Roma Vincitur!

Hi,

After a multi-week absence, and the sad duty of taking the Cub out to his mom's for the start of the school year, I managed to get down to the Dueling Grounds for a game of Impetus with Watts of the THMG.  He had originally planned to bring a provisional Lysimachid list he's been working on, but at the last minute subbed in the Republican Romans he's used against me before.  I was really looking forward to this, got all my gear ready, and managed to forget the camera.  Watts, however, was kind enough to take pictures with his phone (thanks!), so bear in mind, these are all from the rascally Romans' point of view.

Or, if you prefer, a view from Rome.

Despite a decent advantage in cavalry, Watts won the roll-off for attacker.  I put down a selection of hills, swamps, and forests to break up the table, he pulled one of the latter off, and I deployed.  Infantry in the centre, cavalry on one wing, light infantry on the other (that forest looked tasty), and heavy cavalry / elephants in reserve.  Watts deployed fairly conservatively, with his infantry in close support, cavalry on the wings, and skirmishers and pesky Numidians (curse them!) out front to cause trouble.



The first few turns weren't too uneventful.  The Romans are a hard nut to crack, as their line relief rule can make it difficult to pin down units and destroy them.  I threw my cavalry out on one wing to envelop him, and pivoted my infantry blocks to try and come in on an oblique.



Watts threw his velites and pesky Numidians (curse them!) forward, and I moved up my own lighter troops to counter.



I then caught a bit of a break.  If I remember, Watts moved his pesky Numidians so that he could get a point blank shot on my cavalry, but in the process, gave me an angle to charge in outside the corridor in which he could evade.  The Numidians (pesky things, curse them!) were pinned, and then destroyed.



With the pesky Numidians (curse them!) out the way, I was now able to swing wide, and try to use my cavalry to envelop his whole flank.  Ideally, I'd do some damage to his infantry before the formations closed, but worst case, I could put on some pressure and start to influence the pace of the game.




I began to push his skirmish screen back, and I think scored a couple VBU's of damage on his forward infantry with some skirmish shooting.  I also made a mistake.  I used my Agema to chase his skirmishers, but ended up miscalculating, and left them sitting disordered, in point blank range of Velites, who in turn were backed up by his medium cavalry.



The velites did enough damage to the Agema to rob them of their impetus bonus, and the Roman cav charged, wiping the poor agema off the table.  He also pulled off a charge against my disordered Persian cavalry in the centre, and managed to wipe them as well.  On the plus side, I was now comfortably flanking his left, and was putting enough pressure on his centre to break up his infantry.  A couple of units were starting to look a bit isolated.



The combat with the agema had done some damage to Watt's cavalry, and a combination of point-blank javelins from my Greek light cavalry and (I think?) a charge from my greek mediums finished him off.  As it happens, he'd attached his general to that unit, which meant his entire army was now considered out of command, and would struggle with discipline tests for the rest of the game.



Things now started to heat up.  I began to pressure his right flank, bringing my lights out of the woods, and slipping my skirmishers around the flank.  My infantry advanced as well, and the penalty he was taking to discipline made it difficult for him to reorganise his lines.



He pulled off a line relief, but my infantry were still able to plow through the front unit.  The critical moment came on his right, when my pike, Lykian hoplites, and peltats all managed to close in on his Triarii, who held off the onslaught for something like three rounds.



They chewed through a good portion of the hoplites in the process too!  In the end, however, the juggernaught that is the phalanx ground them down, and it was enough to break the Romans, who packed it off the field.



As always with Impetus, this was a fun game.  There were a couple of good swings, and some definite "huzzah!" moments on both sides of the table.  Watts, as always, is an excellent opponent, and thanks again to him for pictures.

The hobby side of things has been a bit slow of late.  I assembled and based the figures I'll be using for Song of Blade and Heroes, but I'm not sure when they'll get painted.  I'm actually kind of keen to start work on another 100 points of Antigonids, and a prospective opponent for Warmachine is looking for a battle-box game by the end of the month.  I may end up finishing the Skorne box for that, but I kind of have an itch to start up my Cryx - I think I've decided on a colour scheme to try for them.  I should be getting games in on a fairly regular basis, so between that and hobby stuff, I'd like to get back to a more regular 2 posts per week. Cross your fingers.

FMB