The Cataphract Operation

‘Brother, you must give me my money back.’

‘Cousin, it is not your money. You gave it to me.’

‘But the Romans had given it to me, so it is my money.’

‘They gave it to you so you would fight me. Then you changed sides and gave it to me to apologise for attempting to oppose your brethren, so it is not your money at all. You cannot decide what happens to a gift you gave.’

‘It is my money, and the Romans want it back, so you need to give it to me before we both get in trouble.’

‘Ah, cousin, I cannot. I paid the Dacians with it. The money is safe in their stronghold of Temeshvekovar, and not even the Romans can extract it.’

‘Then you must retrieve it.’

‘I cannot and I will not. My allies the Dacians fought hard for it. Doublwhiskos is an honourable man. I will not do the dirty on him.’

‘Unless you are forced, brother. I will make you.’

‘You and whose army, cousin?’

‘Mine.’

*

It is quite nice to pick up an old, unresolved, campaign again, I have found. The Sarmatian Nation campaign can be found on the page listed on the right, which has been updated to include the most recent action, which seems to have been in February 2023. There was still an outstanding wargame to go, however, which is hinted at above. Vodkaschanapps, the Sarmatian leader, has, indeed, paid off the Dacians for assisting him in storming a Roman fort, using the money he got from the other Sarmatian leader, Vodkaredbull, who is probably related somehow, but who, really, knows. Anyway, Vodkaredbull got the money from the Romans who had realised that they needed some heavy cavalry to assist their armies against Sarmatian cavalry, and who better than some more Sarmatians. Unfortunately, Vodkaredbull changed sides when the Dacians and Vodkaschnapps’ troops attacked the fort. Vodkaschnapps used the money given to him by Vodkaredbull to pay the Dacians. The Romans, being Romans, have decided that the money is still theirs, but have failed twice to capture the Dacian stronghold. But now Vodkaredbull has decided that he needs to reclaim the money and return it to the Romans, or find himself at the tail end of a triumph in Rome. Vodkaschnapps has refused, and the battle lines are drawn.

In the picture Vodkaschnapps’ troops (Sarmatians A in game speak) are on the right, while Vodkaredbull is to the left. The terrain has not been kind to Sarmatian B with a stream and a rive bisecting the field, which they need to cross before facing Sarmatian A, who are, of course, the defenders. There is quite a lot of heavy cavalry on the table, as you can see. Each side has 18 bases of cataphracts and two light horse.

Vodkaredbull’s plan is to cross the stream as quickly as possible with one column and reorganise it to hold off the enemy, while crossing the river at the ford with another. This column will be less disorganised and hopefully manage to deploy before Vodkaschnapps’ men approach. The third column will cross the stream further up and hope to outflank to opposition.

The Sarmatian B plan nearly worked. The picture shows the central column has crossed the stream, disorganised but well out of range of any opposition. Their right column (under Vodkaredbull himself) has crossed the river and turned sharp right to try to avoid the oncoming cataphracts. Meanwhile the outflanking column, nearest the camera, is crossing the stream itself, although the attempt to outflank seems to have failed and the Sarmatian A reserve is moving up to counter them.

This being a cavalry battle it all moved quite quickly. The picture shows that Vodkaredbull’s troops have been forced to deploy with their backs to the river and slightly disorganised still from the ford. The central column, however, has rallied from their recursion in aquatic warfare and are ready to deploy, while the outflankers have also crossed the stream and deployed, hoping to rally from the disorganisation before the enemy arrive.

Alas, it was not to be. Vodkaschnapps led his men in a wild charge against Vodkaredbull’s column before they had a chance to rally properly. While the light horse on Vodkaredbull’s left held up some of the opposition briefly, the result of the charge was disastrous for Sarmatian B.

The picture shows the remnants of Vodkaredbull’s command fleeing in the top left. In the foreground the outflanking command has successfully fended off their opposition, but at some cost, while the central column is facing off the rest of Sarmatian A. It got complicated, as the casualties inflicted on Vodkaredbull’s command meant that Sarmantian B’s morale dropped to fall back. This meant that the remaining troops there, unable to fall back due to an impassable river, simply picked up more terrain shaken and hence lost all the remaining combats. In the foreground, the outflanking column fell back to and across the stream, picking up more terrain shaken disorder (I ran out of markers for it at this point) and leaving some troops exposed on the far side of the water. This did not end well, of course, and the Sarmatian B army was soon fleeing.

Well, that was an interesting, unusual and rather quick battle. I do not think I have had so many cavalry bases on the table at once, and I miscalculated the distances they could travel more than once, which led to some of the debacles of getting trapped against water features which the above tries to describe. Still, Vodkaschnapps lives to fight again.

*

‘Brother.’

‘Now, cousin, do you accept that the money is mine?’

‘You have earned it, cousin. I will let you enjoy it in peace.’

‘Just as well. You hardly have an army to reclaim it with now.’

‘Peace, brother. I declare eternal peace between us.’

‘And no sneaking off to the Romans to complain now and try to get them to attack me.’

‘Brother! The very thought of it! That had never crossed my mind. How dare you impute such ideas to me!’

‘Hm. We will see, won’t we?’