Sunday, June 11, 2017

Burgundians

Maybe the next "to the Strongest" game will involve these lads shown below. They belong to a friend of mine, Andrew (Kiwi). He has done a fantastic job these figures and has plenty more in storage.
Photographs taken with my phone unfortunately, so these pictures don't do his painting justice. 









 A small portion of his heavy cavalry.


Friday, June 9, 2017

Late Roman V's Pict


Apologies once again  in advance re the quality of the photos as I used my phone. 
160pts each, with is pretty much all the Picts listed in the army list.  Only thing I was unsure off was the option of "extra archers" to the Pictish spearmen, Maybe someone can let me know what this is about, I had a gander on the forum but couldn't find anything.
Anyway the Picts were very aggressive and march moved across the board. We utilised the new group move which assisted the Pictish in maintaining a steady battle line.
The first photo was a couple of turns into the game. 

 Pictish cavalry assaulting the Roman light cav on the Roman right flank.  Roman
cataphracts, lance lurking behind the woods. 

 Pictish deep spear units advance to contact with the veteran auxiliaries.

 Pictish center command yet to reach the Roman legionaries, who had taken up position on the hill. Roman cavalry making a push against the numerous Pictish light horse on the far left Roman flank.


A couple of overhead views of the same turn.


Pict light cavalry moved through the woods to catch the Roman cataphracts in a flank assault (and manage to disorder them),  after the Romans had turned to face the Pictish cavalry who were in the process of forcing the Roman light cavalry off the board.
Both units of Roman light cav evaded off the board and tried in vain to return over the next following turns but kept failing their orders.

As seen from the Roman right flank, 6 of the 7 Pictish spear unit are now in combat with the Romans.


 

Roman cav on their left flank forcing the Pictish light cav back. The Picts didn't always make the evade successfully each time but they kept making their save rolls much to the frustration of the Roman cavalry commander.

The Pictish spearmen were slowly becoming disordered along the line with the Pictish warlord's unit taking two disorders.
Then a breakthrough for the Picts, a veteran auxiliary unit is destroyed, the adjacent Roman units pasted their rout tests. (new rules added since we last gamed)   

But that was the least of the Roman worries, the cataphracts perished under a hail of javelin fire from the Pictish cav. Now the whole Roman right flank was exposed,



The Picts sensed victory as the spear unit turned to flank another auxiliary unit.

Meanwhile on the Roman left flank the Roman cav had managed to destroy their first unit of enemy light cav on the last line.

The Romans were now getting very worried but were now in position to conduct a flank attack of their own. But time was running out.


Disaster for the Romans, the Pictish cavalry commander slips behind the Roman lines and captures an undefended baggage and another auxiliary unit is destroyed. Only one victory point until Pictish victory.
But wait, the destroyed Roman units caused a rout test. The test is conducted and an adjacent legionary unit, who is already disordered, FAIL their two attempts to pass the rout test causing it to break and flee.
Major Pict victory, looks like the Romans will be leaving Britain a wee bit earlier.  The Roman gods can be very fickle as the Romans only managed to destroy one unit of enemy light cav after it had kept the Roman cav busy all game.
Thank you gentlemen for the game. Two played Roman, one new player the Picts, (I think he now likes these rules), one observer (to nervous to join in) and I ran it. Hope I got the new rules right.
Game mat (20cm squares) is from Simon MILLER who also created these great rules.
Happy gaming.