Battle of Dekaexi

 A Byzantine Battle Using the MicroBattle Rules

Although much delayed, I finally am posting a Byzantine-themed battle. I am using my generic, 3mm miniatures so you'll have to use your imagination that they are what I call them. ;)

A Sassanid Persian invasion force (blue/black) has crossed into Byzantine territory. The Emperor has sent out a force to intercept and destroy the enemy.

The vanguards meet near the village of Dekaexi. While the Byzantine light cavalry gets there first, the Persians have the numbers.

And they force out the Byzantines.

But the rest of the Imperial vanguard arrives. A wild melee begins around the village.

Byzantine cataphracts overrun their Persian counterpart.

Then they get cut down by a rain of arrows from the Persian archers (in the village) and light cavalry.

The Byzantine infantry advances. Persian cavalry tries to halt them, but they are routed.

Seeing their comrades flee, the remaining Sassanid forces break and run.

A victory for the Empire!

Notes

Some points about this battle:

I used MicroBattle as the rules for this game

The scenario came from my new, hardcopy version of One-Hour Wargames. I used a new technique for picking the scenario; one that I can't really do with my Kindle version. I just randomly opened the book to a page and chose the scenario on that page. I ended up with # 16 - Advance Guard. Each army represents a patrol sent out to scout the enemy. It seems like a great start to a campaign. So the Byzantines are up 1-0.

I randomly rolled on OHW's army generation charts to select my forces. I used the infantry-heavy Dark Ages list for the Byzantines and the cavalry-heavy Medieval list for the Persians. I had to supplement the Persian cavalry with some stands from my black army. All my blue cavalry are missing a strip of figures so I designated them as light cavalry. The full 3-strip black cavalry became cataphracts. I did a similar designation with the Byzantine cavalry. I used a stand of light infantry as archers, and treated archers and skirmishers the same. Overall, I felt that my army generation fudges worked quite well.

I intended to play the full 15 turns as specified in the scenario, but the Persians broke before the time ended. Because having an army morale rule causes battles to end early (OHW armies fight to the last unit), I think I need to shorten the number of turns. I may experiment with 10 turns. This battle went 8 turns so 10 turns seems about right. I'll try it with the next battle.