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Saturday, November 14, 2020

Great Battles With Basic Impetus - Alexandrian Macedonian versus Polybian Roman in 6mm

At the Club's November Games Day, Mark Woods organised a multiplayer game using his magnificent 6mm figures.  Michael and I went Roman while Mark with Olivier and Drew were Macedonian.  We were one player down, but Micheal and I took turns commanding in true Roman Consul fashion.

This was the first time using the Great Battles rules in Basic Impetus 2.0.  They worked well, except perhaps that we had used army lists from Second Edition Impetus.  Most noticeable this had the pike blocks being three units when they should have been just two.  As it was and as you can see, the armies filled the 6x4 table nicely.

There are three areas of broken ground and one wood.

Turn 1 and the Romans move to their right.
This causes disorder (marked by the red dots),
but they figure they have time.
Their left wing advances as does the skirmishers.

The Cretan archers in Roman employ get the first hit.

Turn 2 and the Romans have recovered their order.

Macedonian cavalry engages the Roman left with significant success.

On the Roman right the Macedonian cavalry is not so successful.

Turn 4 and the Roman success on the right continues.

While on the left the engagement has grown.

Turn 5 and the Macedonian centre starts to turn to their right.

The Roman left is making slow if steady progress.
That is Alexander locked in combat.

Turn 6 and forces are starting to be more fully engaged on the Roman right.

The left is bloody, but Roman numbers seem to be winning the day.

The Macedonian centre is still grinding forward.

Turn 7 and the Roman right is holding against the enemy peltasts.

On the left Alexander has been dispatched,
but at some cost.

Finally the Macedonians contact the Roman centre.
However, not much happens.

We played one more turn which saw the collapse of the Macedonian right and little progress by them in the centre or against the Roman right.  Time was running out, the writing was on the wall, game over.

I still need to fully understand the interpenetration rules as well as the multiple combat rules, but these only arise in complex situations and so are mostly not an issue.

Very happy how the game played and will have to try again using standard Basic Impetus 2.0 armies. 

4 comments:

  1. Great pictures and commentary as always. For the record the Macedonian phalanx contains over 900 figures, Romand numbers in the legions are similar with Gauls, cavalry and peltastoi taking the total figure count to well over 2500. Macedonians still need a bit of tweaking to finish but they are ready to take on the Indians next games day

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    1. Time for them to head east. Looking forward to it.

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  2. Replies
    1. Mark Woods deserves all the credit for the aesthetics of the game. It was joy to use.

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