TTS AAR: Colours Game One: Early Imperial Romans vs Late Romans
/This year saw the inaugral to The Strongest competition at the Colours wargames show at Newbury Racecourse. Well done to Mr Hilary for organising!
Amazing what you can generate with AI these days!
As the competition was Ancients lists only, I had to rest my Venetians and bring my Early Imperial Romans out of retirement. This army consists of figures that a friend of mine, Fred, painted when we were still at school together, so are well over 40 years old; and figures inherited when a SOGS friend of mine, Trevor, sadly passed away.
Coincidentally, my first opponent on the day was Si, another SOGS member and a regular foe. As Si is always keen to point out, although I’ve beaten him plenty of times, I’ve never actually beaten him in competition: so it was obviously time to put that right!
The view from behind the Late Romans lines at the start of the game
Both sides advanced their infantry on the left and centre forward strongly at the beginning of the game, but on the right the cards decided that I would refuse my cavalry despite their veteran status.
I managed to get a tactical advantage in the first clash - having a few 2:1 melees - but my troops were having a bit of an off day and apart from one push back on the far left, all that happened was that I lost a general!
Once my cavalry did get involved, however, the resultant melee went my way. The problem, now, was how to take advantage given that it had happened a long way away from the main action.
That, incidentally, was not going very well, with the enemy Romans managing to lap around my left flank. This meant that I had to retreat my line to rally and reorganise, unfortunately giving up three coins to the “lose a coin if you rally on an even number rule”…those three coins representing 25% of my total coinage!
My cavalry pushed forward, with some of them then turning left to successfully take the Roman line in the flank, but that initial success was then tempered by the difficulties in getting across the crowded battlefield to attack the rest of the enemy.
I had definitely “won” on the right, and was pushing back into the centre and left, but by this time I had lost another general, so out of my starting thirteen coins I had now lost all but two: four to losing units (acceptable given that I had killed more of his troops) but then seven to the two generals I had lost (annoying) and the three I lost rallying (utterly unacceptable!).
Only having two coins left leaves you very vulnerable and, sure enough, although I stopped Si winning the game by getting his infantry into my camp, and was in a superior tactical position, I only had to lose one more unit to lose the game, which I did and therefore did!
A very frustrating 69-140 loss and leaves Si’s 100% record against me in competition intact!
It was a game that I could so easily have won had I been able to continue: the seven coins lost to the death of the two generals and rallying really hitting me hard. But well done to Si for playing a great game: I might have had some tactical advantages at some stages of the game, but he never let me turn them into a win!
Next up was Sid and his Samnites…
