AAR Rome vs Germans (Impetus) 14Oct18

Ian and I met up for a game of Impetus featuring my 28mm EIR and Hairy Barbarian armies, who have not been out of their boxes for a couple of years. Sorry, no photos of the actual game again; I forgot my camera, which is a pity because I think these armies look nice. Ian got the Germans using the FP (heavy infantry) option, rather than the FL (light infantry) option I normally play with. I was using Romans and opted to not take artillery, which proved a mistake.

What neither of us realised was that it was the club AGM, which lost 60-90 minutes of gaming time! Therefore I decided to go with an unsubtle battle plan to ensure game completion; normally I would use the Roman mobility to force the barbarians into uncoordinated attacks. This time I ploughed straight ahead, squeezing through a gap in some wooded terrain.  As a result, Ian was able to hold back his main body and release them as a single block at the time which worked best for him. This is where some artillery would have been useful, I could then have peppered the enemy and broken up this impetuous body of troops. Instead my main block of 3 Legionary units were hit in a coordinated manner by 4 enemy ‘large’ units. I did manage to destroy 1 of the enemy blocks and weaken a couple of others, but the Romans were ground down and destroyed losing 3VD points each!

On the plus side, my Auxillary units did good work beating the single strength warbands, but this was not enough to achieve victory. Anyway, after 5 or 6 rounds the Romans reached the 50%VD loss point compared to only 35%VD loss for the Germans. So, victory went to Ian (again!).

The next game will be ‘To The Strongest’ ancients, which Ian bought at Colours, and use armies supplied by Ian, so I’m not sure what will feature. Really looking forward to this and comparing how the rules differ from those for ECW we have previously played.

After Action Report; EIR versus Germans (Sword and Spear rules) 21 Feb 2016

For this game against Ian I decided to get my 28mm Early Imperial Roman and German barbarian armies out of the boxes and try them with Sword and Spear rules. Both armies had 470 points and used the basic (not upgraded) troop options. The Germans had 3 leaders compared to the Roman 2.

We diced for sides and I got the Romans. Next we diced for terrain and ended up with 4 pieces of rough ground which were located around the edges of the board, so we were left with a basically empty gaming area (much to my relief). Next we bid for scouting which the Germans won, but because the Romans had all the heavy foot it made no effective difference. The two armies deployed facing one another, the Germans had to utilise a second line because they had so many troops. The German cavalry was facing my left flank, where I had deployed my bolt-shooters and some auxillia.

The Germans advanced whilst the Romans sat still. Ian first attacked my left flank with his cavalry supported by some warriors. My bolt-shooters were overrun and the auxillia also went down after a couple of turns. I reinforced using my Roman cavalry and this turned the fight. The German cavalry were destroyed, plus some warriors, but my cavalry pursued and were eventually also destroyed. The left flank now seemed stable, so Ian launched his main strike across the rest on my front. This was the key turn of the battle and the result would determine the winner. Ian needed some good dice rolls but only threw average numbers and the Romans held. The Germans did achieve some success on the Roman right flank, destroying my other auxillia unit and engaging a pinned legion in the flank. At this point the Germans fell below the 1/3 loss value and all German units had to take discipline tests. Ian threw OK except on his flanking units which failed, and these losses when combined with their accumulated casualties caused them to rout. Suddenly all the pressure on my right flank was gone! The next turn saw Roman victories across the battleline and the German army morale collapsed. A glorious Roman victory!

The game played fast with no rules problems. Both players were tested in their dice allocation decisions and, I think, the game was enjoyable for both of us. I think the Romans are a very tough army; the legions with a discipline 3, strength 4 are hard, and when you add on the armour and thrown weapon characteristics, they become a very tough nut to crack. Although the Germans have the impact characteristic, their discipline 4, strength 3 profile is too weak to prevail (NB/ I forgot to include the undrilled characteristic, so they should have been even weaker!). With hindsight I should have upgraded a significant proportion of the German army to heavy warriors (strength 4) to give the Germans more chance. Increasing the table size might also have helped but the Romans could easily re-deploy units to counter any flanking movement, so long as they held their ground. I hope to have a rematch but with a better designed German force.