Midgard : Campaign pre-amble

The task of prefect Lucius Valerius Corvus, in this campaign, is to reform his cohort and for the Romans to fight their way back to the main Roman lines. The job of Bellicus, the Britons' commander, is to stop them from accomplishing this by destroying as many Roman units as they can so that as few as possible of the soldiers return to Antelodunum.

The first encounter in this campaign is the first scenario from the Midgard rulebook : Battle. This will be a straight up fight between two 300 point Roman and Briton forces; Lucius Valerius's three centuries of legionaries, two units of archers, and two turmae of cavalry versus Bellicus's two warbands of elite household warriors, four warbands of warriors, two bands of slingers, two bands of archers, and two bands of skyclad warriors.

The Britons will be set up as Defenders and the Roman force are seen as the Attackers for this scenario.

The first Roman watch tower

Lucius Valerius Corvus, prefect of the second cohort, second legion, tore open the flap of his canvas command tent to pandemonium. It was pouring with rain, as it always seemed to do in this gods forsaken hell-hole, and his troops were running around camp like a nest of disturbed ants, donning arms and armour, shouting at each other. Lucius looked around the fortified encampment to find the cause of the commotion. The gates were just being closed and a rider rapidly approached the command tent.

A dripping messenger, slid down from the steaming horse's back, saluted the prefect, and presented an order scroll head bowed, at arms' length. Lucius took the scroll, snapped the seal and read with growing distaste and horror at what was written within. He called for his senior centurions to attend him in his tent immediately.

"Fellow officers," he intoned, when they had gathered scant moments later, "we have been cut off from the rest of the legion and have orders to march, immediately, to the nearest legionary fortified encampment at Antelodunum, thirty miles away. We are to burn anything we cannot carry and leave immediately. Any questions?"

"What about our outriders and the rest of the cohort spread out between here and our destination?" asked Gaia Pomponia Thrax, the cohort's pilus prior, a powerfully built woman with many a scar gathered from her years as a gladiator and several hard fought campaigns as part of the legion in Germania. "Surely, we need to look out for them in order to boost our own numbers?"

"Orders will be dispatched to each camp and watchtower along the way to prepare those troops for evacuation. We will collect the rest of the cohort as we make our way south. The more we are able to join with, the better our chances of reaching Antelodunum. The Britons have mustered several large warbands that will harry us as we make our move, but move we must." replied Lucius pointing at his map of the local environs. "Gather your troops and have them arrayed in good marching order in five minutes. You have your orders."

Basic campaign map

The small column of legionaries and its accompanying units of auxiliary archers and cavalry left the burning camp and snaked its way through the undulating countryside towards the first of the watchtowers, where it was hoped that they could bolster their forces with another century of legionaries. Reports that came back from the outriders and scouts relayed that the Britons were amassing a large force close to one of their villages just a few miles away, right in the path the cohort needed to take.

The column rounded a small hillock and arrived in a wide glade between two large copses of trees. The Roman watchtower to the cohort's left had been burned out with the occupants nowhere to be seen, and the path ahead was blocked by a seething mass of shouting and jeering warriors.

Lucius Valerius ordered his troops to array into their battle lines whilst the Celtic warriors began their advance...

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Next post should be a How to... for making the map above, followed by an after action report of the first battle. This will then be followed by another post detailing the nuts and bolts of how the first game played. I won't go into this detail with every battle played, but the reason for it this time is because it was my first run through of the rules and I wanted to catalogue how it played for future reference.