One Weekend Two Games

Two very different games this weekend. 

Romans on the right. Palmyrans on the left. Both starting with 11 Reputation

Saturday Evening, Game 28

Pasha Dan messaged me on Thursday to see if my Romans wanted to face a Palmyran army in a game of Midgard. I tweaked my army list a bit to make it more shooty, and hard hitting, since I'd be facing a nasty combination of cataphracts and archery.

Palmyran center. Their one unit of heavy infantry is just to the left.

Cataphracts

So many cataphracts. That's Zenobia following along behind on her camel.

Weirdy-Beardy was on my side with my 3rd century army. Electical Pete and Handyman Huw ran the Palmyrans with Pasha Dan giving colour commentary from the sidelines. I failed the roll and had to set up first. I decided to keep my cavalry all together on the left wing and anchored my right on some low hills and brush. I put more centuries of infantry in the front line, only keeping two back in the second. My eastern archers were depoyed as four units of skirmishers across the front to increase my shooting.

Carolianus Silex in the center

The Palmyrans faced my cavalry and center with a mix of horse archers, massed archers and skirmishing archers, and one unit of heavy foot. Five units of cataphracts ("knights" armour 4, hit on 4+ in their first combat) with the general braved the rough ground on my right to try and ride down my infantry.

Archers fail to evade! But they used up that unit's 4+ initial attack.

My cavalry had a good day, getting in several good charges and eliminating the opposing light horse before smashing the sole unit of heavy infantry. My cavalry leader was wounded by Palmyran arrows, but held onto his Today We Fight to Win Mighty Deed until that final charge so that the Roman cavalry rolled over the Palmyran heavy foot.

Meanwhile, Weirdy-Beardy has been getting pushed back by the tide of iron horse, and things were getting tense. My Prefect, Carolianus Silex and Centurion Primus both put in local counter attacks, using Today We Fight to Win. Weirdy-Beardy charged into the opposing General's squadron who rolled three 1's on the Risk to Heroes, a Roman spear thrust obviously finding a fatal chink in his armour and putting him in the dust. That coupled with losing a unit of Cataphracts caused the Palmyran Reputation to be at 0 by the end of the turn.

Both sides are hurting. If not for this Risk to Heroes roll, I'd have probably broken first.

Sunday Evening, Game 29

Big Pat has been busy painting all of the 1/2400 scale WW1 Starter Squadron Packs from Dobbie's Hobbies that he got at Hotlead. 

He's got enough done that he was ready to try a small game of the fast playing Dread Not! rules.

Russian pre-dreadnought coastal battleship 

Turkish pre-dreadnought 

Turkish dreadnought (formerly the SMS Goben)

Russian torpedo boats

Russian battleship, the Rurik I think

The set up is interesting.  Pat had to deploy first and a die roll determined how far from the center of the table and in which direction. 

I then rolled for my bearing and got to set up on the Turkish starboard quarter! Presumably our fleets were steaming around blindly when the weather cleared and we sighted each other at very close quarters!

Of course battleships have a maximum range of only 20", so we were probably several kilometers apart.

Opening moves. My cruisers (left) are moving behind the Turks, while my torpedo boats move in for an attack. My battleship squadron (foreground) is steering to try and bring their broadsides against the Turkish battleships. 

Firing is general. My torpedo attacks roll very well, sinking a cruiser and a pre-dreadnought.

The Turkish dreadnought Sultan is still crossing my T (my battleship is in foreground)

End of game. Torpedoes and guns sink the Sultan, but my cruisers (left of frame) are both torn apart by Turkish torpedo salvos.

That took an hour to play. Of course if my deployment roll had put me further away there would have been a few additional turns of maneuvering.

This was quite a small game for these rules I think. Gunnery is to simply add up firepower brought to bear by all ships engaging, compare with target armour to get odds, and roll on an old fashioned Combat Results Table. 

Damage is mostly ticking off boxes until you sink. Not nearly as detailed as Snorkers, but Snorkers isn't trying to do fleets actions.