Punic Wars with Midgard Heroic Battles

 Keeping on with our attempts to try out as many of our existing ancient armies with Midgard, Colin brough over his Punic Wars Carthaginian and Roman 10mm armies last week.

We roll a die for the armies and I ended up with the Romans. This era army is quite limited in troop types, with only a handful of cavalry. Reading the list it seemed perfectly suited to fight historically and set up three ranks deep. Apart from the fact that the Carthaginians would have then easily outflanked me and attacked from both sides (and probably the rear!). My other change would be how to counter the Carthaginian elephants, a unit which had proven decisive in all our Sassanid/Roman games.

The Roman army advancing in turn one.

Whilst the Carthaginians wait6 in a nice straight line!

With those nasty elephants, flanked by Numidian light cavalry.

In the Carthaginian turn, Colin started by having his priest read the Omens, which were not good and immediately reduced his Reputation scare! The Carthaginians advance along their line, the only action being an exchange of missiles between skirmishers on the flanks.

In turn two the Roman velites got more aggressive, charging into the slingers opposing them and destroying the unit.

On the other flank they ganged up on the Numidian horsemen, inflicted casualties.

In an attempt to gain the upper hand on this flank, Colin charged his cavalry into the Roman line and the Numidians into one of the velites. Having pinned the skirmishers in place, he then charged his elephants in as a secondary unit in the melee. He knew that if he had gone in first with the elephants, I would have evaded the charge, sneaky!

Unfortunately, his dice rolling did not match his planning and my velites won the melee, destroying the Numidians. As the elephants were a secondary unit in the melee, they also were forced back...

,,,into the spearmen behind them and failing their command test so they took a wound from disorder. Normally the nearby general could have used one of his mighty Deeds to allow a reroll of the test, but elephants have the Aloof trait, so cannot be influenced in this way. In the nearby cavalry melee the Carthaginians lost and were forced back, pursued by the Romans.

In turn three the Roman cavalry kept up the pressure, whilst the unengaged Roman cavalry swung around behind the melee, to start to move up on the elephants' (now open) flank. The Roman velites moved closer to the elephants and bombarded them with missile, trying to force another retreat.

In the melee the remaining Carthaginian cavalry  fell to the Roman onslaught, with inflicting any more casualties on the Romans.

In the Carthaginian phase the Gauls rushed forward but the attempt to restore their flank was only partially successful. The spearmen behind the elephants managed to move across to block the left hook from the Roman cavalry, but the elephants failed to move. Now they had taken casualties they need to pass a 3+ command test to move, they rolled a 1! At the end of turn three things were looking a bit dodgy for the Carthaginian player, not only were both flanks threatened, he was down to 4 Reputation to the Roman score of 10.

In turn four I just went for it, with an all-out attack along the Roman line.

The Carthaginian centre was forced back, despite Colin throwing just about every general and champion into the fray. Elsewhere the Gaul's lack of armour was telling, even when they held the Roman charge, they took wounds at a much faster rate than their opponents.

The melee round in the Carthaginian phase just completed things, with half the Carthaginian army just melting away!

At the end of turn 4 it was game over, the Carthaginians now had zero Reputation to the Roman 11. An overwhelming victory to Rome.

A lot of laughter and fun in this game, despite the result. We also learned that the counter to elephants was to hit them with skirmishers - historical tactics do really work with these rules.

Reign in Jotunheim (Hell) 2

 Ross and I played the second game in our Jotunheim campaign using Reign in Hell rules from Snarling Badger Studio. I rolled the Relic Hunt scenario, where we both have to collect as many relics as possible in 5 turns.

The table set up, Ross' Lords of Hell are on the left and my Demented cabal opposite.

The Demented Leader and Devout advance on the closest relic.

The faster moving Lords of Hell rush forward, their leader reaching their closest relic and collecting it.

As the Lords of Hell close in on another relic, the Demented Leader leave his relic for the Devout to collect and advances. In the background the two little Mephet Demons can be seen in aerial combat over the last relic.

Too late, a Tentacle Demon collects another relic for the Lords of Hell.

The Demented Spiked Demon uses his impaling charge to crash into the Tentacle Demon, inflicting a lot of wounds!

The Lords of Hell Mephet, despite his wounds, manages to break off clutching the relic.

At this point Ross could have pulled back and consolidated his position, holding three of the four relics. Instead, he tried to be clever. His leader has the ability to activate another demon after his round, potentially jumping ahead of the usual activation sequence. He decides to charge his Leader into the Demented Leader, then immediately follow up with his Devout Demon, hopefully killing my leader with the double attack. I good idea....against anyone except my leader! The Demented Leader has a Poisoned Soul, which means any 6s rolled in defence not only remove 1 of the hits on himself, but also inflict 2 hits on the attacker. So after the first round of combat, the Demented leader had taken 2 wounds and the Lords of Hell Leader took 4!

Now the Devout Demon charged in and inflicted a further 3 wounds.

But I rolled three 6s in defence. this removed all the wounds I had received and inflicted 6 wounds on the devout. Additionally the Demented cabal have Unpredictable Defence, if any demon rolls a triple on defence combat roll, they inflict that number of wounds on the attacker. This meat another 6 wounds on the Devout, killing him outright!!!!

My leader then attacked Ross' leader in my next activation , inflicting more wounds. I had the next activation, so my Devout charged into the fray.

With only 2 life left, the Lords of Hell Leader fell to the onslaught. Ross had forgotten that the Leader was carrying one of the relics, which my leader now picked up from his mangled carcass.

With 4 of his warband now killed, to no loss on my side, Ross decided to pull back the demons carrying his other two relics and pushed forward his Slaughter Fiend to caver their retreat. He fell to the impaling charge of the Spined Demon, but the delay he caused prevented the Demented from closing with the survivors before the game end!

Another great game and a lot of fun. Much laughter on both sides, especially when I rolled that triple 6 in combat!😂

We are both looking forward to the next game.

Romans and Sassanid Rematch with Midgard

 Colin and I got together for a Roman/Sassanid rematch with Midgard Heroic Battles, this time swapping armies from our last encounter. Colin now had the Late Romans whilst I took the Sassanid Persians.

The Romans started by rapidly advancing their infantry forward (Disciplined units are a wonderful thing!). I countered by leaving my rubbish levy spears in place and advancing a unit of archers to get into killing range of the oncoming legions. 

I thought I'd get in early so I rushed my elephants forward to crash into the end of the advancing Roman line.

In the meantime the massed Roman cavalry sat back, waiting for the Sassanids to come to them.

However the Sassanid cavalry commander had the same thought, so the cavalry sat, glaring at each other for the first three turns!

Meanwhile the elephants did what they do best, trampling Roman legionaries and sending them running backwards!

My gamble pushing the archers forward started to pay off, as they inflicted casualties on the Roman auxilia.

But now the Romans Legions can within reach of the levy and charged forward.

As the elephants followed the retreating legionaries, the accompanying bowmen engaged in a archery duel...

...which the Romans lost, just as the remnants of the legionaries dissolved under the elephants attack.

As expected the levy were soundly beaten and pushed back by the Roman legionaries. However, by some fluke the humble Sassanid archers held off the Roman charge and fought the auxila to a standstill.

Now the elephants turned around, ready to charge into the rear of the victorious legionaries.

Changing circumstances now forced the Roman cavalry to advance, on one side to engage my victorious light cavalry.

On the other side to take out the Sassanid archers and counter the elephants. In both cases the Sassanid cavalry responded.

With the respective cavalry now engaged in a fierce melee, there was nothing to stop the Sassanid elephants charging into the rear of the Roman legionaries, not a pretty sight (if you are a Roman!).

As the elephants destroyed their second unit of legionaries, the situation at the end of turn 5 was clear. Sassanids +1 Reputation, Romans -4. Had the Romans forced a cavalry fight earlier it might have been different, certainly I would have been less willing to turn the elephants around to attack the legionaries if they had been a risk of cavalry on their flank.

In both game the elephants were decisive, so we need to think of tactics to counter them, perhaps using skirmishers, as happened historically. The fact that both times the elephants managed to get the charge in on the Roman infantry helped them as well. 

Reign in Jotunheim (Hell)

 When I visited my mate Mark, in South London last month, he introduced me to the Reign in Hell rules from Snarling Badger Studios. I was quite impressed with this little rule set (63 pages), so I picked up a copy for myself.  It's a neat, very simple set of rules. The actual battlefield rules are only 8 pages, the rest of the book is building your Cabal, campaign rules and scenarios.

Although I don't have a collection of GM chaos types, I was sure I could find a wealth of usable minis in my various armies. I don't really have any suitable Hell-type terrain, but I decided to set my games in my (slightly Norse influenced) Jotunheim setting. 

Ross was happy to give it a go and we have started a campaign with Ross playing the Lords of Hell and I played the Demented.

Our first game was the Desecration scenario, The Lords of Hell were offended at some relics and wanted to destroy them, so the Demented decided to defend the same relics, more to piss off the Lords of Hell as for any other reason!

It was a great game, a lot of fun and laughter was had by all. Although I slaughtered all but two of his demons, Ross won the game by destroying more relics that I saved. Keeping you eye on the prize is good!!!

Here are some pictures from the game.

The opposing warbands spread across the table. The blue crystals mark the relics.

The Lords of Hell, or most of them, two minis are out of shot.

The Demented leader and his Devout (lieutenant).

My Spiny Demon inflicts his impaling charge on Ross' Devout.

Opposing Slaughter Fiends clash!

My flying Mephit scans across the battlefield from his vantage point.

My Armoured Demon engages Ross' Corpulent Demon. 

And a few shots of the swirling final melee around the last relic.

Great campaign rules, the after game effects are well thought out and interesting. We are looking forward to the next game.