This is Sparta!

Sparta got some revenge today thrashing Rome’s finest. First gaming day of the year and things go pear shaped right from the start!!

 

To start the year off, Phil and I had a rematch of our last game. Both of us were using the exact same forces - See here for the game I'm referring too

 

I won initiative and chose Agricultural (and a couple of enclosed fields). These along with one of the open fields ended up in Phil’s half of the table. Part of a tactic on my behalf (with some lucky rolling on terrain placement) to annoy Phil’s large heavy foot battlegroups. But… it didn’t seem to matter, there was enough space. This time Phil didn’t deploy a unit as rear support, so his line was kinda long and scary looking when compared to my rather compact force.

 

 

I’m pretty happy with how my Romans are looking and camp has turned out well. Not much to go now to finish my first painting goal! :)

 

While we figured out a few rules…. namely who goes first! (Person without initiative :) )…. I snapped off a few shots of the forces approaching in the first couple of turns.

 

 

So, I mentioned things starting off badly… well in the first round of shooting…. the Spartan peltasts disrupted both my Velite battlegroups with one of them loosing a base! Time to get them out of there. With the light troops out of the way, the Illyrians and Legionnaires continued the advance. Roman forces are in the foreground (or right hand side).

 

 

Finally (well quite quickly really), the battle lines clash….

 

 

So things going badly…. I don’t win a single impact phase! When facing offensive spear, this is critical to keep my sword bonus and POA’s even. If I don’t, then its an uphill battle. And one that, odds on, is not going to go in my favour. After several rounds of combat, the Legionnaires fail to do anything to the Spartans and loose most combats. The Roman Generals encouragement ensures the Legions morale stays high (I pass pretty much all cohesion checks), but the Spartan aim is true…. I pretty much can’t roll anything but a 1 for my death checks meaning my Legions are bleeding. Bleeding badly.

 

 

With things looking dire, I put my Cavalry into position for a charge just to see what happens and the Spartans oblige. I still haven’t figured out the best way to use these guys yet. They don’t seem to be that good in combat and I suspect keeping them in rear support as a mobile gap filler is still the best way to go. I do wonder if the points would be better spent elsewhere though. (They lost the combat in a few turns).

 

 

One of the Spartan Perioikoi battlegroups charges into the engaged Romans giving the Spartans a significant advantage of numbers in the combat. This, combined with the casualties, ensures I pretty much cannot win the melee now. I continue to roll 1’s for my death check rolls and all 3 Legion battlegroups auto-break due to casualties sustained effectively ending the game.  I had managed to fragment 1, just 1, Spartan battlegroup, so a very decisive win for Phil.

 

On review, I don’t think there is much different that I could have done other than win the impact phase and not roll 1’s :). That’s not too much to ask is it? Probably karma for all those 6’s I rolled in our last game (especially to kill his Generals).

 

Near the end of the game, Rob arrived. Mark had been up most of the night painting his 1920’s coppers after finishing Mafia 2, so he was keen to try out some Mob Wars (its an expansion of the Legends of the Old West game with army lists for 1920’s/1930’s gangsters).

 

Rob, Phil and I each just picked 5 gangsters. Mark would use his cops, but GTA style. Each group of gangsters would deploy on the table, but no coppers would be deployed. Once the shooting started, the cops would come on using a roll to determine location. As the game continued, this would escalate (either more or better coppers). There was also a number of cars driving around which would have distance travelled and direction randomised. The roads were a dangerous place in the ‘20’s!

 

Basically, it was to try out the rules and have a bit of fun. It didn’t take long for the shooting to start with Phil’s mobsters hijacking a whiskey truck and Rob trying stop him. The cops soon arrived… right next to my gang!? The shooting is on the other side guys! With nothing else to do, my mobsters just gunned them down and the carnage just continued from there….. it’s to hard explain everything that happened, but I took a few photos anyway…

    

 

So the end result…. gunfire from my mob and Rob’s finished off Phil’s mob. His remaining gangsters were in the whiskey truck, so floored it and escaped from the table. Little did they realise that there were plenty of holes in those barrels after our tommy guns had opened up on them as they raced past (when shooting at moving vehicles, hit locations are randomised – a lot of shots hit those barrels…!). There was also an amusing sequence of Rob’s mobsters stealing the cop car and trying to run over the Police Commissioner, but I’ll let him explain that on his blog :) Both Rob and I are running out of mobsters by this point, so we’re both having to make run away checks. I happen to pass mine…. Rob doesn’t :) So, I win, well actually, I think the cops win. The place is swarming with them! We pretty much end the game at this point. Good fun, but there was a lot going on!

 

As the day was very wet and very humid, we ended up just chit chatting for the rest of the day until it was time to go.

 

Until next time :)