Clearing Tangleroot

A human army descends into a jungle area to clear it of troglodytes.

Ancients D6 (fantasy) battle report.

Preamble

This is part of my Mighty Empires campaign set in Eberron — see previous posts in this blog. The Storm Lords chose to attack an independent village, so I am wargaming the resulting battle. As per the ME rules, independent villages get D6x100 points — the troglodytes rolled 4, so 400 points against the 600 points in the Storm Lords' force. For this game, I am using Ancients D6, so those armies scale down to 8pts for the trogs and 12pts for the humans.

No-one likes troglodytes. Even amongst the reptilian races of Eberron, they are despised — even kobolds look down on troglodytes, since kobolds are clean and organised, whereas troglodytes never clean and adventures have been known to pass out just from the smell of a troglodyte cave. That usually has a grisly end — the troglodytes of Tangleroot worship their own dark gods (though few ever get to converse with a troglodyte, so scholars think that they are just troglodyte names for the Dark Six), eat human flesh and make live sacrifices.

The troglodytes live in the jungle of this valley, and in the many watery caves near the river. Leading them in defence of their homes is Xassak, a minor spellcaster who has slain more than a few unwary adventures unwise enough to venture out from Stormreach into the wilds, but who rarely fights above ground.

• 2xSkirmishers
• 3xLight Infantry Warriors — Troglodyte Warriors

The invading force is led by Delera Omaren IV, one of the five Storm Lords that rules Stormreach. The Delera family chose to buy its respectability by becoming patrons of the city, and are greatly respected. As one of the city rulers, she handles with relations the dragonmarked houses and trade guilds that have enclaves in the city; as such she has no experience leading an army on campaign, and certainly no battle experience, but through negotiating terms and assistance for expeditions into Xen'Drik she does have some theoretical knowledge of the geography and hazards of the area around the city.

The troglodytes refused to bend the knee, so she decided that they must be cleared — there are hobgoblins living in this area that are willing to obey the city's wishes, if the troglodytes are removed.

At her command are 1200 men and women, around 70% human with the remainder being a mix of gnomes, dwarves, elves and half-orcs typical of the population of Stormreach. More than half are of the city guard; then there are 200 scouts made up of the better quality adventurers and wayfarers recruited in Stormreach, and around 300 other poorer quality levies that have been equiped out of the Storm Lords' considerable resources and brought to the battlefield. Knowing the terrain, Delera took only infantry when she parted from Greigur d'Deneith's larger force.

• 2xHI — guard infantry
• 2xLI with crossbows — guard crossbowmen
• 2xSK with bows — scouts
• 1xMob — levies

As the armies are so small, instead of the usual one general, one captain with 2 and 1 order points respectively, I gave them 1 and 0 order points respectively. So the general is like a captain in a normal D6 game, and the captain is just there so that one side cannot lose on one die roll if the general dies (since normally you have more than one commander).

The Battle

The Battlefield, Deployment

The troglodytes are choosing to fight in an area of ruins, which should provide cover for their missile troops and funnel the enemy into a narrow frontage where their numbers may be less effective. They set up with their large block of infantry in the one open space between the ruins and the marsh to the north, so they can bring their numbers to bear; their skirmishers will head into the ruins to stall the rest of the enemy army.

The Storm Lords realise what is going on during deployment, and shift their later deployed units to the right, but they will have to shift their levies to the right flank.

Turns 1 & 2

End of turn 2

On turn 1, the troglodytes double-time their skirmishers into the ruins. The Storm Lords push their crossbowmen ahead, hoping to get in plenty of shots before the enemy close.

On turn 2, the Storm Lords go first and shift their crossbowmen slightly south, to clear a path around them for the levies. They use their order point to bring the main block of spearmen forwards to cover the crossbowmen's flank. The troglodytes use their order point to bring their main body forward at the double, hoping to get across the firing range of the crossbowmen in one round. The skirmishers fire without effect, and the crossbowmen return fire, but the skirmishers are dispersed in the ruins and have good cover. The northmost units of crossbowmen and scouts fire on the advancing rush of troglodytes, inflicting some losses but not breaking the charge.

Turn 3

Realising the danger of getting rushed before her troops are fully formed, Delera reacts quickly, ordering her spearmen to fall back to make space and get into line with the advancing levies, while the nearest skirmishers and crossbowmen spread out to the sides.  The other crossbowmen press forwards into the ruins, now benefiting from cover as they exchange fire with the troglodyte skirmishers. However despite fire from all the crossbowmen and scouts, they are making little impression on the trogs.

Xassax is beginning to suspect that he is falling into a trap — it is now his troops being funnelled and the enemy threatening to envelop his charging troops. But the enemy has so many crossbowmen, so he needs to close the distance quickly. He orders a group to charge the crossbowmen pestering his right, while his main block continued to advance to meet the enemy foot. However the crossbowmen have swords too and are ready to use them — most of them have years of experience keeping the peace in Stormreach, and some have fought in the sewers of the city against troglodyte infestations in the past. With their charge broken and losses mounting, the trogs break and run.

Turn 4

The troglodyte;s main body has one shot left — charge and break the main body of the Storm Lords' infantry, and hope to kill their commander. The guardsmen meet the charge, and Delera orders her levies to charge into the flank. Meanwhile the scouts circle around for a rear charge.

The troglodytes in the ruins decide they they need to do damage fast if they are to help their main force at all, so they also charge the crossbowmen at the edge of the ruins. The crossbowmen take heavy losses but stand their ground; the scouts on this wing charge in to help, but take many casualties from the better prepared trogs and are routed.

But in the main melee, things are not going the way of the troglodytes. They are causing casualties amongst the spearmen, but the spearmen withstand the charge and in deep formation are able to inflict losses back.

Turn 5

The second unit of crossbowmen charges into the ruins, and manages to clear away one of the units of troglodyte skirmishers. Over in the main melee, the scouts charge into the rear of the troglodyte formation; now surrounded, the troglodytes losses are mounting rapidly, and their formation wavers and then disintegrates, with trogs running for the woods.

Post-Battle Analysis

A clean win for the Storm Lords, and without taking heavy losses — their only unit to rout was a cheap 1 point unit. They managed to bring their numbers to bear fairly effectively.

My first impression of Ancients D6 is good. It seems to be half-way between DBA and Kings of War, which are both games I have played recently and liked parts of. It might, like Kings of War, prove a little too simple for my taste, but we will see — this was a very small battle, well below the recommended points (because I want to keep the scale right so a full size ME banner of 1500 points maps to a normal size army in most systems).

Consequences

The Storm Lords take the Tangleroot village tile and move their army in; this opens their way to scouting to the coast here.

Applying half losses to the ME army points, the Storm Lords lose only 73 points from that banner. The troglodytes are gone — defeated independent armies are eliminated from the map (no longer a significant strategic force).