This BIG game resulted in the most dramatic climax of any game I have played in my 50 years of wargaming,apart from it being knife-edge stuff,colourful and exciting,as well as absorbing-I played it over two nights,it took about 4 hours,and took 12 moves to complete!
The Roman commander,Crustinuts, has decided,in the face of overwhelming numbers of Barbarians, to sacrifice his auxiliary troops,by leting them take the brunt of attacks by chariots,cavalry and infantry-what a nice man!!!The attack begins-the chariots rode along the line throwing javelins,with little effect,then changed tactics and charged the line,which held,forcing the chariots to retire behind their following infantry!On the barbarian right,a combination of arms moves to cross the river and out-flank the Romans(held by the 24th Legion and some cavalry.)Top photo shows the auxiliary infantry,against all odds,meeting and beating the vast hordes of barbarians!-bottom photo shows the Roman cavalry attempting to prevent the out-flanking move-so far so good!!Two shots of the "grand melee"-once a couple of breaches had been made in the Auxiliary line,the barbarians poured through and made for the bridge and river.The out-flanking force has all but surrounded the Roman cavalry,and are about to attack the aux.troops in the village.At this point Scrotum(24th commander) ordered his legion to fall back up the hill,to the rear of the position.Village being attacked and barbarians crossing the bridge to attack the 23rd legion,by this time the whole of the auxiliary force had been wiped out,including the two commanders,Arsolius and Vulva-they will be missed!!An overall view showing the demise of the aux. troops and the barbarians massing to cross the river at all points.These two shots show the 24th's new position,on the hill,with the barbarian infantry and chariots about to attack them!This is the 23rd legion being subjected to skirmishing from the chariots and infantry-they began to take casualties,and things were not looking good for the legions(or the campaign!!)Only one thing for it- CHARGE was ordered,and both legions let fly their pila,drew their swords and charged into the mass of chariots and infantry!-This move led to the dramatic climax of the game,because,at the start of the game I had decided on a simple mechanism-if the chariots were charged,they would take a very simple test-an odd score on the dice would see them flee back,in a straight line,and any infantry they "bumped" into would take the same simple test.Well,every single chariot threw an odd score(3/5) and went back,colliding with as many as three bases of following infantry-and,yes,they too all threw odd dice-the whole mass dissolved into utter chaos!!One final shot showing the 24th having the same success as the 23rd-the whole barbarian horde fled back across the river and scattered-another glorious victory for Crustinuts!!! But at what cost?-he lost all of his auxiliaries,plus all of his archers and 50% of his cavalry-not good!! will he survive and get back down South?
As a wargame this was,to me, the best, as far as solo games go-you just couldn't wish for anything more-and so the campaign moves onwards and upwards!
