Impetvs Ancients- Roman Civil War!

With all the 6mm Moderns going on lately, I hadn't gamed with with many people other than the few of us playing Moderns lately. So, to remedy that, I emailed Jamie and asked for a game. After a bit of fussing about what to play, it occurred to me that I had an Impetvs Roman army that I had never used, and was mostly finished! So with that, we decided, 400 points of Impetvs was the go. Naturally, I had to rush paint a few more things, 2 more bases of Auxiliaries and 1 base of Praetorian Cavalry.

My Roman force was two commands,

Veteran Legion with General Martellus
2 Legion
2 Auxiliary
1 Scorpion
1 Praetorian Cavalry
1 Skirmishing Saggitarii

and

Veteran Legion with General Tercino
2 Legion
2 Auxiliary
1 Saggitarii
1 Skirmishing Saggitarii
1 Gladiator

Jamie's force was split into three Commands

2 Elite Legion, one with General Traitor
1 Auxiliary

2 Equites, one with General Scumy-Traitor
1 Praetorian Cav
2 Slingers

3 Legion, one with General Smelly-Traitor
3 Raw Legion
1 Skirmishing Saggitarii
1 Saggitarii


General Traitor with his Traitors

My plan was simple, one command on the left, one on the right. I planned to advance with a big block of Legions, flanks covered by Auxiliaries, and win the shoving match in the middle. Jamie placed his Cavalry on his right flank, legions in the centre, with his Praetorians flanking to the left. The plan was to hold in the middle, and crush me from the side (or so it seemed).


Look at all those brave Roman boys!

Through some good rolling, I activated my commands first. Both double moved, advancing as a block in an attempt to really get to grips with the enemy fast (is there any other way?)


Here we see the Roman Auxiliary in it's natural habitat...

Jamie moved forward, pushing his Cavalry out wide to avoid a patch of rough ground.


Equites rearing to go!

After another turn of maneuver, both forces were ready to engage. The only highlight of the next turn was me rolling a 6 for my General's unit for cohesion, and losing a wound...

But it was not long before the brave (loyal) Legionaries hit the brave (disloyal) Legionaries.


Veteran Legion vs Raw Legion? Should be easy right? This combat lasted the whole game....

Legion crashed into legion. Usually one, if not both units were disordered to begin with, so no Pilum or any such useful rules were had. Casualties were immense as the shoving match in the centre began.

On the loyalists left flank, the two units of Auxiliaries were tasked with stopping a Cavalry flanking attack. The first unit charged one base of Equites which had some skirmisher support...


This combat lasted a long time too....

While the other, through some clever doubling through difficult terrain was able to catch the Cavalry general in the flank!


Which destroyed him!

On the right flank, the Auxiliaries and Equites worked in combination over a couple of turns to destroy the enemy Praetorian command.

The shoving match in the centre was starting to turn towards the Loyalists. Jamie was down to the point where he needed to lose ANY one unit, and he would lose the game. However, my left flank was in the same predicament, and if that was to fall, so would the game!

It was only when the Auxiliaries which were holding up one unit of Equites and two units of slingers finally succumbed (after about 4 turns of rolling a 1 for cohesion- auto success!) did my left flank fall.

Which tragically lost me the game!

And it prevented my Cavalry killing Auxiliaries from claiming the scalp of the Equites Contariorum!


It's not fair, you have more legs than us!

So, an honourable defeat. But, a very fun game of Impetvs. I have a few more Romans left to paint, which I should really do at some point. Although my painting table is a total mess at the moment, so I will need to get that into some semblance of order before I try to mass anything more on it!

Next up? Not sure. Wait and see!

CP