Sunday, March 29, 2015

Stop the Romans -- the First Playtest

On Saturday, Ed, Stan, Mike and John came over to help test the game I am going to run at Cangames this year.

Stan and Ed took command of the British and Mike and John controlled the civilized forces. Both sides have 3 divisions, the British have one division of horse and chariots and 2 of Warband and sling (as well as some Druid Fanatics waiting behind the dyke) and the Romans have 3 divisions with Legion, Auxilia, Light Horse, Engineers and Archers. The British also have some garrison troops on the dyke and 3 victory point units (a cart, some camels -- these will be replaced with cattle for the actual game, and a mule train) that start near the Roman edge and have to escape to the British edge

At the beginning of the game the Romans can choose to either have their forces run rapidly on to the table in a possibly haphazard fashion or wait one turn and move on as a group. The Romans decided to rush on 2 divisions and leave the third to enter in a more orderly fashion. The frist division got their light horse up to the camel train and then failed the roll to bring anyone else on.
The other division did a bit better and brought on almost all its infantry.

Rather than fighting a rearguard action slowly moving back to the dyke, the British charge forward into the Roman line.
The Druid fanatics perform their rituals behind the dyke as the British Cavalry move forward.
The British attack goes well as they wipe out a unit of Legion and sweep in on the now stranded Scorpio.
The Scorpio is wiped out but now 2 legion units have moved forward, including the Preatorians

The battle now heats up as the British commit the rest of their troops hoping to weaken the Romans enough that they will be unable to assault the dyke.
As the Cavalry gets close, several Roman units are badly beaten but the British infantry are all but wiped out
The cavalry try and charge forward but due to confusing orders end up just short of the Romans.


The cavalry charge in but the Praetorians prove too much for one of the cavalry units.

Once the  cavalry is dealt with the Romans push forward to the dyke adopting the Testudo to protect themselves from the rain of missiles coming from the top of the dyke.

At the crucial moment the oxen pulling the Roman Engineers fascines decide they have had enough and flee from the dyke leaving the engineers with only the fascines they are carrying.
Undeterred the Romans continue to press forward
The Romans move into the ditch as the fanatic warbands move up the rear bank.
The Romans get a toehold on top of the dyke and get their first glimpse of the fanatics
The fanatics drive the first legion back down into the ditch and pursue them.
After several turns refusing to give up the safety of their Testudo, the Praetorians get to the top of the scarp only to face a unit of fanatics.
The fanatics push the Praetorians back and prepare to leap of the scarp to finish them off.

At the other end of the dyke, the Legions are now getting across in greater numbers.

They also manage to help support the Praetorians before the fanatics can get stuck in.

The final attacks of the fanatics are held off by the disciplined Romans and the pass will be controlled by the Romans through the winter.

The game went very well and I think everyone enjoyed it.

The biggest change  I will make as a result of the playtest is that I will start the British further back towards the dyke, this will make the Roma n pursuit of the VP units a bit more exciting and will (hopefully) encourage the British to fall back to the dyke. I think the armies are reasonably balanced, on the day we should have another Warband and another Legion and I think I will split the Roman archers into 2 small units.















4 comments:

  1. Was a fun game, I think it was pretty close also. If you look in the last picture most of the Roman units are shattered, or were at 4 or 5 hits. So a bit more luck in the last charge of the Druids could have seen off a few units.

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    1. It was very close and we ran pretty close to 4 hours as well. I think it will work quite well at the Con.

      I think once the hills on the side are done and with the reeds in the river and a few clumps of rough ground in the middle it should make a good looking table.

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