And then there were Romans

One of our number, Gary, is new to the idea of owning toy soldiers, having come to tabletop wargaming later in life. It says something about the hobby (or perhaps me) that in spite of wargaming in Shedquarters his exposure to the glossy mags means that what he wants to own is a Roman army made up of Warlord Games figures. So he has bought one of their starter sets and glued all the figures together. But not painted them yet.

When we were discussing games for last Thursday Gary asked for Romans, so Richard brought his 28mm Romans and Britons with him, and in order to play rules we could all learn quickly he offered to run a game using Neil Thomas' AMW.

AMW is a tough gig for the Ancient Britons when fighting Romans, unless you can get them into woods. Phil & I took the Britons, Chris and Gary the Romans. We were using double sized armies, if you were wondering.

Richard's Romans look great. You can see why Gary wants some of his very own.

The Romans sent their Auxilia to clear our chaps from the wood on our right centre.

The lines closed. As ever with NT's rules, the light infantry got trapped in the middle as there's no evade or interpenetration rules. Our naked chaps are subject to a house rule that they get two rounds of warband impetus. 

On the left, where I was in command, I suckered the Roman horse into an envelopment with my light chariots.

As predicted, the light infantry got sandwiched.

I'm getting the upper hand on the left flank. NB I'm using shields as casualty markers, rather than rings for this game.

Lots of fighting all along the centre. My other light chariots have broken through and contacted the mule cart mounted artillery pieces.

The Auxilia enter the woods to clear out the defending warbands.

Phil is facing more cavalry on his wing. He is drawing them on with his light chariots and horse, whittling away at them.

We're getting a bit roughed up in the centre.  Fighting Roman infantry is really hard.

Having destroyed the artillery I pile my chariots into the flank of the Roman archers in a desperate attempt to save my warband.

Whilst that was going on the warbands in the centre were being steadily shredded.

My chariots carved through the archers and hit one of the legionary units. Out on the right, out of shot, Phil has won the battle with the Roman cavalry. Elsewhere the Britons are melting away.

A win for Chris & Gary, but tighter than we might have expected. Gary has borrowed my copy of AMW to get a better grip of what is going on, so hopefully he'll be inspired to put brush to plastic and get his Romans and Britons finished, so we can have an even bigger game next time.

And with that the day concluded.