of their units are well trained and able for battle, and the Prince would like to see nothing more than the Dacian pig Buretista's head on a pike.

Thracian units will gain a modifier reducing routing chance as long as Rhescuporis remains alive and on the field. Rhescuporis's unit will not rout but may not follow orders.

[Magicman2051]

Dacian Forces.

Initially swelled by a large influx of the greedy and the stupid the army has actually dropped in size over the course of the campaign, with people taking enough wealth to justify their joining and then leaving. Furthermore tensions have built up between Burebista and Deceneus, the latter of which is too influential for the former to afford to kill or lose. Their victories so far have been massively aggrandised and the entire army is on an elated high, believing that there is no host akin to them in all Greece.

Dacian units gain a modifier reducing routing chance as long as both their generals remain alive and on the field. Eliminating elements of their opposing force early in the battle will further increase their already booming morale, whereas an early series of losses along the battle line will cause a reduction in overall morale. Deceneus may very well abandon the battle if it appears to be going badly.

[Aetius]

Ok...battle map?

[Magicman2051]

Posted.

[Aetius]

lol dude what the is up with the army numbers

why are they so weirdly detailed and based off EB?

[Magicman2051]

I rolled for a lot of them, included unit desertion, death from a variety of sources other than battle, units lost in battle, how much of each given unit would be available etc. About seventeen rolls for every number you see there.

Because I was bored with "Cavalry" and "Infantry", why not spice things up and make it more interesting. Plus it is educational for all involved.

[Magicman2051]

Battle orders in, battle result will be posted within 24 hours.

[cfmonkey45]

OOC: Where are my legionary points? I was supposed to lead the right flank.

[Sonke]

OOC:I lead the Skirmishers, but I will manage without these points.

[Magicman2051]

There was no inclusion of that in the orders I was given and adding it now would literally require me redoing the entire battle, which I'm not doing. Both of you can have +1 LL participation points if you wish.

[Aetius]

wow that was a bunch of bs, highly unrealistic casualties

you and your dice mm, read up on some historical battles man, battles are about morale..not killing all enemies till they are dead

I could have won that battle in rtw vs anyone with like 10-20% casualties. Find me one historical battle where there was something of this nature ever occuring. Also, the rules say barbarian casualties are supposed to be 2x, and how about any slaves we captured? Rules dont seem to apply vs Aetius, throughout this war I have been continually ed and am growing really tired of it.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Carrhae and Domitian's disaster near Tapae in 87 CE. Actually this battle reminds me a lot of Domitian's disaster except without Thracians.

[cfmonkey45]

Carrhae.

Uhhh... No it's not. We didn't go "loladvance" and our cavalry was protecting our flanks. We were doing a classic Roman military maneuver. For some reason we just got stupidly low rolls and our cavalry was decimated by horsearchers, which are supposed to be woefully inaccurate against quick moving targets, especially while in cantabrian circles, which are used as a counter to other horse archers.

Further, barbarian infantry lacks the discipline and training of Roman professional legions, so they'd probably just charge us in one solid line. If our lines held, which they did, then we would have broken the main thrust of their attack. Our strategy was to then puncture one of the flanks and roll up the line, which is supposed to cause massive chaos within their flanks, but evidently it didn't.

[Aetius]

Carrhae and Domitian's disaster near Tapae in 87 CE. Actually this battle reminds me a lot of Domitian's disaster except without Thracians.

Yes another inferior historical mind.

Tapae was an ambush...

This was employing tactics that worked with like 100% certainty in the past.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Yes another inferior historical mind.

Tapae was an ambush...

This was employing tactics that worked with like 100% certainty in the past.

I was pointing out that it wasn't all peaches and cream fighting Dacians. No need for the insults...

[cfmonkey45]

Yes another inferior historical mind.

Tapae was an ambush...

This was employing tactics that worked with like 100% certainty in the past.

Domitian, started a strong offensive against Dacia in 87, ordering General Cornelius Fuscus to attack. Therefore, in the summer of 87, Fuscus along with five or six legions crossed the Danube.

They encountered the Dacian army at Tapae, where the Romans were ambushed, suffering a great defeat. Almost all of the soldiers from Legio V Alaudae were killed, the Dacians captured their flags and war machines, and general Cornelius Fuscus himself was killed in battle.

After this victory, the Dacian king Diurpaneus received the name of Decebalus, meaning as strong (or brave) as ten men.

Cornelius Fuscus was known to be reckless and walked right into a trap. We research our battle plans for a few hours before posting anything. I also researched and successfully predicted that you would use the Pharsalus tactic in Gaul during our first engagement, and proceeded to do the expected thing in that case and flank your fourth line behind your cavalry. But for some unexplained reason, that also failed because I had a really bad dice roll.


Also:

The Roman offensive continued the following year, with general Tettius Iulianus now in command. The Roman army entered Dacia following the same route Cornelius Fuscus had in the previous year. The battle took place mainly in the same area, at Tapae, but this time the outcome was a Roman victory. Because of the difficult road to Sarmizegetusa, the capital of Dacia, and because of several defeats suffered by Domitian in Pannonia, the Roman offensive halted and Decebalus sued for peace.

EDIT: Considering your quibbles, I'd further like to argue that that would be unrealistic, since there's no guarantee, and its wildly unlikely, that any of those Dacian commanders would have a good understanding of Roman infantry tactics. That's why I'd like battles to be modded differently.

[Pontifex Maximus]

The problem is that someone was giving orders for the Dacians and you can't anticipate that to mean failed Dacian tactics would be used again. The Dacian infantry was decimated, the Romans just suffered heavy casualties in the process.

[Pontifex Maximus]

Ok, enough. If we were going to automatically give 'historical' results based on what happened in history why even send in orders? This is not about recreating history, it is about playing history in a cultural, political and historical framework. Legions are already given a base modifier making them slightly better than the average Mediterranean warrior. Its not the end of the world and I don't appreciate my intelligence being insulted.