TTS AAR: Colours Game Three: Early Imperial Romans versus Scots/Irish
/My third and final game at the Colours tournament this year was against Rob’s Scots/Irish: a huge army of barbarian infantry that just about stretched in one unbroken line from one end of the table to the other!
I lost the scouting, but still entertained a small of hope of being able to use my superior cavalry to get around an enemy flank, but that hope died a death once the Scots/Irish had made their first move: charging forward determined to overwhelm the Romans through sheer weight of numbers.
Although they don’t necessarily look it, all the scots/irish units were deep
At this point in the day, neither Rob nor I were much interested in tactics: and it wasn’t long before the two battle lines came together with a mighty crash, literally lining up unit-on-unit from one side of the table to the other.
It soon became obvious that the Romans were in the fight of their lives: the Scots/Irish were taking hit after hit but, having three lives each, just staying on the table to inflict damage of their own, especially as some of them were fanatics so ignored any penalties from disorder.
That unbroken line of melee rapidly fragmented as successful units on either side pushed forward against retreating opposition, and soon the game consisted of a series of vicious little fights that neither side could afford to lose: getting a unit free to start hitting the flanks of the enemy line would be a game winner for either side.
On the left, although one unit of Roman cavalry broke through the Scots/Irish line, their colleagues were forced to retreat in order to rally, and the situation became very dicey indeed!
Meanwhile, in the centre and centre/right, the Romans, although inflicting terrible casualties on the Scots/Irish, were pushed right back until they were literally fighting from inside the wall of their castrum (or rather castra as I had three camps - thank you, Mr Mackenzie, for making sure I never forgot how to decline bellum!).
It was now a matter of whether the Romans could take the last few Scots/Irish coins before collapsing themselves.
Fortunately, a unit of veteran Legionaries knew their duty, and cut down a final unit of Scots/Irish fanatics, giving me Rob’s last three coins and victory.
It had been a short, sharp and brutal clash that the Romans only managed to win because of the quality of their troops. For once I managed to rally the units I needed to rally without losing too many coins to the rally-on-evens rule…but even with that, if I hadn’t had a fortified camp to fall back on, it could easily have been a very different story indeed.
A great game, though: very exciting and with Rob and I enjoying every moment!
So that had been the inaugral To The Strongest tournament at Colours. With two losses and one win under my belt I think I came 5th or 6th, so better than expected but still pretty unfortunate coming off the back of my win at Britcon.
The Romans will now slip back into their retirement as I continue my quest for a new 28mm tournament army - in between, of course, adding to my main 15mm collection!
