Dancing on Ice: A Scenario based on the Battle of Ister River

The Sarmatians were a group of nomadic tribes who lived in the Pontic steppe region which spans from modern day Hungary through to Ukraine. They had a warlike reputation and had supported the Dacians in earlier campaigns. Their cavalry is even thought to be depicted on Trajan’s column dressed in scale armour all over their bodies and horses.

By AD 172 Marcus Aurelius had defeated the Germanic Marcomanni tribe, an attempt to consolidate the northern borders of the Roman empire. The Sarmatians however had shown themselves to be a continual nuisance to these plans. The Iazyges Sarmatian tribe led by Tarbus had broken earlier promises of peace and supported a provincial revolt leading to the death of Claudius Fronto, a Roman commander in AD 169. The following year, the Roxolani Sarmatians with Dacian allies had raided deep into Greece before being defeated. The Iazyges became even more of a danger when the Germanic Quadi tribe deposed their pro-Roman king and allied to the Sarmatians under their new king Ariogaesus.

This new tribal alliance of Sarmatian Iazyges and Quadi raided over the Danube into Roman Pannonia in AD 173. Fortunately, the onset of an early winter forced the raiders to retire back towards the Danube with their loot. The Ister River (Danube) had frozen over and the Sarmatians were able to drag their loot over the ice. The Romans were however in hot pursuit, and the Sarmatian force decided that this was an ideal moment to confront the Romans on the frozen river. They wrongly believed that the Romans would be vulnerable on the ice and the Iazyges would have an advantage because they had trained their horses to ride on the ice and keep their footing.

The Roman force formed a large square and advanced to meet the Iazyges. The Iazyges attempted to double envelop the Roman formation but failed to successfully overwhelm either wing because of the Roman deployment. The Iazyges then tried to charge home into the Roman heavy infantry. The cunning Romans had passed their shields forward from the bank ranks and laid them on the ice to provide a more stable footing for the soldiers in the front ranks. While both sides slipped on the ice as they met, the Iazyges lost their forward momentum and once halted, the Romans were able to overwhelm the stationary Iazyges, wrestling them from their horses. The heavier armour and tight ranks of the Romans eventually helped them to overcome the Sarmatians leading to a significant Roman victory.

SPECIAL RULES

Single Acies: As the Roman forces are considerably outnumbered with regards cavalry, they may choose to deploy their legions in a single acies formation (see p56 of the rulebook for more details).

Frozen Ister River: The Frozen River may be moved over as normal terrain, however by expending a Strategy Point during your opponent’s phase, you can force them to re-roll a successful manoeuvre test to represent how difficult it was to move in formation on the ice. Note this special rule may challenge the normal precedent of never re-rolling a re-roll. If you feel this is too cumbersome, you may prefer to simply modify all manoeuvre tests made on the ice with a -1 to the dice roll.

Cracking ice: Historically the ice seems to have been pretty solid, however for extra fun you may wish to add this extra rule. This will be particularly popular with fans of the 1938 Alexander Nevsky film! If any unit rolls a natural ‘6’ on a movement activation or on a retire or pursuit roll, place one cracked ice marker on the first square they move onto. This can be made from a square of transparent acetate with a few extra cracks painted or drawn onto it. From now onwards that square become difficult ground. If the same square has a second cracked ice marker placed upon it, then it becomes impassable terrain. Units may not enter it and will become automatically disordered if they are forced to retire onto it but cannot nor attempt to pursue onto it. If an already disordered unit is forced onto this impassable section of icy river they are drowned and destroyed as the ice breaks apart under them.

Alternative deployment

An alternative setup can create a very different scenario. In this version of the scenario the Sarmatian raiders are all deployed in a central area on the table with at least eight squares away from the northern table edge and with the Ister still to cross. They must all deploy facing away from the Romans towards the Ister and the northern edge. The Romans who follow them deploy from the southern table edge and start no closer than four squares from the Sarmatians. The Sarmatians have the first phase of play. The Sarmatians inflict a Disaster Card on the Romans if they manage to extricate their slow-moving baggage wagons, filled with booty and plunder from their raids off the northern table edge. In this version of the scenario the Quadi warbands are allowed to move north towards their own table edge and only need to move towards the nearest enemy unit if activated, and there is an enemy unit in the squares to the front of their Zone of Control. Note this is an exception from normal activation for units with the Warband characteristic.

ORDER OF BATTLE

Roman forces – Led by Marcus Aurelius, 1 Generalship Point and 3 Command Points, Points: 57. Army Break Point: 13

Iazyges Sarmatian forces – Led by Bandaspus, 1 Generalship Point and 2 Command Points, Points: 57. Army Break Point: 14

SARMATIAN ARMY LIST

In the original Strength and Honour rulebook we did not quite have the space to add a Sarmatian army list but felt players might be keen to have one. I have deliberately tinkered with the normal cataphract statistics to create a punchy, but faster armoured lancer with a weak ranged capability that, hopefully, better represents the way the Sarmatians fought. You may wish to use these as an alternative to the Cataphracts in the Dacian army list also. You still have the option to use Sarmatian Heavy Cataphracts to represent very tightly packed, well armoured noble cavalry with lances if you so choose.

Sarmatian Army 310 BC–AD 375

This list can be used to represent the various Sarmatian tribes such as the Iazyges, Rhoxolani and Alans. They spanned a vast area from the Danube to the Volga. In the first century AD the Alans seem to have expanded, putting pressure on other Sarmatian tribes to start to migrate and raid over the Danube into the Roman Empire. At the same time Alan tribes moved towards the Caucasus and into the Parthian Empire. While the early Sarmatian tribes may have relied on horse archery in the Scythian style, most of the Sarmatian tribes seem to have emphasized a ferocious mounted charge using armoured lancers which had greater speed than most eastern cataphracts, but lacked the staying power if the en

ADAPTING TO OTHER SYSTEMS 

This scenario can be easily adapted to other systems by simply using the forces suggested. For Lion Rampant, for example, the army lists become as follows: 

Romans

• 2x Bloodthirsty Veteran Heavy Infantry
• 2x Veteran Light Infantry with javelins
• 1x Heavy Cavalry 

Sarmatians

• 2x Drilled, Motivated Elite Cavalry with bows
• 2x Light Infantry with javelins
• Veteran Light Cavalry 

For larger game systems like Swordpoint or Hail Caesar, double the number of units. WS&S

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