Mercia 798AD - The battle of Wudiandum continued

At the end of the last post things the West Saxon centre was finally in action, their right was potentially in trouble as the Mercian command facing them was getting it's act together and the left was starting over the river to come to grips with the Mercian right wing.  As far as I can tell (I haven't started to play the rest of the game as I write this introduction) the key to this battle is the fight in front of Wudiandum village.  If this goes against the men of Wessex the flank of their main command will be open.  Although they have a few troops in reserve in a second line in the centre the time needed to get them into a new line to cover this risk may not be granted them.  The fight over on their left is almost a separate battle as even if they should win over there it would be a big ask for those troops to re-enforce the centre because of terrain restrictions.  No pressure then!

Its the start of the third hour of this battle (in game time).  The Mercian shield wall pushes back in the centre but make little headway.  They are slowly and methodically setting up a shield wall on their left and have rushed what troops they can towards the river bank on their right.  It would help if they could roll well just once.  The West Saxon reply is to keep the meat grinder going in the centre and to push more troops across the river on their left.  On their right where they really need to disengage they roll 1 pip!  It's not just the Mercians the dice have it in for.  The only good news for the hard pressed West Saxon right is that the Mercians just can't get a decisive attack in to push the command over the edge, all they achieve is a series of recoil results which helps the West Saxons by opening up some space between the lines. 

1. Fighting on the river bank as the Wessex Left command attempts to cross

The next few turns see the West Saxon left slowly chip away at the Mercian command facing them.   The Mercians are hampered by inconsistent dice rolls, whenever they have the chance to be aggressive the pip dice is against them.  As a result they are forced to give up the defence of the river bank allowing the West Saxons to gain a toe hold.

2.  It's soon more than a toe hold, but the Mercian defenders look to be ready for the onslaught

Once the West Saxons are over both sides face off against each other but the Mercians are soon on the back foot.  How are things over on the other flank?

 

3. On the Mercian left things look better, for the Mercians!

With a couple of good dice rolls in succession the Mercian left wing recovers from it's earlier confusion and continues to advance.  The West Saxons seem to have the same problem the Mercians have on the other flank.  They are slowly pushed back but the Mercians just can't seem to get their act together and fight as well as they manoeuvre.

4. The king glances towards his threatened right flank

The centre is getting messy with recoils on both sides fragmenting the shield wall.  The Mercian's manage another kill here but its anything but decided as yet.

5. The central commands pushing and heaving

The West Saxon right proves remarkably resilient and despite being one element loss away from demoralisation hangs on in the face of repeated Mercian attacks.  All the Mercians can do is create recoils.  This goes on for another four turns until they manage to hard flank an isolated Wessex spear element.  This tips the West Saxon command over the edge.  Now they are demoralised and all the Saxon Sub General can use his pips for is to hold elements in place. Where he doesn't have the pips to hold elements in place they flee towards the rear base edge each turn.  Even then he gets decent pips and manages to fight a reasonable withdrawal action.

6.  See that gap between the two units facing each other?  There were West Saxons there a moment ago!

The fight in the centre continues to be a mess.  The threat zones prevent any serious reorganisation of the front lines and overall the West Saxons are getting the better of things.  This continues until the Mercian centre is one element away from demoralisation with the West Saxons nowhere near that state.  Both sides are throwing their reserves forward but the Mercians are trying to fill holes in the line while the West Saxon's are hunting for overlaps.  The two Kings are both in the thick of things now and in danger of getting isolated.  They tend to have the better of combats because of the plus one for a general in combat and as they are blades they pursue while any spear elements around them don't.

As the Mercian left continues to push the demoralised West Saxon command facing it slowly backwards options for detaching elements to go to the aid of the beleaguered centre start to present themselves.  However on the other wing a disaster is unfolding.

7. The Mercian right: a lone element of spears is in deep trouble attacked frontally and in flank

Over the last few turns the Mercian right has taken steady casualties until it is only one element away from collapse.  The West Saxons exploit the gaps created by defensive tactics and low pips and pounce on an isolated element of spears. Unbelievably the dice off is a draw on the first round and it is in the following Mercian combat round that it is killed.  The command is now the second to become demoralised.  The next two turns are inconclusive the centre has no decisive fights but gaps are opening up and the Mercian left is slowly hooking around onto the exposed flank of the West Saxon's centre. 

8. The Mercians teeing up the flank attack against the centre

It takes a while for the Mercian left to move into position against the open flank of right flank of the West Saxon Centre.  Part of the command is shadowing the fleeing West Saxons (aka not enough pips to bring them over to join the preparations for the attack).  In the centre of his command I imagine that King Beohtric is having a Wellington at Waterloo moment "Give me Bearruc Scir or give me dark" kind of thing. and the day is dragging to a close after close to 4 hours fighting but dark is still a ways off.  However over on the West Saxon left the men of Bearruc Scir and Dorseate have finally broken the Mercian command facing them and a racing through the woodland to the aid of the central command.

The Mercian assault goes in, but trouble is brewing at the other side of the field

Things are now very close the Mercian left made up of the Fyrds of the Wrocensaetan and Hendrica slam into the open flank of King Beohtric's centre In the first moments of the attack aa west saxonlight infantry element is destroyed and the end of the line is forced to recoil.  It is only the fragmented nature of the line that prevents major casualties as there are no units to the rear of the recoiling troops for them to break against.  In the West Saxon turn the dice are kind to their left wing but less so to the centre command where a paltry one is rolled.  I use this to pull the King's element back thinking he may be needed to help bolster up the right flank.  Both central commands are at breaking point one element away from becoming demoralised and ending the game.

The next turn starts with the Mercians continuing the assault on the West Saxon centre but the central command is handed a defensive tactical stance and the best they can do repair their line the left is aggressive but has only one pip and can't make any significant contact with the enemy.  King Beohtric breathes a sigh of relief.  There is one final roll of the dice now for the West Saxons, literally so in fact!  Another high roll for the left allows the men of Bearruc Scir to crash into the Mercian centre.  They lose an element but the second attack kills a Mercian spear and then to add insult to injury the central command kills the Heathtroop of Ealderman Aethelmund of the Hwicce.  Dicing for the command casualty shows that the Ealderman died with his men.  This ends the West Saxon turn and the game.  It was a close run thing the Mercians could have, should have won it the turn before if the dice had been kinder.  The final casualty count was 10-11 in favour of the West Saxons.  A pyrrhic victory that badly weakens both kingdoms for the rest of the campaign turn. 

The end of the affair but both sides have suffered heavy casualties

 

This was the biggest game I have yet fought using DBA and I found that the BBDBA rules have a few wrinkles which need to be ironed out.  The demoralisation rule is one of them.  I like the concept, in fact I like it a lot, but is assumes that the commands will always be 12 elements, or more accurately, that they will be exactly divisible by three.  At least I assume that to be the case as the rule is that a command becomes demoralised once a third of it's units have been lost.  The rules have no mechanism for coping with commands not divisible by three, nothing to say round up or down for example.

So I have introduced a house rule.  Divide the number of elements by three and if it is not a whole number round down to reach the trigger loss number.  However the demoralisation trigger point is 'once that number is exceeded' not once it is reached.  So a command of 14 elements divided by three gives a demoralisation trigger of 4.66.  Round that down to a value of 4.  So that has to be exceeded so hitting a loss of 4 elements equals it but doesn't exceed.  Hitting 5 does exceed the trigger point (and for completeness sake also exceeds 4.66) so that's sorted then.  I also think that the standard DBA rule of Hordes not counting as a loss and perhaps extending that to light infantry as well.

I also decided after the battle that demoralised troops should take a minus one to combat dice if they ever end up having to fight in close combat.  I don't think I will extend that the troops who can shoot though, although that won't be a problem in this campaign as there are no archers or artillery to worry about.

The other issues is that the maximum size an army is set as three times the size of a standard DBA army.  For BBDBA historical refights the rule is use the actual number of troops converted to elements.  This means some really large commands can be created.  In the current game the two opposing central commands are both 19 elements in size.  I ignored my previous rule of capping command sizes but I think this was a mistake and will reintroduce it in any future large scale actions.

All that said I do rather like the BBDBA version of DBA3.0  it feels more like a historical battle, not that I have ever been in one to know for sure!

Oh and I almost forgot: the mandatory chronicle entry.

798AD Mercian chronicle

And in this year did Beohtric of Wessex basely break from his allegiance with his sworn lord Coenwulf and come in arms to Mercia.  There he did ravage the land of the Hwicce until at length he was met by the King and all his host in battle.  There was slain Ealderman Aethelmund of the Hwicce and a multitude of others with him as well and the West Saxons had possession of the field.