I'm playing a historical fiction campaign about Gaius Avidius Cassius's attempt to appoint himself Emperor of Rome from his seat in Egypt, and Aurelius's fight to stop him. The plot is based on the historical events of 175 CE, but the battles never happened due to Cassius's assassination, and my Egyptian miniature army is wrong for the time period due to my limited miniature options in New Zealand. I soldier on despite these minor inconveniences, and this is the second part of my Emanes campaign.
Here's the real-life historical tidbit of this post. I'm calling this campaign Emanes in reference to a letter sent to Cassius by Herodes Atticus, a Roman noble who opposed the attempted insurrection. The letter contained just one word: emanes ("you are mad").
The Roman army won the previous battle. In this battle, the Roman army has arrived in Antioch with plans to invade the military outpost there. Their goal is to acquire the official seal of Cassius (I guess they used official seals back then?) so they can forge a letter rescending his claim to the throne. Assuming they succeed, they'll distribute the letter to the prefects of Egypt and Syria and other territories supporting Cassius to at least delay potential reinforcements. The Egyptians, of course, are defending the outpost.
The Romans advance as fast as they can toward the outpost. They're at a distinct disadvantage, moving across an empty battlefield toward an outpost, but there are some remnants of walls and gates the infantry hide behind to stay out of direct archery shot. The equites leads the charcge, with Aurelius and his squad clearing half the distance to the outpost in just one round.
The Egyptian archers send a volley of arrows at the equites and score 2 Hits. Cassius, cosplaying as Ramses II due to the models I had available to me, rides forward in his chariot in homes of cutting off the path for the equites.
There are no extra objectives in this battle, and no Kills were scored this round, so the scoreboard is unaffected.
Score so far:
The equites circumvents Cassius's chariot and reaches the front gate of the outpost, charging through the kopesh squad guarding it and scoring some Hits along the way. This gets the equites into the ground floor of the outpost, meaning they're out of range of the archers. The kopesh squad pursues the equites into the lobby and scores some Hits, but they're also Hit themselves as the horses buck and the sagitarii bash them with shields upon their approach.
The archers focus on the advancing infantry and scores some Kills. Cassius does the same. Scoring one or more Kills during a round results in a Victory Point.
Score so far:
The equites scurries upstairs. There are two loot boxes that may contain Cassius's seal, so they need to search both, but they can do that until the next round.
The battle outside rages on, with the archers and Cassius picking off Roman infantry in clusters. The Egyptian battle axe squad advances to intercept the Roman pilum squad. The kopesh squad waits downstairs, hoping to ambush the equites when they come back to the lobby. (In retrospect, this was a mis-play because the Romans have the initiative so the equites are almost certainly going to come down and attack.)
Score so far:
Aurelius and his equites get lucky! They have a cabinet or a crate they can search this round, and they choose the cabinet. They roll a d3 and score a Hit. They've obtained Cassius's offical seal. That's all they can do this round, though.
The Egyptian kopesh squad waits to ambush the equites on the ground floor. The battle axes squad attacks the Roman pilum maniple and scores Hits. Cassius continues to decimate the gladius maniple. More Victory Points, but it'll be all for naught if the Romans get away with that official seal!
Score so far:
The equites enter the lobby and attack the kopesh squad waiting there. The score some Kills, but in the next turn the kopesh squad does the same.
Cassius and the battle axe squad and the archers outside continue to lay waste to the Roman infantry. It's a slaughter, mostly down to luck of dice rolls but also thanks to those pesky archers.
Score so far:
The equites turn tail and bolt as fast as they can out of the outpost. There are only two of them left now, which doesn't bode well for them. If I'd made Aurelius a Special Operative, which grants some defensive buffs, he'd probably be alright but because my Roman army is technically a little stronger than my Egyptian army (at least, on paper!) I felt it wouldn't be fair to have a Spec Op on the Roman side. What that means, though, is that if Aurelius's standard bearer is killed, then Aurelius becomes a Straggler (a model with no squad), and Stragglers die on a Hit instead of a Kill.
As luck would have it, the archers Kill the equites standards bearer, so Aurelius is officially a Straggler by the end of the round. I rolled a d3 to see whether the standard bearer was possessed the seal or whether Aurelius did, and it seems that Aurelius has the seal (which makes sense to me, anyway).
Aurelius is easily half way across the battlefield. But will he be able to get fully off the battlefield before the archers are able to take another shot at him? Under normal circumstances, he would be able to, but he's a Straggler right now, so all it'll take is a Hit to take him out.
All around him, Roman infantry continues to fall to Cassius and the battle axe squad. The Romans do manage to take out two battle axes, though, and the pilum maniple actually scores several hits on Cassius, having surrounded his chariot.
Score so far:
Aurelius continues to speed across the battlefield. He's within one move of being off safely the battlefield but he doesn't quite make it there this round. On the Egyptian turn, the archers take aim. It's almost impossible to miss, at this point. They don't need a Kill, just a Hit.
And that's exactly what they get. Aurelius, the Emperor of Rome, is shot from his horse and falls.
But in a further twist, Cassius the usurper of the Imperial throne, has two Kills scored against him by the paltry remains of the pilum maniple and also dies!
The Egyptians and Romans continue to take swings at each other across the battlefield, and the Egyptians manage to finish off the Romans. The pilum maniple could technically have run to grab the seal and make off with it, but I figured that the archers would realistically finish them off before they reached the seal, much less the edge of the battlefield.
The game is over, and the Egyptians have succesfully defended Antioch.
Final score:
Egypt may have won the battle, but both Egypt and Rome lost the war in this case. Aurelius and Cassius are both dead, leaving the Empire without leadership. The obvious line of succession would be his son, Commodus, who in real life did begin to jointly rule Rome with Aurelius two years later in 177 CE.
I don't imagine there'd be much dispute about that in my fictional history. Some people believe that Faustina, Aurelius's wife, was the instigator of Avidius Cassius's attempted abdication because she feared that Aurelius, who was seriously ill for a time, was going to die before Commodus was old enough to rule. In theory, Commodus (son of Aurelius) and Avidius Maecianus (son of Cassius) could go to battle to decide who has the right to the throne, but Aurelius's line had the support of the Senate and the nobles, so I think even in a fictional history that battle would not be likely.
Then again, I'm looking for an excuse to play with my Roman and Egpytian armies, so maybe this is exactly the turn my fictional history will take!
Photos Creative Commons cc0.