For Roma

 Summer was here for three days last week but now back to cold and grey. I was going to give the club a miss this week but then found out the Boss was having some friends round for a meal and a movie, I use that last term very loosely due to the content, so off I went.

Ed has been badgering me about how different Hail Caesar is to the rest of the Warlord stable so as he had a game going I asked to join in, HC has taken the club by storm recently. The game was the third in a series and consisted of a Roman force holding a village against a Gallic horde, I was given some outlying cohorts, most of which were recruits, to hold back the main force of barbarians (I will use this term before, like Anglo-Saxon, they try and cancel it). As you may or may not know my own Romans, the Thunderbolts have a fearsome reputation, or at least a reputation amongst my enemies so I expected to have a tough time with Roman discipline holding out in the end. My plan was to slowly withdraw towards the rest of the Roman force holding the village and put up a united front while two veteran units detached to handle a smaller enemy force on my right.

The village.

The thin red line.

Jimi's horde.

You can guess what is coming. 'Lucky' Jimi was in charge of the large Gallic force which hit me very swiftly and simply overwhelmed my recruits, Jimi was throwing nine dice, rerolling any misses against my six with no rerolls, yes you read correctly. I expected something like this but the power of this first charge in shocked me, my line disappeared, I might have to watch that dire movie after all. On my right I had held and eventually defeated Hannah although I had lost a cavalry unit to some chariots, no Julius you got it wrong in your 'Gallic Wars' chariots are tanks not skirmishers.

Gallic warbands.

Hannah flanks me on the right.

As I took in the remnants of my once proud line, only one cohort had held and through some stalwart fighting knocked back their opponents, the rest lay in ruin, Ed took pity on me and gave me two more cohorts of veterans but they had to march from the village to the scene of the crime which they did in a lazy kind of way, you do not get a bonus for the lovely Roman road. Elsewhere because I had beat Hannah the assault on the village was left to Andy but he was pretty much on the back foot and outnumbered so James held the objective. We were now running out of time and as Jimi had now run out of steam with my victorius cohorts now ready to move on his flank, Hannah dispersed and Andy knocked back Ed declared a Roman win.

Ouch.

We win here.

You know I am not a fan of Warlord's systems even though I play them, more down to the character of my opponents than the rules, but what did I think. I was surprised when the Gauls hit me the first time, it just seemed impossible for the Romans to hold, however this barbarian tactic is also possible in War and Conquest and was used against me in one of the best games I ever played, again narrowly holding on by the skin of my Roman teeth. It did seem however that the momentum bonus' lasted far too long. I did not like the use of chariots as tanks there being no historical reason for this at all, they were Gauls not Assyrians. I have to say however that the end result of the game was pretty fair, the Romans took a bashing, well mine did, but overall they won through as the barbarians lost their momentum. Ed did a good job on umpiring and the scenario. Did I mention I captured one chief and killed the king?

I have managed at last to finish the Stradiot unit which has been on my desk for quite some time. I have also decided at last to add those early war tanks to my British WWII forces, I am not buying specific BEF figures. I mentioned it to my friend Stuart who has a 3D business and very kindly helps out club members, I knew he was doing British vehicles for a desert campaign and maybe I could use some, the upshot is that he is going to get some .stl files which I will contribute to and I will simply pay him for printing what I would like. The list consists of an A10, Matilda I, Vickers VI and possibly a Morris CS9 so we will see what happens, he has already printed off the Matilda. I will need a 2pdr anti-tank gun and a Boys anti-tank rifle, I despair that the only one I can find is the Warlord gun, these kits are usually very bad in my experience, 1st Corps do a nice one but it is 1/48.

This will probably be my last post for a while, I will be in hospital for an operation next week and the recovery time is quite long. I am no torch bearer for the NHS but have fallen for the old 'Angels' schtick, and have nothing but good to say of the people and my treatment at Blackburn Teaching Hospital, despite this I hope to be there no longer than I have to be and then released to the tender care of my long suffering wife, now where did I put that bell......