The Deuteros Raid - Battle of Deuteros

 

Starting set-up - Bulgars nearest the viewer.

"Having flung aside the puny force Pithikos had assembled to oppose them, the raiders, now commanded by the Tarkhan Tiercel, hurried to gather the richer pickings further on.  Next on the raiders' agenda was the large village of Deuteros, a settlement important enough to contain within its precincts sufficient treasures to attract a war band's attention.

Meanwhile, the local Turmarch, Yannis Zimiskes, had gathered the remnants of Pithikos's command, and added to it such reinforcements as to offer hope that the Bulgar raiders' aims might yet be thwarted.  With part of his foot infantry, he garrisoned the town, and, as Pithikos had done at Hapas, stationed his own person and entourage there to supervise the defence.  The bulk of his heavy horse he placed in the right; the skoutatoi, covered by the light horse, to the left of the place."
Michael Psellophanes, Byzantiad

The armies were:

Bulgar Raiders:

• Command, Tarkhan Tiercel
• 1 x Heavy Horse Archers, javelins, bow, (elite)
• 1 x Heavy Horse Archers, javelins, bow, (average)
• 2 x Light Horse Archers, javelins, bow, (average)
• 2 x Spearmen, spears (average)

Six units, two each of heavy horse, light horse and spearmen, @2SP; 12 SP.

Byzantine Defenders:

• Command, Turmarch Yannis Zimiskes, 
• 2 x Heavy Horse, 1/2 lance, 1/2 bow, (average)
• 1 x Light horse, 1/2 lance, 1/2 bow, (average)
• 1 x Heavy infantry, 1/2 spear/pike, 1/2 bow, (average)
  
• 1 x loose-order Medium infantry, spear, javelins, (poor)

Five units @2SP; 10 SP.

After the first action, in which the Bulgars opened the ball, in subsequent battles the sides rolled for the initiative. As seemed to be a consistent feature of this whole campaign so far, the Bulgars (green dice in the pictures) emphatically seized the initiative and went boldly into the attack. Part of he heavy horse, backed up by lights, went in on the left against the massed Byzantine heavy cavalry. Spearmen undertook the attack in the centre, with the Tarkhan urging on the charge. 

Bulgars win the initiative...

... and attack

The lines holding firm on the Bulgar left, the situation was more mixed in the centre.  The garrison repulsed the Bulgar spearmen, but, a panic setting in led them to abandon the village themselves.  For a brief moment it seemed that the Bulgars might have secured another quick and easy victory, but he Turmarch, rallying his peltastoi, reoccupied the place.  Just in time, for the Bulgars were soon back.

Bulgars have thrown back by the garrison,
who then evacuate the town.

Soon rallied, both sides were once again battling along the north edge of the town.  On the flanks, neither side seemed able to establish an ascendancy or even to inflict much hurt upon the enemy.

As the fighting grew more protracted, however, the defenders gradually began top edge back their assailants, from the town, and on the Byzantine right as well.

Bulgars driven back from the town.

This reverse seemed to galvanise the raiders to greater efforts. The Tarkhan called up his reserve heavy cavalry to assist his spearmen in front of the town.  As a result, all along the line, both sides began to feel the strain of the fighting, the Byzantines losing three Strength Points and the Bulgars two.  

Bulgars put in an extra effort
to stem the Byzantine advance.

Bulgars take terrible losses, and the Tarkhan
meets his demise.

"For long the two armies struggled, first one side then the other prevailing. Suddenly, the Bulgar left fell back with loss. In the centre, the battle line of spears collapsed altogether. Somewhere in the rout the Tarkhan caught an arrow in the throat that occasioned his immediate decease. This time it seemed that the Imperialists might have won a signal victory, the Bulgars on the brink of defeat.  A local Boyar, hight Edsel, taking over the command, rallied the raiders to a final effort. The battle raged on..."
Michael Psellophanes, Byzantiad

The end of the Tarkhan...

It was certain that the Romans failed to capitalise on their successes, for Edsel seized the initiative and renewed the close assault upon the defenders' lines.  

Bulgars don't give up easily - not when there is 
loot.  Here, they again win the initiative! 

The spears on the right pushing forward against the refused Byzantine left covered the charge of the Bulgar light horse into the flank of the peltastoi, just as the Boyar's heavies thundered into their front.  Even the Bulgar left had arrested their enemy's momentum and began pushing them back. This proved to be a shortlived success, as the Bulgar heavies here suddenly disintegrated.  Only the light horse archers in this sector of the field remained to oppose the Byzantine kavallarioi.

To offset this loss, the Bulgars came for the second time within an ace of victory. At first, the peltastoi spearmen seemed to be holding comfortably enough, inflicting a Strength Point loss upon the Boyar's horse. As suddenly as had the Bulgar left, the Roman centre folded, and the surviving fugitives fled back through the town. With them went the Turmarch himself.  

The Bulgar heavy horse charging...

Hastily bringing across his prokoursatores light horse to defend the town, the Turmarch successfully intercepted the Bulgar, just barely betimes. 

Here I decided that the Built Up Area, though the major feature of its grid square, did not occupy all of it, or even most of it. There is no doubt that troops that could make best tactical use of the feature would certainly do so, but those that could not would defend the place in front of the town, in the open.

In the ensuing fight, both sides incurred heavy losses. Then it was the Bulgar turn to suffer a unit collapse.  By now the Byzantines had lost 5SP, the Bulgars 8 plus their commander. The mention of the Boyar has a narrative purpose only - to keep the Bulgars in the fight, but he is represented by no command figure. Without that command support, the early Bulgar advantage had probably by now been reduced to less than evens.  The issue was still in doubt!

Now was the time for Yannis Zimiskes to take the fight to the enemy. The Bulgar centre having collapsed altogether it remained only for him to complete the breakthrough into the enemy rear.  At the same time, the skoutatoi on the left had driven back the enemy spearmen. Following up, they caught the Bulgar horse archers and flung them back onto the spears.  

But the Bulgars yet retained some resource. Recovering themselves, the spearmen advanced resolutely to meet the foe, whilst the light horse archers flung themselves onto the flank of the pursuing Byzantine centre.  

Turning upon this new enemy, the prokoursatores fought off the enemy light horse, whilst the skoutatoi  fought the Bulgar spearmen to a standstill. There was to be no recovery this time.  

The the Byzantine mounted arm routed the Bulgar light horse in the right and in the centre.  All that remained of a formed body of the raiders were their battered spearmen, making off under cover of the fading daylight. There would be slim pickings this raid...

It was plain at this point that the raid was a complete failure, despite the two earlier Bulgar victories.  Eleven Strength Points the Bulgars lost in this battle; to just five Byzantine. Yet, twice, this battle could have ended in a Bulgar victory, but for the timely recovery of a unit apparently beaten, or the intervention of an unengaged unit. Though it didn't 'go the distance', or yield the raiders much in the way of loot, it might very easily have done.

For the Fast-Play 3x3 Portable Wargame (FP3x3PW), I am thinking of making certain slight modifications to the core rules the better to reflect the 'troop types' that were available to the various peoples in and around Asia Minor at around the end of the First Millenium. There is plenty of variety - from the almost all mounted light horse of the Pechenegs and Seljuk Turks, to the almost all foot of the Rus, to the charging cavalry ('knights') of the Normans and the more balanced army of the Abasgians.

This is an interesting period, full of intrigue, double dealing, treachery and dire battles for survival. Ruled by strong emperors, the Byzantine Empire was going though a phase of expansion. Yet it was beset not only by so many adversaries, but menaced - as the Roman Empire ever had been - by an enemy within. I've begun work on a campaign game, working title Byzantiad, with the idea of building in some of the multiple perils and hazards the empire had to face.

The Deuteros Raid - Combat on the Road

Battle lines drawn.  The Bulgars (green die)
with the initiative roll...

'Correctly anticipating that the Bulgar raiders would make their destructive way towards Deuteros, the defeated Commandant of Hapax gathered his small host, intercepted them on the way. Hard by the Forest of April, where the way narrowed, George Pithikos drew up his line, the peltastoi in ambush in the forest itself; the skoutatoi heavy infantry on the left, and himself with the kavallarioi in the centre. The light horse prokoursatores covered the front of the skoutatoi.

The Bulgars matched the Roman deployment: foot and light horse on the wings; heavy cavalry in the centre.  The Tarkhan Tiercel stood with the heavy horse. Having drawn up their battle array, the Bulgars at once surged forward, all along the line...'
Michael Psellophanes, Byzantiad

So fierce was the Bulgar onset that the protection of the forest availed the peltastoi nothing, and the extra weight of their horse (two units to one) drove in the Byzantine centre with loss. The Byzantine left held, but barely.

The Bulgars successful along the whole front. The 
red counter under the Tarkhan actually represents 
an SP lost to the Byzantine prokoursatores beside him

Having reached the Byzantine base line in just two turns, winning the initiative in both, the Bulgars quickly obtained the victory. Pithikos's command had been contemptuously brushed aside.

This action barely lasted ten minutes, and was all one-way traffic.  The Byzantine losses amounted to 3SP; the Bulgars, none.  The Tarkhan could be well pleased.  The next stop would be Deuteros - a large prosperous village, just ripe for the picking.  But there they were to find a formidable opponent, the Strategos, Yannis Zimiskes with a sizeable army...

The Deuteros Raid

 'The second year of Michael Ponos, Emperor, was a year of constant pressure from without the Byzantine Imperium, and revolt within.  The armies, provincial and imperial both, found themselves constantly on the march, when they were not in action, withal.  In the early spring of 998, a considerable Bulgar raiding party, led by the local kavkhan, Attishu, made an attack across the river Potomos in an attempt to seize the border village of Hapax.  This place being a border market town, wherein met every day peoples from both sides of the water, this was to be the lucrative beginning of what was hoped by the Bulgars to be a profitable foray.  The ultimate aim  was the rich town of Tetrakis, several miles inside Byzantine territories.

Pakourianos Dryos, the local commandant Hapax and its hinterland, had heard rumours of Bulgar preparations for the attack, and prepared according to the resources available to him.  He resolved in the first instance to oppose the river crossing at Hapax itself.  For all his determination, he still apprehended the small size of his force that he could bring against the Scythian* hordes...' 
Michael Psellophanes, Byzantiad.

Such is the generating circumstance of my second foray into Mark Cordone's 3x3 battleboard concept.  Since its inception, the concept has been expanded into 6 battlefields.  These six seemed to me to form the basis of a campaign comprising a sequence of battles - a raid, withal.  Here is the plot.

1. The battleboard maps:

Maps 1 and 2

Maps 3 and 4

Maps 5 and 6

2. The Bulgar raiders begin at the top of Map 1, and work their way, top down, through the maps in succession until they reach Map 6 - the bountiful town of Tetrakis.

3. The composition of the raiders' force is constant:

• Commander, Kavkhan Attishu (who may be replaced if killed) 
• 1 noble heavy horse archer with javelins and bow (elite)
• 1 noble heavy horse archer with javelins and bow (average)
• 2 light horse archers with javelins and bow (average)
• 2 close order infantry with spear (average)
  
    

4.  The defending Byzantine forces vary over time.  They begin with

• Commander, a local commandant name of George Pithikos, or a higher commander later on.
• 1 heavy cavalry unit (kavallarioi) with lance and bow (average)
• 1 light cavalry unit (prokoursatores)with lance and bow (average)
• 1 close order infantry unit (skoutatoi) with spear and bow (average)
• 1 loose order infantry unit (peltastoi) with spear and javelins (poor).
  

5.  Possibly for this campaign, the skoutatos unit should could as 'poor' spearmen when faced by other spearmen, but 'average' when facing horse and other foot; and 'average' for shooting.

5. For the battles in Maps 3 and 4, the Byzantines add a second heavy cavalry unit.

6. For the battles in Maps 5 and 6, the Byzantines add a third heavy cavalry unit.

7. For this campaign I used Developing the Portable Wargame rule set with Mark Cordone's 'Fall of Rome' 3x3 game system.

8. All units begin with 2 Strength Points only (2SP).  I did consider staying with the 'standard' Portable Wargames SP, but I tend to regard this 3x3 version as 'PW-Lite' or 'PW-Quickplay'.  As such the 2SP system 'feels' about right, here, and qualitative differences among the units - weapons, training, esprit du corps etc - have to be brought out by other means.  I've stayed with the PW 'standard' in this regard, but possible refinements might be considered.

Battle of Hapax 

To face the impending invasion, the commandant, George Pithikos, placed himself with his loose-order peltastoi spearmen in Hapax town itself, and line the river bank to the left with his skoutatoi foot and to the right with his heavy cavalry unit.  His light horse he retained in reserve.  

Initial set-up. The river is the border between Bulgar and Byzantine Empires; the town is Hapax, garrisoned by 1 unit of heavy and one of light cavalry; 1 unit of heavy infantry, and one of loose-order mediums. The last defends the town, led by the commandant in person.

The Kavkhan's plan was with his light horse to engage the flanks in a cross river archery duel in the hope of weakening the defenders before charging across with his heavies.  In the centre, he led his spearmen to storm the bridge into the town itself.  

First blood went to the raiders when accurate archery inflicted serious losses among the kavallarioi east of the town.

Bulgars close up to the riverbank, and a shooting war begins on the flanks. First blood to the Bulgars! Each counter represents an SP lost. 

Heavy losses on both sides from horse archery on the flanks, as the Bulgars have made no attempt yet to force the river crossings there; and battle royal as the Bulgar spearmen, led by Kavkhan Attishu storm the bridge.

The town being forced, the Byzantines win the next initiative roll, and the right to counter-attack. Had the Bulgars won the initiative roll, the battle would have ended, right there, with a Bulgar victory.  But now, so savage was the fighting that the peltastoi fought themselves into exhaustion in evicting the Bulgars the town, and slew the Kavkhan in the process! This looks like an ignominious end to the raid before it has properly begun!

Under the cover of the prokoursatores light horse, the skoutatoi infantry entered the village and prepare the place for defence. Note that as the condition for victory is to reach the enemy baseline in at least one sector, with no possibility of being driven back as has just happened, I took that as superseding the Strength Point loss criterion.  Meanwhile, although the peltastoi disintegrated, their Commandant remained in the fight, ready to lead where his presence would be most needed.

Momentarily taken aback by the reverses along the front, the Bulgars soon recovered their determination to take the town.  Command assumed by Tarkhan Tiercel, they were very soon once more pressing along the river line.

Battle of the bridge.  Both sides score hits...

...and both sides lose a Strength Point.

So  the fight was not yet over. Bulgar heavy horse finally forced the river crossings either side of the town, and the reserve body of spears, with light horse supporting (presumably with their arrows), tried once again to force a crossing. Already both sides took further losses.

Bulgars victorious! The skoutatoi were forced back, but there being no space available in the Reserve Area, they were eliminated. The Bulgars having forced the crossing all along the line, and only two Byzantine units remaining, it is not possible for them to recover all the lost ground, whichever side won the initiative at this point.

This was a pretty tough and hard-fought battle, with heavy losses on both sides, actually in favour of the Byzantines (6SP lost out of 8; Bulgars, 7 out of 12).  But, although facing defeat with the fall of the Kavkhan, it ended with an undoubted Bulgar victory.  Having given themselves over to a day or so sacking the town, the raiders gathered themselves together to plunge further into Imperial lands.  

 Awaiting them was George Pithikos, with his reconstituted command.

To be continued: Combat on the road.

* Scythian - generic Byzantine term for Asiatic hordes of just about any kind...