Romani ite domum

We were back to Saga this week, and after a long break it was a chance to bring out Age of Invasions. It was the club’s AGM, so we had reduced time for gaming, making a 4 point (rather than the usual 6 point) game a suitable option. Since I still only have 4pts of Romans painted up, this was also a good excuse to field them.

Previously we’ve tried Romans v Saxons, and Britons v Saxons, but not Romans against Britons, so it was going to be a first time. It was also back in March that we last played Age of Invasions, so I couldn’t remember very much about how the armies played at all. We also had the opportunity to introduce a new player to Saga, and they took on the Britons.

Since this was going to be a quick game, and I was mostly interested in seeing how the two armies played out, I didn’t bother too much with terrain, leaving a clear region in the centre of the table. This was also my first chance to try out my new forest bases for terrain. We never went into the woods, but they looked okay. An improvement over the old bits of cloth.

The Romans went first, mostly to demonstrate how the game worked. I mostly used Manoeuvre to bring my units up just outside of Long range from the Britons. I then further activated some units, taking fatigue knowing that I’d be able to get rid of it easily next turn using Signa.

The Britons also moved up, but didn’t charge. Mostly they were playing defensively, putting dice on various abilities ready to counter any attacks that I made.

In turn 2, wanting to demonstrate combat, I charged my unit of mounted hearthguard into the Briton’s hearthguard. I wasn’t expecting to win necessarily, but was hoping to whittle them down a bit. I used Barritus which allows me to activate units equal to the Impetus that I spend. Romans start with an Impetus of 4, so I spent two to activate two units. This also gave me two bonus attack and defence dice on a charge. What could go wrong?

Apparently, lots. The Britons had Wall of Steel, which gave then 4 bonus attack dice. Plus another 2 because they were galvanised. The Briton’s special ‘thing’ is that their units count as galvanised if within Short of their Warlord. As I was to find out, Britons which were keeping their units in tight formation around their Warlord are pretty tough.

The Roman hearthguards rolled badly, and scored only 2 hits. The Britons on the other hand got 8 hits. I managed to save 4 of the hits – but that still resulted in the Roman Hearthguard unit being wiped out. The Britons made all their saves, so took no casualties.

At least this cleared the way for my warriors to use Plumbatæ, getting a shooting attack at the Briton’s warlord. We got one hit, which was soaked with a fatigue.

The Britons retaliated when their warriors charged my warriors. Again, it was a one sided combat in which 5 Romans were killed in returned for 2 Britons.

In turn three, my Levee moved forward to use javelins on the second group of warriors. We used In This Sign, Conquer, which gave us four automatic hits. We got five hits total – but the Briton’s use of Shieldwall meant they saved four of them.

The Briton’s retaliated with their own levee, using their slingers to get 3 hits on mine. Using Scuta to re-roll the defence dice I saved all 3 hits. Probably the first set of good roles I’d had all game.

Their warriors charged in against the same levees though, killing six of them, and forcing them back. We got a single hit against them, which they saved.

Turn four, and I rolled my first Chi Rho (☧) result on my dice, allowing me to take Adversity – roll another three dice. I was down Saga dice by this point, as well as being down units. I needed to try and take out their warriors who were threatening me, so charged in my javelin equipped levees against the warriors. It wasn’t very successful.

In turn, the warriors charged by Hearthguard, and wiped them out, at a cost of 3 warriors to themselves. It was very, very clear at this point that the Romans had lost and had no way of turning things around.

By turn four, I was down to a single Saga die, so simply charged my Warlord at the Briton Warriors in front of him. I wiped out the unit, at the cost of being left exhausted.

With no bodyguards to protect him, he was an easy target for the Briton hearthguard who took him down.

So it was a clear, crushing defeat for the Romans. There had been some bad dice rolls, as well as a couple of poor decisions on my part. I think the scenario also played into the hands of the Britons – they were able to stay together and make easy use of their galvanised ability. A scenario which forced them to manoeuvre more and split up their army would have made it harder for them to use the abilities to their full effectiveness.

Taking a closer look at the Roman battleboard, it may be better to concentrate on warriors and levee rather than being hearthguard heavy. Plumbatæ allows a shooting attack with an aggression of 1. Rolling 12 attack dice from a unit of levee (even with the +1 to armour that the defenders get) could be quite effective.

Combined Formation allows a unit of bow equipped warriors to shoot using the line of sight of a nearby unit. Put them behind some levee, and that could be effective. I also need to finish painting up my Manuballista, which is really effective at very long range (2xL) against large units.

So I might get some standard levee and some bow equipped warriors to change the make up of my Roman army. If nothing else, the game has made it clear that my current army list isn’t well suited to the faction’s battleboard, and I need to change things around.