Casilinum 554 AD
The Battle of Volturno River as
a Scenario for l‘Art de la Guerre
“(…) Yes, Hildebad is strong, very
strong, even if he is not quite as strong as Winithar and Walamer and the
others I knew in my youth. And strength is a good thing against Germanic
peoples like our own. But these southerners fight from walls and towers. They
conduct war like an exercise in arithmetic, and in the end they can calculate
an army of warriors into a corner where they can barely move. I know of one
such master tactician in Byzantium. He is not a man himself, and yet he defeats
men. You know him too I think,
Witigis.”
The last words were addressed to the
one with the sword, who had become very serious. “Yes, I know Narses, and I am
afraid that what you have said is only too true. (…)” (Old Hildebrand’s words
in Felix Dahn’s novel “A Struggle for
Rome”)
Our gaming group enjoys two types of wargaming
with miniatures equally, historical simulations as well as free or competitive
gaming. Accordingly we usually favour different kinds of rules for these games.
On the one hand detailed sets with a relatively narrow chronological or
geographical focus on a specific historical period or setting (e.g. Johnny Reb,
Napoleon’s Battles) to provide “period flair” and historical precision for
simulations. On the other hand, with an eye on army list-based gaming and
competitions, we like certain established rulesets covering the traditional
„Ancients“ (and Medieval) periods in wargaming, covering the whole
pre-gunpowder era ca. 3000 BC – 1500 AD (e.g. WRG 6th Edition,
ARMATI, DBA).
For some time now our main attention has been
focused on the l’Art de la Guerre rules, playing Ancient and Medieval battles
mainly with 15mm miniatures. We have been enjoying this greatly. Mostly we have
used historical match-ups, but no historical orders of battle. For a long time I have been interested in
trying out some of the “established” Ancients rule sets and army lists for a
researched historical scenario. The idea was quickly born to use the ADLG rules
and the official army lists for a simulation game, and find out in how the
results compare with the historical events.
I decided on a standard 200 points game with
15mm figures on an 80x120 cm table with the plan to stick as closely as possible
to the standard rules and army lists, as they would be used at a competition. A
suitable historical battle was quickly found: Casilinum 554 AD, mainly because
my Justinian Byzantine army had just been painted and based. But the battle
fits the purpose also for other reasons, it is comparatively well-documented
through a relatively detailed written account, the numbers involved fit the ADLG
scales quite nicely and, last but not least, the very different character of
the two armies promised an interesting game.
The relevant primary source is a written
account of the battle by Agathias, a byzantine historian of the 6th Century.
The Historical Background
The Battle of Casilinum was one of the last
chapters in the epic story of Emperor Justinian’s re-conquest of the West. After
in the Fall of 552 AD the Eastern Roman general Narses had ultimately decided
the Gothic War for the Empire in the battle of Mons Lactarius, where Teia, last
king of the Ostrogoths, fell, a Frankish army invaded Italy in the Spring of
553 AD.
The Franks had been allied to the Ostrogoths
earlier, when Witigis had appealed to them for help, but they had proven to be
very unreliable. Now they apparently saw the unstable situation in Itay as a
chance for plunder or even conquest. The army is described as very large and
seems to have been recruited completely or at least mainly from the recently
subjugated Alamannic territories of the Merovingian kingdom. This army was led
by two brothers, Butilin(us) and Leuthari (Lothar). While Narses was occupied
with besieging the remaining Ostrogothic garrisons, the Franks advanced into
the South of Italy. There the Frankish host split into halves, one part, under
Leuthari, was apparently decimated by a plague and perished in Southern Italy. The
other part, under Butilin, turned back north. Butilin’s still sizeable force
was also afflicted by hunger and disease when Narses blocked their way in
Campania, at the river Volturnus (modern Volturno), near Capua, and offered
battle. According to Agathias Butinin’s men had picked unripe grapes to quench
hunger and thirst after their supplies had been blocked by the Romans, and many
had fallen ill. In spite of this the Frankish army still outnumbered Narses’
troops and Butilin therefore aggressively sought battle.
The
Franks crossed the Volturno near the ancient city of Capua, by the small town
of Casilinum. Here is where they met the Eastern Roman army that Narses had
assembled and marched from Rome. Narses’ polyglot army consisted of regular
units and barbarian federates, including a contingent of Heruls. Shortly before
the battle there was an incident which put the loyalty of this force in doubt. A
Herulian captain had killed a slave for a negligible offence and Narses treated
this breach of discipline as murder and had the man executed. The irate Heruls
under their leader Sindual threatened to mutiny and fell back in the Eastern
Roman column during deployment. Narses deployed his troops defensively, with a
phalanx of regular infantry, stiffened by dismounted cavalry and supported from
behind by missile troops. Initially there remained a gap in the centre, meant
to be filled by the still approaching Heruls. On the right wing there was regular
cavalry and some Huns and Narses himself with his bodyguard of Bucellarii. On
the Roman left wing there was more regular cavalry and Bucellarii under the
generals Artabanes and Valerian. In this sector was a wood, behind which a part
of the Eastern Roman force hid in ambush.
The Franks, who had been informed about an
impending mutiny in the imperial army by some Herulian deserters, approached in
their characteristically aggressive fashion. With the river in their back they
deployed in a large “Wedge” formation, which Agathias compares to the shape of
the Greek letter delta, and refers to with the Germanic expression “boar’s
head”. They advanced in a staggered, echeloned Formation that looked like a
flat triangle, with dismounted nobles and the best warriors at the front and
two wings stretching backwards, leaving an open space in the middle. If
Agathias’ description is correct, this is an interesting reference to the
typical Germanic “wedge” formation, which has often been misinterpreted as an
arrowhead-shape, but is now commonly interpreted as a deep attack column. Agathias’
specific mentioning of a triangle could simply be a literary invention or it
could imply that here three columns formed the wedge, a centre “head” and,
staggered back to protect its flanks, two “wings”. This is the interpretation
by Roy Boss and since it fits the command system of ADLG very nicely, I decided
to follow this.
The Frankish attack broke through the Eastern
Roman centre and reached Narses’ camp, while they were enveloped on both flanks
by Roman cavalry. Continuous missile fire from mounted archers caused high
casualties among the mainly unarmoured Franks, allegedly by firing over the
nearest wing of the Frankish wedge into the unshielded sides of the warriors on
the opposite wing. In the centre the day was saved for the Eastern Roman Franks
by the Heruls who belatedly arrived after Sindual’s loyalty to Rome (or, more
likely, Narses’ paychest) had gotten the better of his earlier indignation. The
Heruls threw back the Franks from the Roman camp and the Frankish formation
collapsed under pressure from three sides. Butilin’s army was driven into the
river and annihilated. Narses’ decisive victory ended the episode of the
Frankish campaign in Italy.
The Scenario
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L’Art de la Guerre - Historical
Scenario
The Battle of Casilinum, 554 AD
The Eastern Romans (125. Justinian Byzantine) 200P.
Left
Wing: Sub-General Artabanes (Competent Commander)
1X
Bucellarii Heavy Cavalry Impact Bow Elite
5X
Kavallaroi Heavy Cavalry Bow (historical set-up: 3 Units in Ambush)
Centre: Sub-General Sindual (Unreliable Commander)
4X Lombards
& Gepids Heavy Spearmen
4X Roman
Heavy Swordsmen Mediocre with missile support
1X Roman Light
Infantry Bow
Fortified
Camp
Right
Wing: C-in-C Narses (Strategist), included
1X
Bucellarii* Heavy Cavalry Impact Bow Elite
3X
Kavallaroi Heavy Cavalry Bow
1 X Huns
Light Cavalry Bow Elite
The Franks (144. Merovingian Frankish) 200 P.
Left
Wing: Sub-General
(Competent Commander), included
7X Heavy
Swordsmen Impetuous
1X Light
Infantry Bow
Centre (Franks): C-in-C Butilinus (Competent Commander),
included
4X Heavy
Cavalry Impetuous Elite, dismounted (Heavy
Swordsmen Impetuous Elite Armoured)
3X Heavy
Swordsmen Impetuous
1X Light
Infantry Javelin
Fortified
Camp
Right
Wing Sub-General (Competent
Commander), included
7X Heavy
Swordsmen Impetuous
1X Light
Infantry Bow
Scenario Rules:
Deployment:
The Franks
are considered the attacker. The Eastern Romans start with the set-up, the
Franks have the first move.
The only
compulsory terrain piece is a maximum sized wood in the Eastern Roman left
flank sector.
Optional
terrain pieces can only be smaller woods, fields or plantations and are only
allowed in the flank sectors.
Historical
set-up:
The compulsory wood is the only terrain piece
and contains an Eastern Roman ambush marker which hides 3 units Heavy Cavalry
Bow from the left flank command. The fortified camps of both players are placed
at the table edge (or river bank) in the front sector.
Free
set-up:
There is 1
additional optional terrain piece per player which can only be placed in the
flank sectors, the Eastern Roman player has then 3 ambush markers with the
normal rules.
Additional
option:
The
Volturnus River can be set up along the base edge of the Frankish player as an
impassable terrain piece. For historical set-ups this is highly recommended.
OOB Byzantines
OOB Franks
The Game
We played the scenario three times for test and
have played it several times after that. All games we had were close, exciting
and balanced with the luck of battle shifting back and forth. The first three
games had each a different outcome. The first game was a victory for the
Franks, who had reached 22 of 26 demoralization points in the final bound, the
Eastern Romans were demoralized with 24 demoralization points vs. their
breakpoint of 21. The second game was an Eastern Roman victory, they received
20 out of 21 demoralization points while the Franks exactly reached their
breakpoint of 26 in the final bound. The third game was a draw, with both sides
simultaneously reaching their respective breakpoints during the last bound.
Here is a short report of the first game
(Butilin’s victory):
The Frankish
player deployed the three commands shoulder to shoulder, forming a flat
triangle. The central command stood two units deep, the flank commands each in
two colums, staggered back outwards. This corresponded relatively closely to
the description of the “boar’s head”.
The
advance of the Franks was straightforward in the centre, at the flanks the Frankish
commands wheeled outwards towards the threatening cavalry. By doing so the
commands disintegrated into separate columns which could not all succeed in extending
and forming proper battle lines.
The
focal problem for the Franks was the lack of manoeuvrability of their impetuous
troops. The Frankish player tried to solve this problem by usually advancing at
full speed and, where necessary, wheeling as far as possible.
On the
flanks the Eastern Roman player advanced with his cavalry into bowshot range and
evaded the Frankish charges. Also,
when necessary, the cavalry disengaged from melee. The Frankish units
on the flanks took casualties from missile fire and their formation slowly but
surely lost cohesion.
The
game was decided by a mistake of the Eastern Roman player who did not act
defensively enough in the centre. He gave the Franks the opportunity to get
into hand to hand combat one turn too early. The Roman centre was overwhelmed and
the camp plundered. However, at the end it was still surprisingly close,
because the units of Bucellarii on both flanks wiped out several weakened units
of tribal warriors. But the Eastern Roman player did not manage to cause enough
casualties quickly enough to balance out his own losses in the centre.
The "Boar's Head"
Alamannic Camp Life
The Franks march forth
Artabanes
The Clash of Battle
Close Combat
Sindual and the Heruls
Butilin Breaks Through
Narses' Counter-Attack
The Sack of the Camp: "Oh, look - a clean toga, how nice!"
Thoughts regarding the scenario
In my representation of the battle I follow
largely the account of Agathias, although the famous military historian Hans
Delbrück rejects it as completely invented. A very clear and convincing modern
interpretation of Agathias’ description of the battle can be found in
“Justinian’s Wars” by Roy Boss, from Montvert Publications. For the conversion
of the battle account into a wargame several basic decisions had to be made,
considering the interpretation of historical information within the framework
of the rules and army lists.
The first consideration are the numbers given
by Agathias in connection with the scale of troop representation in the
scenario. According to the source the Franco-Alemannic army had originally
numbered 75,000-80,000 men and the part under Butilin was allegedly still
30,000 strong when battle commenced. Narses army is mentioned to have been
18,000 strong. Delbrück believes these numbers to be wildly exaggerated,
especially regarding the Franks. He even suggests a superiority in numbers for
the Eastern Romans. Doubts are surely justified regarding Agathias’ numbers,
since a deployment of 80,000 warriors was certainly beyond the logistical
capacity of the Merovingians at this time, in particular if the army was indeed
recruited exclusively from the Alemannic part of the realm. Roy Boss
reconstructs the numbers at 18,000 for Narses (6000 cavalry, 12,000 infantry)
and Butilin as having 22,000 warriors in three “battles” (or wings), 8000
Franks in the centre, including an elite of dismounted nobles, and 7000
Alemannic warriors on each wing. I believe that the notion of both armies being
roughly 15,000-20,000 strong might be realistic, perhaps the Romans a little
weaker and the Franks a little stronger. During Late Antiquity and the
Migrations Period armies were usually small, but a figure of roughly 20,000 per
side seems to have been a fairly typical number found in larger and decisive
field battles. If one does not discount Agathias’ account as pure fantasy and
considers that Narses’ army was originally scattered around Italy and could not
have been completely assembled without lifting various sieges of remaining
Gothic garrisons, one can draw a picture that fits the framework of the ADLG
army lists very well. In my reconstruction I follow the scales suggested in the
ADLG rules and assume one unit of close order infantry to equal ca. 1000 men,
with half as many for Skirmishers. One unit of cavalry equals ca. 300 soldiers.
Therefore in the orders of battle for the scenario I have ca. 16,000 Eastern
Romans (including ca. 3300 cavalry), facing ca. 23,000 Franks. This is
surprisingly close to the primary source. I did however simplify it by counting
the missile support of the regular Roman foot units as full units of missile
troops in the representation. Hopefully this does not disturb the attempt at
simulation too much, since the role of the Roman regular missile troops, as
described in the source and reconstructed by Roy Boss and others, was actually
precisely what “missile support” does in ADLG. There is no mentioning of the
relatively numerous foot units with missile weapons in Narses’ army taking
anything like an independent battlefield role but are exclusively mentioned to
support the Roman infantry by shooting overhead from a second line or the back
ranks.
The representation of the Heruls is a difficult
question, they could have been either relatively independent allies or semi-regular
mercenaries, who were integrated into the Roman army. They are referred to as
“federates”. There was a proven trend for such “Barbarian” units in the Eastern
Roman or Byzantine army to become more and more regular and sometimes even
acquire elite or guards status. On the other hand the imperial army in Italy
consisted of recruits from various different ethnic origins, many of who would
even be habitually ready to change sides when payment was in arrears. The
source stresses the Heruls, under their own commander Sindual, as a separate
contingent, but they were part of a “Roman” army in which Armenians, Huns and
various Germans served next to actual Romans. Because Narses had a Herulian
captain executed, which implies that this contingent was fully subjected to
Roman discipline, I prefer to treat these federates as integral part of the
Roman army rather than as allies. However, the mutinous mood of the Heruls and
doubtful loyalty of Sindual should be depicted in the scenario as a significant
aspect of the historical battle, as should be the possibility of a belated
arrival of the Heruls. Since I wanted to stick to the usual structure of
standard games, I ruled out fielding the Heruls as a fourth command in the
Eastern Roman army. Therefore I decided to put the whole Roman centre,
including the regular troops, under Sindual’s command and classify him as an
unreliable commander. This believably depicts both the defensive (if not
passive) behaviour of the regular infantry phalanx as well as the unreliability
and potentially belated participation of Sindual and his Heruls in the battle
within the mechanics of the game. Historically a sound alternative could be to have the Heruls as
off-table reserves and dicing for their arrival.
The only terrain features mentioned in the
source are a wood on the left Roman flank, behind which part of the cavalry
hides, and the river some way in the back of the Frankish army. The ambush
described by Agathias can be nicely represented with the rules for ambushes in
ADLG, which are a very nice aspect of this rule set. The scenario prescribes
one Roman ambush marker in the left flank sector, with which I follow Roy
Boss’s interpretation and my own understanding of Agathias. There are however
modern interpretations of the battle which suggest wooded areas and Roman
cavalry ambushes on both wings. I therefore included the option to use
additional terrain pieces in both flank sector and, accordingly, up to 3 ambush
markers for the Eastern Roman player.
Report of the second game:
In the following you find a picture report of
our second game (Narses‘ victory):
The deplaoyment corresponded closely to the first
game, again we decided on a historical set-up. The Frankish player grouped his
commands in the “boear’s head”. However, the Frankish commands spread out more
quickly this time and wheeled outwards, so that a reverse “U” shape was formed
out of three “shield walls”, unlike the parallel columns of the first game.
The Eastern Roman player this time kept his centre
still further back and held spearmen in reserve to move into the front before
contact and create overlaps in important combats.
It turned out that the Eastern Roman centre was,
despite the best efforts, still much weaker than the Franks The respite won by
more patience and clever exploitation of local numerical superiorities was
enough to give the Eastern Roman cavalry the opportunity to cause enough
casualties to demoralize the Franks.
The Battlefield
The Deployment
The Eastern Romans
The Franks
The First Round
The Decision
The End
The 15mm miniatures are from Old Glory (Franks) and Donnington Miniatures (Eastern Romans), the camps are from Baueda and Alternative Armies with bits and pieces from Essex Miniatures and Donnington Miniatures. The bases are from Litko Aerosystems.
The Sources:
Agathias, Histories, II 3-9
Boss, Roy, Justinian's Wars: Belisarius, Narses and the Reconquest of the West (Montvert Publications), 1993
Macdowall, Simon, Conquerors of the Roman Empire: The Franks (Pen&Sword Military), 2018
Conclusion:
We found that all games were a race against time. The Franks (especially the noble elite warriors) can, when given the chance, usually smash the Eastern Roman centre. However, they have command issues and are relatively slow. Meanwhile the Romans (in particular the Bucellarii) are very strong on the flanks and can casuse a lot of damage there.
The games were all great fun and the repeated playing of the same scenario with unchanged troops composition helped us to get a better feeling for the finer points of the rules and the respective capabilities of troop types. We found it to be a very positive experience that under ADLG realistic historical results are not only possible, but the rules actually reward players who follow the historical tactics of their armies.
The games were all great fun and the repeated playing of the same scenario with unchanged troops composition helped us to get a better feeling for the finer points of the rules and the respective capabilities of troop types. We found it to be a very positive experience that under ADLG realistic historical results are not only possible, but the rules actually reward players who follow the historical tactics of their armies.
We would of course be grateful for any feedback concerning the scenario and our games!
Yogsothoth
