I’ve been wanting to play test a Triumph! campaign adapting the old DBA 2.2 campaign rules for a while. What follows is the first round of my first playtest. The belligerents are the Late Imperial Roman East (Constantius II) and the Middle Sassanid Empire (Shapur II). I’m using random methods to determine army placements and attack postures on the campaign map. Forgive the WIP nature of the map for this playtest.
The map
###Spring 350AD##
Shapur II: Field army in Nineveh. Declares war on Rome and invades Caesarea.
Constantius II: Declares war on the Sassanid Empire and prepares field army in Caesarea to defend.
Shapur protects his left flank up against a steep hill, puts his levy in the center with prepared defenses, and puts all of his cavalry on his right. The Romans put their elite foot, cataphracts, and artillery on the center/left flank with a patch of rough to protect them and placed the light troops and cavalry on the right. The Romans move up very aggressively and Shapur sends his elite cavalry on a wide outflanking maneuver and sends his horse bow behind his lines to counter any possible attack on the camp from Roman cavalry. Roman artillery rips into the Sassanid lines, forcing the elephants back into the flank of the horse bow, destroying a stand. Roman Auxilia Palatina (Raiders) engage the Sassanid skirmishers from the steep hills, driving them back. Shapur and his elite cavalry get ready for a flank charge. Lining up the charge. Off-camera, the Sassanid skirmishers are run off by the Roman raiders, but the elephantry manages to kill a stand of the raiders. The Roman artillery tears into the Sassanid levy, forcing them back into the flank of the remaining horse bow stands, killing them. The Romans send their javelin cavalry directly to the Sassanid camp, sacking it, and ending the game 20-3. An absolute disaster for Shapur. The Sassanid camp burns as they attempt to rally their center.
The Sassanid army suffers a terrible defeat, mostly due to poor planning and placement and a lack of command pips. Sassanids lose 3 stands of horse bow and Romans lose 1 stand of raiders. Since the Sassanids lost their camp, they must put an additional 2 stands into reserve for a total of 5 stands lost by the army. The Romans gain +3 prestige points for the enemy stands destroyed, and +2 points for sacking the camp. The Sassanids retreat back to Nineveh.
