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Monday 3 April 2017

Pro Victoria Baldinus

Today saw the first outing for my third century Romans and Goths, a hard fought victory over the forces of Bikkagern. We used Neil Thomas Ancient and Medieval rules with modifications we thought applicable, the Goths made a bold move around the right flank of the Roman forces with cavalry, with the Goth warbands to the front Baldinus's only real option was to continue the advance forward and endeavour to out distance the Goth cavalry led by Bikkagern himself. Himself being so far from his men must have had an effect on them as they proceeded to get atrocious dice throws most of the game, the dice gods however were in favour of Baldinus and his troops with resulting, better than average dice throws. By the time Bikkagern and his cavalry got into contact, Baldinus was on the way to victory, but catching the Triani legion in the rear while engaged frontally would surely tip the balance, double dice, eight goes, result, two hits. Which the Triani, adding to ignominy, saved whilst also seeing off the warband engaged to the front, it was then able to turn its attention to the cavalry next turn. A similar attack by Gothic gentry cavalry and foot archers on the Cohors Pannoniorum Vetrana also came to a sticky end, it may sound a one sided encounter but the Romans suffered also, their training, armour and shields getting the better of the Gothic steel was all that stopped it going the other way at times.









Neil Thomas rules have four base standard units, my figures are on Impetus style bases so the dice you see on the bases indicate the number of bases remaining, individual figure casualty markers are used, when four is reached the dice on the figure base is changed to reflect the base loss.
The mat is from Deep Cut Studios, marked out with a grid for future games using To The Strongest rules, I didn't want to try these today as I think you need at least twelve units a side to get the best out of the rules and I have only played one game while Dave has not played at all.

TTFN  

16 comments:

  1. Sounds great...these armies are wonderful! And beautiful bases as well...

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  2. Very nice, great figures and very well painted and based. The A&A sculptor is going back to the 3rd C. for Aventine at some point, I look forward to seeing the difference (if any). Great period.

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    1. Thank you George.Yes I am looking forward to how Adam reinterpretes them, I am not up on the latest thinking on third century arms and armour.

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  3. Lovely looking armies, sounds like a fun game!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thank you Iain. It certainly was a fun game, but we find that with Neil's rules, good straight up mechanisms.

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  4. As I said during the game, you have the start of two fine armies there so keep the new stuff ticking over. I will buy new dice and sacrifice to the dice gods before the next run out.

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    1. We will have to add the Generals influence rules next time and I will paint up some additional leader figures

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  5. Beautiful looking armies,interested by the rules there are so many ancient rules, finding the balance is hard. I too have To the strongest but whilst it have skimmed them I have played with them. 😀At the weekend we have a large ancient battle but will be using Kings of war slightly modified, we'll see how it goes.

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  6. Thank you Matt. We like NT's rules, nice straight forward with just the right nuances for period and army types without the faff, I have only played one game of TtS so far but they certainly gave the same feel.

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  7. A lovely looking game. I'm not keen on base removal and your impetvs base / dice / casualty solution gives a much better aesthetic.

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  8. Thank you Norm, yes one reads a lot about the rear ranks moving forward to fill the gaps, so until your unit is woefully reduced, by which time it would have usually melted away, your frontage would remain the same?

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