With Wales under my control, albeit slightly unhappy due to me murdering all of them, I set my sights on the rest of the province of Britannia Inferior. Of course, to take this before any of our Celtic brethren do, we'll need more men. Fortunately, Wales is a turn's worth of movement away from Hibernia, so I send my faction leader to hand over a few extra pairs of hands.
As you can see, a few extra spearmen and some archers will be very useful, especially the archers, they essentially double my burning ability when it comes to sieges. Speaking of which, my general in charge of the Wandering Warriors levelled up.
Upping our income for sacking stacks nicely with our 75% bonus, so I went with that. To be honest, I don't tend to use raiding stance, it never struck me as very useful unless you simply want cheap income from an enemy you aren't fighting. So really it's just for the sacking bonus. Because sacking is fun.
Anyway, I also happened to finish up the first military tech by the end of Turn 2. I decide that I will up the quality of my troops and go for Nordic Shipbuilding, which in the screenshot below, you can see makes my Spearmen and my Skirmishers better.
Bah, enough of this housekeeping bullcrap, you all came here for the violence and my humour. Okay, maybe 60% violence and 40% humour. No? 70-30?
So, our main opponent is the Legio VI, led by a chap called Sextus Perennis. With my army ready, I set off immediately and attack the town of Lindum, where they happen to be stationed.
As you can see, this battle will be slightly harder. He not only has an extra unit of cavalry to complement the garrison Equites, he hired a mercenary Celtic Skirmisher Cav, which are fairly dangerous if used effectively. He also has more Cohors and Borderguards, the backbone of any Roman force. He even has mercenary Celtic foot skirmishers, adding to the Levis he already has and the unit of Sagitarii in the garrison. Fairly nasty and it should prove to be quite the test of my forces, how will they handle a true Roman army, as opposed to the useless garrisons?
Here's the basic formation I went with as the battle began. A fairly standard one, swords at the front with skirmishers, spearmen and Cav on the flanks. I also put two spearmen behind the swords in order to counter any cavalry charges straight down the middle. I kept the archers in the back to save them for the burning but I put the catapult at the front in order to A) shoot at their front archer tower and B) Hit the enemy that pass said archer tower if the fireballs drop short. In short, it's a solid battle plan, but you never know with the Romans.
Fortunately, formation is something the Romans apparently forgot over the 3rd and 4th centuries, because the Skirmishers and Cavalry charge out first. Annyingly, I had placed my catapults a little close to the front lines and one javelin went a little too far.
Ow.
Needless to say, the enemy proceeded to do exactly as any sane person expected, they went ahead and charged directly at my centre. Not a bad idea, considering the Celtic Band's resistance to cavalry can be compared to a papyrus fragment over two thousand years old getting water spilled on it. Unfortunately for them, my skirmishers have a surprise for them.
The charge was slowed slightly by the volley and killed more than a few of them, but unfortunately they still managed to cause some damage. Fortunately, my Spearmen were directly behind the Band and they charged in. The result can be seen of this shot as the remaining part of that unit retreats.
I love how, despite spearmen being there, they charged their other unit of Equites in as well. As you can see, the first unit of Equites is now a non issue, but we have bigger problems. The rest of the army has found its way out of the town and is on the way and among them are archers and those scary Cohors.
Sadly, I became quite enthralled by the strategy and have few screenshots of the battle lines. The best one I do have shows us looking down the battle line from the left flank, where my general has just engaged their garrison commander's unit in battle.
In the image, things look to be going well. The Borderguards, however, are a bigger threat than I anticipated, look how they damaged my levy and my spearmen in front of the catapult, and those aren't the ones charged by the cav. Speaking of which, those units are fighting on the far right flank against the Cohors, as can be seen in the left of the image. For some reason the Cohors are suffering against them, far more than one would expect them to be. After all, isn't Sword>Spear the core of Total War? I can't explain it, but anyway.
Off camera, on the far left flank, the Romans sent their Celtic Mounted Skirms straight into my lines. Fortunately, they charged close to spearmen and my own Mercenary Mounted Skirms, so we drove them away and broke them. So much for all that money.
Meanwhile, our catapult scores a direct hit on that pesky archer tower, and then got a little bit more for their trouble.
Sadly they did not hit the Roman General right next to the inferno. If anyone is interested, they are Palatina Guard and like all General units they are pretty good. And he might need them soon, because our cav managed to get behind our enemy, drive their skirmishers away and then delivered a coup de grace right into the back of the enemy on our right flank. The result is clear, the latest enemy unit to enter battle, another unit of Cohors, faces a right flank that has completely disintergrated.
Here's a nice tactical overview to show the state of the battle.
Effectively, the battle is done. Their garrison commander fighting my general was promptly charged by a free Celtic Band and began to break, though they did very well against my Bodyguard. Surprising, I'll have to keep it in mind. Speaking of Spearmen fighting against foes they probably shouldn't, note the unit of spears I'm charging towards the enemy general from the left. Now, I know what you're thinking.
"Lortano, you pillock! Only an idiot attempts to fight the Romans on their own ground!"
Damn right, I didn't expect the Levy to defeat a Roman General alone. I merely wanted to move them out of position so we could get a look at those archers behind them. Those annoying guys had been a pain the entire battle. The next screenshot demonstrates this plan in action.
It worked perfectly, my cav that had been chewing through some skirmishers was able to slip behind the bodyguard and turn those Sagittarii into chunks so tiny that you'd find it easier to find the constellation Sagittarius with one eye.
Then something even more surprising happened. Far from actually losing the fight (Bear in mind my TIER ONE spearmen charged swordsmen who were fresh and were far better while being outnumbered by around twenty men) my guys actually managed to even the odds!
Yeah, this screenshot was taken on the moment of my cav charging them, before the casualties registered, so my TIER ONE spearmen managed to take twenty off the Palatina Guard in a short period of time. I have no idea anymore. With our cav and half the army charging them, they soon fled for their lives, leaving me time to do what I do best, burning down cities!
So, the battle ended with a rather crushing victory. The stats speak for themselves.
Very, very nice. So, next time we will move on to the first walled settlement, though with no Roman Army left in Britain, one must wonder how well it could possibly fare...See you all very soon, and thank you for all the positive comments so far.
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