Gangs of Rome

When I first heard of Gangs of Rome I was intrigued then thought why do I need another skirmish game, also I thought the figures were a tad expensive. Julian at the club has dived in with both feet and he brought the game along last night so that I could have a go.

You get so many points to make up your gang and buy upgrade cards, having done this I ended up with four fighters, two male and two female, the females going against all we know of Roman society and the role of women in that society, but hey, its the 21st century not Ancient Rome. That gripe apart I gave one of my gang a shortbow for long range cover and the others decent melee or defensive attributes, I was planning to simply storm my way to victory. In this particular scenario we had to take a tribute from the other gang (a coin) and present it to the god Mars at a place sacred to him, a plinth in the middle of the table upon no doubt a splendid statue will be put. To get the coin you had to kill one of the opposing gang. There are random 'mobs' in the area who move about and into which fighters can blend and pop up elsewhere from another mob or the mob can either run from the fracas or join in on one side or the other.

With the scene set in the countryside outside of Rome but close to the city walls we began, I didn't move far and loosed off some arrows, the enemy also moved cautiously apart from a gladiator who had joined their ranks, he ran forward impetuously only to be cut down and his coin captured, meanwhile another gang member had appeared behind my boys and girls but found he had took on more than he could chew and disappeared back into the mob sharpish. Things were looking very good for me as I had an open run for the plinth with the tribute, Mars for some reason was displeased with me and my fighter climbed like a girl and couldn't make the top of the plinth and fell off, she was a girl by the way. Then in quick succession Julian threw seven dice and got seven hits twice, this doomed my two male gang members, however the women fought on gloriously, killed a second enemy and left another within a hairs breadth of death. Sadly I lost the useless climber and this left Julian's last remaining full health character to jump from the plinth, grab a tribute and then leap back up and offer it to Mars. Game over.

My girl cannot climb for toffee.

Julian triumphant!

What did I think, well I enjoyed it and we had a few tense moments and some laughs and it lasted longer than Julian's previous games so we didn't have time to get a second game in. There were a couple of things which stood out for me, fighters reduced to almost no health points still attack as if they were not wounded and suffered no penalties, this fact allowed my girls to kill an enemy and severely reduce the health of one more. I also noticed that the stats of all the fighters were almost the same, so you could not buy a large gang of mediocre fighters and try and overwhelm a more dangerous gang, this may change in the future. Julian did an excellent paint job on the figures but I have seen better sculpts and would be tempted to buy from other manufacturers, but of course, quite rightly, the designers don't want you to do this and you only at the moment get the cards, coins, dice etc. when you buy a specific figure. I would still be tempted to buy elsewhere having got the original figure. I would certainly play again and I hope I will.

I mentioned a few weeks ago I was reading an excellent trilogy by author Ben Kane, on the strength of this I bought a second, big mistake. This second series is about the Roman troops captured at Carrhae and sent to the East to fight on the edge of the Parthian Empire. Great I thought, but I began to wish the main characters had succumbed to a Parthian shot in the desert. One in particular is a soothsayer who is all knowing, all the other soothsayers are charlatans but this one could get you the lottery numbers every week, he is that good. I really couldn't take to this guy, and the prediction that put me over the edge and the book down was 'in three days we will meet a Judean caravan carrying silk, at around half past two', no, the last bit was me but you get the idea. You also have to believe this guy, who is Etruscan(?) hates Rome for destroying his civilisation four hundred years before (nonsense), a long time to carry a grudge, and wants them to pay, pay what? Oh, they also deplore Roman cruelty and the use of slaves, in the Ancient World, come on. I have not entirely given up on Mr. Kane as I couldn't put the first trilogy down, so I am going to get the first one of his Hannibal series and see how it goes.