Hey Folks,
Craig, Jamie, Kent and I hosted a couple of Impetus Demo games at the NZ National Wargaming Tournament in Christchurch on Friday.
Craig and Kent played a 500pt First Crusades vs Syrians game as see on Craig's blog
here, below is a shot of the desert action as it started
Jamie and I played a 400pt aside Romans vs Ancient Germans game set in the wintry depths of the Germanic Forests. The Roman Commanders report to the Emperor can be seen
here
We managed to get through two games, with the first one being pretty decisive...
A hairy German eye view of the Roman lines
The Romans Right is held by Praetorian, the Centre has massed Auxilia and Legion while the Sarmatian Heavy Cavalry holds their Left. I deploy my massed Infantry facing the Roman Center while most of my Cavalry and Macemen face the Praetorian. The Sarmatians are only faced by a single Medium Cavalry unit and some skirmishers
The German Horde swarms forwards...
And the Auxilia (on opportunity) counter charge.
Bloody melee results in Jamie not being able to roll any hits, but being awesome at rolling "6's" for Cohesion tests...the flank Auxilia are driven back in disarray, with the warband on the right overrunning into a Raw Legion and driving them back too. The Center Auxilia drives back two of my units however.
This is the final photo I took of the first Battle. The Sarmatian flankers were intercepted by my Cavalry unit on opportunity and also took a few unlucky hits from my Skirmishers. The centre is being mashed by my Warband while on the flank the Praetorian Command has finally been contacted by my Flank but is holding its own. With the loss of the Sarmatians and most of the Center Command the Roman army breaks and the Germans are Victorious!
In the second game after lunch we swapped sides and the Romans deployed in the more traditional refused flank with the hill and forest forming a nicely defendable bottleneck:
My Germans had to deploy first so ended up way put of position, so I hoped that the difficult Hill would slow my command opposite them long enough for my massed Warbandto contact...
Another shot of the Crusades Game, while they all seem to be enjoying themselves alot its not looking good for the Syrians!
And this is what delayed my Warbands, the Forlorn Hope of the Sarmatians as they came slamming down the Road and straight into my oncoming hordes...
Meanwhile my slow advance over the hill is met in a hail of Javelins and Sling-Bullets with my Skirmish screen dieing in short order and then my combat units getting whittled away...
And then being broken :(
We have defeated the Sarmatians but now are hitting the Roman lines late. The Warbands are in good order but the loss of the other Command means that after the loss of only one rear base the Army VDT falls below half and its all over.
Roman Honour is Restored!
Overall we had two really fun games that attracted alot of attention. Fully painted 28mm armies on nice terrain helps and we got a few people in rolling dice too. I put a display up of the various Warlord Games boxes I have as well as a few sprues and we all made a point of emphasising how cheap Impetus is compared to alot of other game systems.
You don't need hordes of models as (especially with our reduced 8cm frontage) even Heavy Infantry are only 8 models. The German models in my army (about 300pts) was two boxes of Infantry and one of Cavalry and cost me less then $100. Romans are even cheaper!
It seems to have worked too, with a least one club member ordering a new Roman army :)
Speaking of new (well mostly new) Roman armies my next project will be a Roman 300pt Adversary list to take on my Germans so I can demo the game at the Cavaliers gaming club on Thursday. Its going to get its first outing (in a semi painted state) tomorrow night when one of my mates will run the Germans and the other the Romans. They are both GW Fantasy players so I'm hoping a game of something a bit more "real" will grab their attention.
Cheers
Jason
