Sunday, October 23, 2016

Romans versus Gauls in 6mm

At the NWS Games Day I took part in a 6mm Impetus game.  I was a Gallic commander using Graham's almost finished army.  Together we took on Mark Woods's new Roman army.  Micheal made up the fourth player on the Roman side.

The Romans as seen by the Guals on their shinny white bases.

And the Gauls as seen by the Romans. 

And the game gets off to a good start as the first activation roll by the Romans
 sees their commander down rated to poor.
(The is actually their second roll, the roll to see who had major control of the battlefield had been a double one as well)

Each side has four commands.  I had numbers 4 and 1 on the left flank.
We were unsure how to use our chariots.  I had mine out front, Graham had his out back.

The Parthians had lent us their fabulous camp.
Any enemy of the Romans is a friend of the Parthians I guess.

Oh dear.  The Gallic general of our third command turns out not to be an expert.

But it can not get any better for my general and CinC

In what seemed to be a developing theme of the game
another Roman general is down graded.

Skirmish time and my chariots wipeout a lot of Roman skirmishers with their first shots,
The Gallic command number three starts its advance across the broken ground.

The preliminary fighting on the left is basically my cavalry trying to keep out of trouble.

The Gauls are through the broken ground and ready to pounce.

I'm keeping my guys back, but now realise I need to move to the left a bit.

The fourth band of Gauls enters the woods.

Their commander is not feeling an expert today either.

The Roman camp

The view from the Roman side
The Romans have lost a lot of their skirmish screen

The fourth Gallic commander now considers himself to be an expert.
He commands the left wing cavalry and has mostly kept out of trouble.

The Romans are not amused.

The fourth Gallic command is through the forest.
The third Gallic command is just about worn out.
The Gallic CinC is looking at the sundial.

The main body of Gauls has now advanced.

And halted...
The third Gallic command has broken.

The Gallic cavalry on the left has lost a few units, but there are still plenty of them.
The chariots are now fighting and proving to be lucky.
The Gallic CinC wants them out of the way before he launches his main assault.
This also gives time for the Gallic fourth command to work round the Roman left flank.

Yet another Roman general is down graded.
Not surprising as his command is about to break

And we're in!

The final Roman general seizes the day and decides he's the expert round here.

The charismatic Gallic commander is fighting for his life.  
His unit has suffered heavy casualties, but he must keep fighting.

A second Roman command breaks and that's game over.
Phew, what a blood bath.

Time for the Romans to go home.

From the sheet recording breakpoints, the Roman army would be lost at 31 while the Gauls would hang on till 55 (and for the Gauls their chariots and cavalry were three points a loss).  If the Gauls had lost one more cavalry unit from their left flank (which easily could have happened) that command would have broke and the game gone to the Romans.

Excellent game and fabulous to play in 6mm.

8 comments:

  1. Looks like the Gauls had to do a route march to get to the Roman lines? Did many of the warbands get in?
    Those big Impetus bases allow for plenty of figures at this scale, which is great.

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    1. Good question. We had thirteen large unit warbands. My four in command 1 were all engaged in the last few turns. The four in command 2 were engaged early (and routed). Command 3 on our far right only got in late and was really chasing the Romans to get in contact (even to the point of forcing some of their skirmishers to exit the table). I think only one of their five warbands actually came to grips with Roman legionaries.

      Mark is planning to do a Roman versus Parthian game in 6mm. His Parthian army matches the quality of the camp the Gauls had borrowed. So will be a beauty to see in action.

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  2. Love the mass look, the way 6mm really shines

    Ian

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    1. Thanks, but all credit is to Mark Woods. I'm not sure my photos did justice to the amount of detail he has been able to produce on those Romans.

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  3. Fantastic game, really enjoyed it. The mass effect of the Romans worked exactly the way I envisaged it. Need some rethinking on basing FL methinks.

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    1. It certainly was a great game. And we've had plenty.

      I couldn't really tell the difference between the FL and FP troops. I have the same problem in 15mm with my 16 figure peltast units (compared with the 12 figure Thracian LF).

      I'm tempted to try my hand at some 6mm Ancients, but must do more of my 6mm Napoleonics but at teh moment I'm between 28mm Napoleonics and working on my 15mm Fallschirmjagers (who I'm organising so a base can be a squad, platoon or company).

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    2. You've got too much time on your hands! I'll be doing those cuirassier figures soon, as soon as I've finished my Parthians. After that maybe we could work out a Napoleonic thing?

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  4. Blucher would be the immediate ruleset. I will have to scope out what I need for the armies at Quatre Bras or at least to find out what a recommended sized army is.

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