At the monthly meeting of the Hong Kong Society of Wargamers, Andrew brought along his freshly printed and painted 2mm ancient armies to put on a couple of games using the Strength and Honour rules by Mark Backhouse. Andrew has already produced excellent video reports of both games, which are linked at the end, so I will just outline them and focus on my thoughts about the rules after my first encounters with them.
The first game was a refight of the Second Battle of Chaeronea in 86BC when a Roman and allied Greek Army under Sulla defeated a Pontic and allied Greek Army under Archelaus. Ancient historical accounts speak of the Romans being outnumbered by 3 to 1, but these probably reflect Sulla's post battle propaganda. In the line up at the club, the Pontic force had 12 units to the Roman's 9. At the core of the Pontic force were four Macedonian style phalanx blocks, one of them being elite Bronze shields, two standard and the last a less effective 'slave' phalanx. They were supported by an imitation legion, a unit of Theureophoroi, two skirmish units, a unit of archers, two cavalry units and finally a batch of scythed chariots. Against this, the Romans could deploy five Roman legions, two veteran, two standard and one raw, together with one Theurephoroi, a skirmisher and two cavalry units.
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| Chaeronea after first moves by the Pontic army in the foreground, pushing forward on both wings while the phalanx holds back. The Romans line the foot of the hills, far across a wide plain from their enemies. |
The second game saw Ancient Britons under Boudicca trying to reverse the outcome of the Battle of Watling Street. Seven war bands, supported by chariots, cavalry and skirmishers, faced off against two Roman legions and two auxiliary formations in a strong defensive position.
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| Watling Street. The Romans hold a line along a ridge between two forest areas, facing the massed hordes of Boudicca's army advancing towards them. |
Both games were most enjoyable, a tribute to good organisation and guidance from Andrew as game master; hard fighting and good cheer from my opponent, Elliot, in both games; the luck of the set-back and disaster cards running in my favour at the end; and, the rules themselves.
The first thing to highlight in the rules is the very elegant combination of two mechanisms - the Command Board and the Setback and Disaster cards - to make players think carefully and use their interventions wisely during play, while remaining in a state of growing uncertainty about the morale of their army. The Command Board is where the army morale break point is recorded and command points are allocated. The break point is fixed at the start of the game, based on the army composition and quality. It is the point against which the scores on setback and disaster cards are compared when these are revealed. Command points are determined by three things. First is the General's quality. These points can be used at any time for a unit to which the general is attached. Second is a quota of between 1 and 4 points derived from the army rating. Third is an extra quota between 2 and 4 determined by a dice roll. The command points from these other sources have to be allocated before play begins to one of four pools on the board - Strategy, Movement, Attack and Defence. Each Command Point can be spent to allow a unit to retake a single die roll for a test appropriate to the pool - so if you allocate all your stock to Movement and then find yourself in need of a Defence re-roll, you are in trouble. The strategy pool allows interventions during setting up and when trying to trigger ambushes or flank marches but a crucial use is being able once in the game to resist a call of 'Homunculus Est'! This is a demand by the other player to reveal your accumulated setback and disaster cards. If the score revealed exceeds your army break point, you have lost the game. If over half your break point, your army becomes fatigued, which puts a -1 on all die rolls thereafter but you can discard the worst score on the cards, giving the army a little relief. Being able to prevent the discovery of your morale state, if only for one turn, can be a crucial instrument, giving your men a last chance to run up the enemy's tally of setbacks and disasters and call Homunculus Est on them before they can get you to reveal your cards. This was what the Chaeronea Battle came down to, with the Pontic Army being able to get their call in first and break the Romans before their own morale score could be revealed.
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| Pontic routed units, setback and disaster cards piling up in the first game. |
The second very good aspect of the rules (in my view) is the movement mechanism. It looks very simple - you move on a square grid, with no measurement of wheeling or distances to worry about. But, you have to roll to see how far each unit can move in its turn. This presents the commander with tricky decisions about whether and how to keep lines together. Furthermore, roll a 1 and the unit does not move at all. Roll a second 1 for movement and your turn ends. This introduces friction - troops are not necessarily going to be able to do what you want them to do - and forces players to think very carefully about what the critical action they need to focus on may be. You don't want a couple of failed movement tests to prevent you performing a crucial rally test before the enemy counter-attacks. On top of that, if you want a unit to do anything other than move directly forwards, you need to test for each extra action needed - to turn, to shift obliquely or sideways, to go through rough terrain or move through a zone of control. The pass score for these tests depends on the type and quality of the unit. A Roman Legion is a lot more flexible than a Macedonian phalanx or war band but not as agile as cavalry or skirmishers.
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| A Roman Veteran legion (top left) turns easily to face a threat to the flank while Pontic units struggle to get organised. Such was the Pontic difficulty that Sulla's command was able to turn back to face the slowly advancing Pontic phalanx (bottom left) as the Pontic's imitation legion (top centre to right of cavalry lines) blundered around without having further influence on the game! |
The combat mechanism is again well thought out and easy to pick up - aided by a very good alternative QRS that Andrew had designed. Trying to manoeuvre - given the complications noted above - so as to give you support or flank advantages when you make an attack is the key to success. When two equal units meet face to face, you get to roll only 1 D6 and have to accept the result (unless you spend an attack command point to retake a crucial test). If you have an advantage in the attack - from better troops, support or position - you may get to roll 2 or 3 D6 and can chose the best outcome. If the enemy has advantage, you again roll 2 or 3 dice but they get to chose the best outcome for them! The defender may roll a D6 to try to match your chosen score, ending the attack with no result if they succeed. Otherwise, the result is applied. If you have rolled a 1, this entails a repulse for your unit. A 6 is a 'crunch' against the enemy which may cause them to rout. Results in between tend to favour the attacker, causing the enemy to pick up setback cards. How far an enemy unit may be pushed back depends on a further roll, with a discipline test also being needed in certain cases. Failure of discipline tests causes disorder, in which state a unit is of no use unless it can rally. Most units have a reasonable chance of passing a rally tests and are likely to be able to do so before another attack can be made on them, meaning that combat can sway to and fro for quite a while, with both sides having a chance to inflict setbacks on the enemy, before a result is achieved.
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| An exceptional combat. Pontic cavalry in the first engagement of the battle, on equal terms with the Romans, lose the combat, then fail a discipline test and a re-roll of the test catastrophically, picking up both a setback and a disaster card. |
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| More normal combat from the Watling Street game. Boudicca's war band (top right) has recovered from disorder before the Romans can make another attack, a legion has been pushed back and the other is now flanked by British cavalry. |
Altogether, the rules have given a very favourable first impression, though I am probably biased by the results of both games. Some more games with different outcomes will give a more reliable basis for assessment. The only uncertainty I had sprang from unfamiliarity with playing with such small figures. Andrew had done a marvellous job with the painting - the different tribes of Britons had different shield colours - but the step down from 20mm and 10mm gaming proved quite a big one for me, aesthetically. I went away with the thought of trying out the rules with 20mm figures, though this would mean either a far larger playing area than I have or abandoning any attempt for an individual unit to appear in the proper formation of a Roman Legion or division of phalanx.
Here are the links to the videos that Andrew has produced:
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