SIP Playtest 2: Ancients

Just finished a rather epic Roman v Early German confrontation along the lines
of the opening scene in Gladiator. I chose a large game format with between 16
and 18 units on each side.

The Romans: 8 Legionnaries, 4 Auxiliary Foot, 4 Auxiliary Cavalry
The Germans: 12 Warband, 4 Skirmishers, 4 Cavalry

I was going to play the Germans as Heavy Infantry but I wanted to try out
Warband and was intrigued by this notion of "Fresh" that John introduced, which
I thought I'd go for instead of first round impetus.

To compensate I kept all troops on the same competency scale of morale. With
hindsight I think this was a bit over generous to the German side as Fresh works
really well if you're winning and the Romans would have benefited from ignoring
one DP on a number of occassions. Getting a precious extra 2 dice can really
make a difference.

The Romans had to attack a long ridge, flanked by dense woods. The Germans were
goading them to advance as per the film intro. Battle did commence but the
skirmisher screen put out by the Germans did a good job in delaying and
disrupting the advancing legion. I think this was a bit too disruptive, not from
the missile fire but the mere fact that they got in the way. Perhaps a dispersal
/ auto-evade type ruling needs to be in place. I allowed the LI to retreat a
move even though they didn't outmove the Legion. First rule change: no greater
than move restriction on retiral.

The auxilia then proceeded to engage the occupied woods while the Roman legions
finally advanced up the central ridge. The individual nature of combats meant
that other units couldn't get in to engage others that easily but did perform a
rather vital role of support to those who were doing the fighting. I spent some
time moving units into support positions near melee areas so that they sat
within the 10cm melee catchment zone. I liked this element of cohesion and close
support. Even the cavalry were helping when they couldn't get a clear run to
charge.

The combat was long and furious. Generally the Legions were supreme but Fresh
warband are a potent instrument particularly in favourable terrain and with
close support. I decided that terrain advantage should only last one round
otherwise it would factor too heavily.

The Romans won the contest but only narrowly. I decided that the Germans wanted
to keep their force intact to harass the Romans in the future so the game stood
at 9 remaining Roman units vs 6 German.

This game took a lot longer than my first tip-toe into the water. I would
estimate it lasted at least two hours but it was compelling stuff and I would
say that with some more modifications to the systems I should be getting there.
My main conclusion was that I liked what John had done to dumb down my
amendments which played in a rather cluttered way - I'll drop the Armour save
and probably the die modifier factors.

Look forward to updating the Group on my next foray which must be H&M as I
haven't even tried the original version yet!