AAR German V's Sarmatian's Impetus Rides Again

As promised a AAR or Battle Report for the latest playing of Impetus. Like Basic Impetus the honeymoon is over. After a couple of games where all seems right with the world you notice the odd rankle and detail that does not seem quite right. Some of it will possibly be misreading a rule or missing it completely others will need that little thing called a house rule. That's not to say I don't like the rules, I do, do I like them more than FoG? Not a chance, but they are different and different is good. Impetus are the new DBM, I don't think they are worth the asking price and I dislike intensely the way they put army lists together. Seems they have taken a leaf out of GW's book and mixed in a Collectible Card game mentality. Mixed period lists are about as crap an idea as you can come up with. What next sell separate lists in foil packet with so many Common Lists and trading for that rare list you want? Not impressed at all.

But that's not what we are here for, we want blood and action I guess. Well the biggest plus for Impetus fans (and probably the biggest turn off for detractors) is you get plenty with these rules. Barry had picked the armies and this time we did not play with the Romans which was the right choice as they have made it out four times in a row and seem to be rather powerful. This time we had the almost all foot First German Army 1st to 3rd Century which I tool. These were 6 units of spear and sword armed infantry with 2 units of bow (big mistake, not worth having) and two units of medium cavalry. I expected more from these guys being known nutters and mostly Impetuous foot. I doubled two units so as to take punishment. Now I have a VBU of 4 and a Impetus bonus of 4 that is not any use against mounted units (why can't it count against flank and rear attacks of Cavalry?) so facing a Sarmatian Army I have issues. Barry has the Sarmatian army and has 4 units of heavy cavalry that are doubled up so only act as two units. One unit of light cavalry, Four units of so called crap infantry (they move slow but fight fine) and finally another unit of bow armed infantry that were strangely better than mine. Given that we have next to no terrain and whilst getting to grips with the rules we went for just a few hills which was good for helping us along but not so good for nice pics or a foot based army facing tanks, er I mean Sarmatian heavy cavalry. So here we are with the starting positions.

I am on the left of the picture. Both my Cavalry units are on the right facing Barrie's lights and one double heavy. I hope to distract the heavy with one of my double foot and then swing the flank round to take them whilst I keep the lights out of it with my cavalry. My far left flank is just to hold out as long as possible whilst I try to win in the centre.

It became obvious Barry had a plan of just crushing me at all points of contact as he steamed forward. The first contact was on the left, a clash of double units, Barry with horseflesh me with plebs on foot. I had a poor 6 dice (good job it was a double unit) whilst Barry weighed in with 12, 6 for it's VBU, 3 for the rear rank and 3 for it's Impetus bonus! I should have been in big big trouble but for Barry rolling fairly badly. Though this would not matter too much given he has VBU of 6 x 2 facing 4 x 2 long term it is obvious that his troops will pass more tests and will loose troops at a slower rate and so I need to send in help quickly to stand a chance. The next attack by Barry (he seemed to keep getting the drop on me early for Initiative) was a badly conceived attack by his light cavalry on my mediums, especially as he came down off the hill to do it. I rolled well and Barry did not, he then rolled REALLY badly for casualties losing the whole unit. Time to use one of his re-rolls? same roll down one unit and down half of his re-rolls! Not wanting to get the 12 V 6 dice next turn I charged his other heavy cavalry with my other double foot, he was still on 9 dice V my 6 but it was the best I could hope for.

I hold the hill the lights were dying to leave

Barry was looking shaky on the left, his Heavy Cavalry had picked up a disorder before I charged and failed to counter charge, the net result was a push back for me but I was still in the game and Barry was needing to send troops to this flank. The centre was as yet to engage whilst on my left flank he was making slow progress as we both were not doing much in the way of damage.

A few rule issues that had cropped up at this point. I say rule issues but unless we missed something it's more questionable rules. Barry before charging his light horse fired them into his target unit, whilst I would not have issue with this normally under these rules (Impulse instead of you go I go) it's possible for Barry to have fired that unit as the last action of the previous turn after coming into bow range then activate it as the first unit of the next turn. No issues with that other than he could then have fired twice at my now to be charged unit but that unit would not have been able to fire at any point at the attacker. My point is, if the attacker can fire before charging you should be able to fire back at him. Next up, counter charging is a mugs game. Fail and you disorder, OK seems reasonable but C class (the worst) fail 66% of the time. Average fail 50% and the very cream of your army bottles it 33% of the time! Seems beyond harsh and shows up the biggest failings of a system that uses a single D6 for important rolls. As already touched on, whilst foot don't get a Impetus bonus for attacking mounted frontally they I feel should get one for charging the flank or rear. Yes they get two extra dice but given the charged unit gets to fight with full strength that really is not a great bonus when attacking units with a high VBU.

The next couple of turns were brutal. I started to drop down my VBU's of both double units, even though I reinforced the melee's the heavy cavalry were just too powerful and linked to poor rolling I was in trouble. I needed to clear a flank supporting infantry unit out of the way on my right but failed to cause a single casualty. In the centre I was charged by the Sarmatian infantry, a single unit supported by the double unit. As I was on the hill I expected a fair chance but these poor infantry were again rolling more dice than me due to Impetus bonus and support. I was pushed back and things were sliding well. Soon I lost the left hand double unit to spectacular loss rolling and I was forced to throw the pathetic bow armed troops into the flank, that only lead to more trouble!

I then lost the other double unit and was one unit off auto break. I had managed to remove three units from Barry but was no were near on any other unit. So Barry charged my last bow armed unit. I had a VBU of 2 so it did not look like they would win but could they at least not die? I think it was three hits, I needed a one to pass, a 2 or more would kill them, yep they died and a win for Barry.

Again it was lots of fun and fairly quick. Two players with a good knowledge of the rules and focused fully on the game must be able to play this out in just a hour to two hours, we took longer but had lunch and a few diversions and rule hold ups.

Another Impetus rule I dislike is the "If your disordered you can't really do anything but move forwards" and whilst a Heavy Cavalry unit or Pike Block would require a good bit of re-ordering before wheeling or even forming into a new formation I really struggle with the idea that something like a war band could not about face and move back a half move and turn to face again. Sure they would be still disordered but why can't they do that? The same goes for turning to face and expand on the spot. The idea that they would not do this to face a new threat because they were disordered is strange. Sure they would and again they would remain disordered. It would be better to say, can try and re-order and if successful can then turn to face and expand but if fail the re-order check can not turn to face etc. OR you get to turn to face without being allowed to come out of disorder that turn (i.e. the time spent trying to form up would not allow the position change) or you get to try to re-order in the new position but have a -2 to the roll which would men Class C would not be able to re-order. This was a issue for Barry who was winning all around a unit that was disordered but it could not well, turn or do anything inspite of seeing all run before it.  This is made worse really by the big base of a Impetus unit. Other rules have the units split into smaller bases that allow for staged changes so it is a double whammy.

The game did play out as you would expect a powerful horse based army catching a foot based one in the open would do which obviously is a god sign. But like all dice based games a run of great dice can overturn any what should happen scenario. The dice in this game were not when taken over the whole game for either of us. Both of us had moments were good dice could have given us that all important break. If I was to use that army again I would play a little different and would expect more terrain to give them some place to hide. Next game will probably be 6mm Napoleonic using the rules we have been trying to cobble together.

Barry may well give us the lowdown on the Sarmatian army in the comments section and possibly his view of the battle and rule points, the other side of the hill as it were.

Full on Impetus AAR.

Rules are funny things, the first game of Basic Impetus I felt was good and a possible challenge to Field of Glory. The second playing left me with a feeling of being cheated. The rules did not stack up and for me to play a third time I felt they needed some major surgery. Barry on the other hand felt better about the rules than the first sitting and decided to buy the full rules after all. I welcomed this as they would obviously fill in a few holes at least. I just was not interested given the high cost compared to FoG and by that point was happy with these rules. Once Barry had the rules he was full of how they did indeed fill gaps in the basic rules and how they brought in elements that was not even hinted at in the basic free rules. So I was looking forward to having a go at the full version and mentally committed to building an army of my own at some point. So finally we both are able to get a game in and we started off with a 300 point army which seems to be about the same as a 600 + point FoG army. What follows is a potted version of events.

Both armies line up. The Dacian army on the right is commanded by Barry whilst I get the Romans again, which is fine by me.

My army spread across the table, I had a few units tucked up as reserves and doubled up both legions to make large units. All my cavalry were positioned on my left, yep two light and one medium, just wow. I was using my casualty markers to represent my DVP, this was one less thing to look up so worked well. Barry used the down loadable casualty markers.

Barry placed all his horse on his right, he was playing hardball with a bunch of cataphracts. I was scarred, I mean two light horse and one medium. Reminds me of a Beatles song! I think Barry has a sponsorship deal going on as he slyly gets the rules into shot.

The table was a little small for the number of units on it which did lead to some straight in combat but it helped to speed up the game. Any larger and it's over to Maelstrom to use one of their tables. I only supplied the cloth and hills as Barry had not only supplied the two armies but also the down loadable terrain. Here I am about to test the rules for the first time as I try to get ahead by charging the skirmish bow troops Barry was annoying me with. I needed to do a double move, one to get round the brush and then charge home. To do more than a single move you need to pass a command test. I failed the test, this did not stop me charging but did disorder me.

Which led me to be the first player to loose a unit. My light horse needed a bit better than average dice but threw really badly, Barry rolled boxcars on his two dice causing two casualties. Now a Doors song is playing in my mind. Whilst I did not mind losing the unit too much it was the rolls that made me a little on edge. Not the poor rolling as such, no it was that you have to roll low on 1D6. Say you have a strength of 4 and loose 2 casualties then you need to roll 1-2 on a D6 not to loose a casualty. a 3 will loose you a single loss whilst a 5 would loose you three (6 would be 4). A 1 will always be a pass a 6 a fail. Th problem in my mind was that this one die roll could have drastic effect and did so during the game on more than one occasion.

Having lost one unit destroyed I now was facing a Super Heavy Cavalry armed with Lance whilst sitting on little more than donkeys with not so pointy sticks. Clearly I had issues. At least I could retire and not have to die but this was rather leaving my Medium Cavalry out to dry. My left was looking worry some. The middle was much better as Barry had kept all his troops in the centre away from my troops as he has to react to being within charge reach.

I started to move forwards in the centre and all the way over to my right flank moving the supporting Auxillia out wide. I drew the falkesmen as they failed a stand test and these charged forward. Barry at this point really needed to give his army it's head but held the rest in position. This was to prove a big mistake as whilst the Falkesmen are really nasty in the charge 5 DVP 5 Impetus and 2 extra for supporting rank for 12 dice, once I survived the contact he lost 5 dice! however I managed to throw Pilum to start reducing his rear rank and then with strong support on each flank was able to start to grind him down.

Meanwhile on my left I had to face the charge of the cataphracts into my medium cavalry. These stood up to it better than expected. Sure they were pushed back, sure I lost casualties but they did not break and with flank support ready to help out things looked fairly good.

After chasing off the skirmish troops in the centre the Auxillia were to far forward and exposed. Barry seized the opportunity and went after them. But in a series of bizarre roles I was able to repel the first attack even though I lost the original combat the casualty rolls were opposites. Bad for Barry and good for me. I failed the rally roll but was still forward and standing. Meanwhile the Falkesmen were being steadily reduced in strength as their number of dice continued to drop.

On my left I charged the Cataphacts in the flank causing first disorder then a retreat after winning the melee. Not enough to rid myself of them but enough to stall the attack in this area. Barry had sent all his Cataphracts through the area atop the hill and at the time I felt he should send some wide. This turned out to be true as he just did not have the space to attack freely and this was very much to my favour.

Close up of the moment the Dacians realised that yes that Legion had something to say. The coin's designed to be terrain markers pulled double duty as I used them to mark disorder.

A fresh charge from Barry finally brought the end to my Mediums game but in doing so had driven the Cataphracts further down my line and into the waiting arms of my Axillia. These would charge into the flank of these tanks on the hoof, something they would not enjoy.

The double regiment were forced to charge my double Legion (both his cavalry formations were forced to charge). I did fairly poor (OK I did total crap) with the pillum but made up for it in the melee removing the rear rank and leaving his horse fairly shattered.

Back in the centre, I was slowly losing the battle with my one axillia directly to the centre but at quite a cost to the Dacian Infantry. Just to the right of this though I was a little more speedy with the dispatch of the Dacians facing my Legions. I had support but also the flanking Axillia was now in position to move down the line and drive into the flank of any troops emerging from the reduction of the other Auxillia unit.

The Dacian Gods require a blood sacrifice, I went for a quick fix of a goat myself, seems in a sick version of Paper Scissors, goat wins. Failed to get a close up of the goat boys.

What was to be the end game. Barry was breaking through the middle on a single unit frontage (but would have 3 units to exploit) whilst the mauling of his Cavalry would have left him with two very weak units best running from contact as they were in real danger of being destroyed. My half of the centre and right was all mine. These would swing to face the three units coming through the line.

I still had plenty of units at full strength for the final fight, Barry was close to destruction and as such would have been wise to try and get away at this point. What he could have pulled out was questionable. For sure it was looking bad at table height.

From our point of view it was a blast. I am sure we did plenty wrong that will be picked up next time but really I don't much care as the overall day was about getting a feel for the rules and fun. Both were achieved. I still think that dice roll is really powerful but I believe you have a fate roll yo can use a few times which we did not this time. I can live with it though. These rules are not FoG and I am happy they are not. FoG have removed the written record of 6th Edition WRG but retain so much of the flavour and a game will always have an element of study. Impetus to me is far closer to DBM. It's a mark of how far DBM went away from 6th that two sets of rules can come out and feel so very different in their approach and yet fit between the two predecessors. I really have no issues playing the two newer rule sets, I have found my ancients grey matter replacement of 6th Ed whilst Impetus has kept all the fun that DBM promised but wrapped it up in a set of rules that seem to feel the period better. Of course this is first playing bliss, lets hope once the honeymoon has ended were still going at it!!!

AAR Lee V Ian, Game 2

After I had played Lee at Maelstrom games it took me two weeks of fairly high pain levels to get over it, was it worth it? My brain says no not really but to hell with that!! So we were keen to try and get another game in as soon as possible to build on our experience with the rules. This was delayed a bit by Lee getting some metal fragments in his eye but this only slowed him down (he built the terrain boards whilst off work ready for the game!!!) So rather than brave the cold of Maelstrom we played in Lee's sauna. He knows I feel the cold more than you normal folk so had cranked up the heat in his man cave. I thought I would pass out it was so warm. We also had stools to perch on so it made for a far more pleasant experience.

A quick word on the boards, lee wanted something that would also be able to be used for 28mm as well as 15mm. Looking at the texture I thought originally he had over played the 28mm and that they would not be so good for 15mm. I was wrong, the bases stood fine on them and they worked well. Lee's games room is so big that this lay out took a rather small part of his total table space. It's a fantastic games room that I hope we will use plenty more in the future.

OK same drill as the time before. 800 points (ish) and Lee was fielding the Macedonian army again and I was using the Persian. Lee has painted up a few more units whilst I have not rebased anything in the last two months but had plenty of options. Both of us learnt lessons from the last game so our armies had changed. Lee had added Elephants (4 of them) and had cut back on the light foot but mostly reduced his cavalry commitment. I had binned a unit of Hoplites and upgraded two of my Cavalry to the best I had on offer. I also had one Paphalgonian Javelin/LightSpear LC unit but it was larger that the original. Another upgrade was the Commander, I went inspired. Again the main idea was to get to know the rules rather than play for kidneys so we both were to do things, just to see that would not happen in a normal game.

At start set up, the village in the foreground was used as much because Lee had just bought it recently and painted it for the game, though it was placed as per set up, unlike the river that was added for the same reason but out of the way as it was just added for eye candy. Now given that Lee 6 weeks ago had no terrain for 15mm at all, suddenly we had plenty, we still need vineyards and olive tree groves which I need to supply but we agreed that I would do these post March 20th as I am in a painting contest. Both Lee and myself dislike the terrain set up rules that with odd dice could have all the terrain in one area, it makes a mockery of winning initiative if then dice decide where a terrain piece starts, lets face it, you have as much chance that that hill you picked will be in your opponents area as your own, and very little chance of it being in your centre. So we simply changed it so that you can place the piece but the rolls for changing it's position were still kept. Having won initiative again I went first.

Again my plan was to get the lights as far forward as possible and slow down the pike. Causing casualties would be a bonus but add a few turns to making contact was the aim of the game. I wanted to win on both flanks but overloaded my left to I hoped guarantee a quick win there. On the right I thought just a Medium Infantry should shake out a couple of lights and backed them with Light Horse bow armed and Cavalry with bow and Sword. Clearly enough.

Lee had the pike in the centre with Elephants protecting the flanks. On his right he had two BG's of Cavalry Lance and two Light Horse, one Javelin the other Lance. His left was just a BG of Cretans and another of Javelin/Light Spear. I had high hops on the flanks, no hope in the centre.

I was to move the left hand Hoplite BG onto the forward hill, knowing this would speed up contact but keen to give Lee a taste of what they could do and hoping that by then his flanks would be shredded. My camp is that sheet of plastic!! well by the next game it will be populated, finished the figures yesterday, now I just need to paint and flock the base and arrange the figures then I can hold my head high.

Oh so brave, Lee was charging them every opportunity and they just melt away, unfortunately often by far to much (AGAIN!!!), fearsome view though. Elephants can really be vulnerable as losing just one base will remove the whole unit but the -2 for shooting and -1 for Elephants really made this a difficult prospect as I could not get enough shots in and when I did Lee would need to roll a 1 to loose out. Rather frustrating as they stood up well but it all added to the fun.

Oh the first of many charges on my right flank. I did get them right up to the board edge where the Cretans would have had to face me but at this point my guys had lost their puff and the disruption they had picked up stopped them charging in. If only I had taken the LC along as well I could have netted at least one unit on that flank and the baggage, in the end nothing more than keeping two LF BG's out of the battle was achieved. Lesson learnt.

I tried being sneaky but I know I missed a rule that would not have been in my favour (I failed to step forward)I charged his Lances with a unit that could only get one base into contact so the impact phase had less effect and allowed my Javelin armed LC to fire. I had charged his LH which had evaded hence the nice looking lines. The net result was the Companions picked up a Disruption, yes Persian Cavalry did something, these were one of the two better BG's, both of which matched the Companion regiment for Quality and Armour though the guys behind were Agima and as such better quality. Note the use of my casualty marker :-)

Midgame and Lee is closing in whilst I fail to put a single dent in the attacking troops. I think next time it will be Javelin Light foot.

The lights on the right, are in fact Prodromoi Lance armed and in trouble. These also disrupted but they managed to do the same to me and I lost a base as well! But they had just 4 bases in the combat whilst I had four and that's before reduction for being lights. I had a good chance of rolling these.

OOOOps! My Cavalry get to grips with the Pike, shame really then it was really the other way round. The pike charged my lights who scarpered and left the Cavalry to take the hit. They help up fairly well but went Disrupted and lost a base. Being Cavalry they at least could get out of it.

Crunch time. My hoplites take on the whole Phalanx and hold out well. Out numbered on the dice they took their lumps and whilst Lee was causing me to loose bases I was doing the same to him but I was also losing Cohesion. The hill was all that was keeping me in it.

Push comes to shove! Close up of the action in the centre. I know I can't win but they held for a few turns, a victory in itself.

Time for Lee to have a play. In a normal game he would have waited but wanting to see if he could make a dent in me he charged up hill into my second Hoplite unit. The nett result was a lucky casualty save after becoming disrupted. The tough girls just kept taking the lumps right to the end of the game. Lee was lucky here as he should have lost them but next time, oh yes next time.

On the other flank I had a chance to charge into the rear of the other Elephants with my lights. As this is a auto drop in Cohesion I was eager to get that done. I passed my Complex test and needed 3 or more to contact so of course rolled a 2 and fell short. A shame as along with a good set of shooting rolls I could have got rid of these guys.

The game ended here. On my left I had routed the Companions and they were destined to go off board without rallying, the Lance LC had been destroyed and the same fate was soon to happen to the Javelin armed LC whilst the Agema was facing off against two fully ordered Persian Cavalry at full strength. This would leave the pike without protection as the nellies were off forward. I doubt I would have stopped the destruction of my centre though. The right was a joke with neither of us doing more than chasing each others tail. We called it a draw though it would have been fun to leave set up to continue to the end.

Lessons learnt. Most important was that we really do like these rules. I hope the Impetus rules grab me as much as these as then I will be truly happy with my Ancients gaming choices. We got used to the rule book a little more, though I am still baffled why they hide RULES in the Glossary section????? They score low on layout and order but if you want fast play rules these seem to fit really well. I am now supposed to be re-basing my ECW for the Renaissance rules sometime in the none too distant as it has fueled Lee to advance that bit further (Help anyone?) As I headed out the door Lee commented on how he needed to finish off a Naps unit that night, whilst I was more concerned with a sit down and maybe a nap happy in the knowledge of a bloody fine day.

So this is what he finished. I'm rather green with envy. Nice one Lee. thanks for the hospitality and a great day. Lets get to the next game.

AAR A Field of Glory Clash!

For my second outing with the rules the plan was to have a warm body on the opposite side of the table. Instead I had to settle for a shivering mass of humanity that goes by the name of Lee. Whilst I really can't fault Maelstrom games for their excellent facilities which includes free use of 60+ tables!!! we just happened to pick a cold day to play. Two other guys were there playing Flames of War and one of them was trying to move his figures with padded gloves on!!! Not only do they provide the tables but also they allow free use of a large mix of terrain, though most of this in fact is more suited to 28mm and a lot of it would be warhammer 40K but still plenty enough to make use (though I had taken my hills and got good use out of them).

So to test run the rules and get Lee's just arrived army out we went for a Late Achaemenid Persian V Alexandrian Macedonian for about 800 points. In fact both of us pipped the points by about 20 so as evenly matched as it would get.

Above is the set up, can anyone see the pike? Now Lee had bought his army off E-bay as he could not wait to get something on the table to play. Yes he owns all the figures for this army in unpainted lead but it did not stop him going for it! As it was advertised as being 800 points and I already knew what came with it I tried a little force matching. The army came with 4 elephants so I fully expected to see these on the table. This was the first thing I got wrong as Lee had been painting up units before weakness struck and swapped out the elephants for some of these units. We both had a three reconnaissance score so it was down to the dice. We tied the rolls until finally after 4 re-rolls I got the draw on him.

Set up was a pain, neither of us like the idea of picking terrain only for the dice to throw them all over the board. In fact your opponent seems to have more say where they go than you do. Am I missing something? Certainly an area of the rules we need to re-read in depth. This was really the biggest sticking point of the game. Lee ha only so far read the rules, no trial for him and when we came to the first combat he confessed to being somewhat confused about the POA but when I explained how it worked to my understanding he was quickly up to speed. Both of us agree the rules are about as badly set out as you could manage.

I had two advantages over Lee. First I had played the rules through once but more importantly I had read a beginners battle report on one of the blogs and knew that getting a missile block of 8 bases is much better than having a block of 6. But even better was my getting 8 slingers against his 4 Cretan Archers, I was happy to trade shots and then go for the melee. Sure enough I was quick to disorder him and soon these were fragmented and caught in an evade for the first rout of the game. I must say these went down fairly quickly but as Lee was in one thin line and no reserves I could just keep going after them. Really these should have been in front of the Pike. This breaking allowed me to go after his baggage as I planned to try and break his army before the Pike got into the battle.

My Next success was driving off his left Flank, in fact it could be said I had one Cavalry BG too many on this flank but time was to show this was not the case. Lee could not hold me on this side but I could not contact him. Here the dice just hated me. Every variable distance roll from this point on on this flank yielded me a 1 or -2 to my charge. Lee always rolled enough to get out of my way. In the meantime his bow fire got a lucky disorder which I never had the opportunity to shake off.

Meanwhile he had drive off my Parthyaian LC which took awhile to get back into position. On the other flank I also suffered a disorder to Javelin Armed LC, rather unlucky but I was rolling pants on Cohesion test after test. Lee then charges the two other Cavalry bases with his Lance armed Companions whilst fragmenting my disordered Cavalry with those horrid Javelin LC.

Next turn and it all went wrong. Whilst one BG of Cavalry remained solid I lost one of the LC BG's to those bloody Javelin LC, my Fragmented Cavalry turn and flee even though they have the General with them, and then one of the other two Persian Cavalry breaks. All of a sudden I have no flank!

Remember my first victory? well they finally make contact with the enemies fortified camp (two charges rolling a 1 for VMD added one extra turn to contact! Obviously this task was to much for them as they kept rolling far to low to take it. Very frustrating. Whilst we could have played on it was fairly obvious who was going to win and by now the room was filling up as the evening groups (Tuesday and Thursday are late nights till 11PM) arrived. Simply put I was worn out, cold and was struggling to pay attention.

Findings.

Both of us liked the rules overall. Yep a few bits left us either confused or thinking that's not right. We are both keen to play again and think we will stick with the rules, not 100% happy but it feels a better and faster game than 6th edition and the lack of bookkeeping is fantastic.

Not enough missile troops but despite the poor range of Javelin you can get them in there, and with anything other than my dice you should whack the beggars as they try to run!

Mistakes were there, but no howlers. CMT's were missed by me, as I get more used to the rules I will be able to pay sufficient attention to whats going on.

Tactically I think I was sound but being unsure of the rules did not make enough use of what I had, I also used terrain to hinder Lee but in fact it was me who suffered so will think on that.

Both of us are looking at the results, what we fielded and tweaking the armies for next time. A rather good sign I think.

Once we got going a lot of the tests and mechanics became routine and we knew the results without having to look to much up. Should play fast and fun.

Oh yes one last point. If you go to the trouble of painting casualty markers, why not take them with you? I was not pleased with myself!!!

AAR The Battle of Foz d'Arouce 15th march 1811

Just before Christmas Barry and myself were expecting to get a game in but he had to postpone then Christmas got in the way. Then New Year.... Then... well you get the idea. All the work was really done, we just needed to get together and play the game. Well we finally got the chance to play last Friday. The scenario is taken from the French boardgame supplier VaeVictis and the title is Fuentes De Onoro 1811 and comes with a dual language rule book.

The scenario starts toward the late afternoon, I take the rll of Ney as I try to get my VI Corps over the swollen stream Rio Ceira. Unfortunately I am already half successful in this endeavour. Wellington on seeing my forces split orders an immediate attack, neither allowing his officers to deploy nor Nay to either withdraw or reform. About 50% of my troops start the game disordered so I spend a lot of the first two turns just trying to re-organise on the spot. Not ideal when really you want to be taking advantage of the Anglo-Portuguese being somewhat out of position. The ground we are to fight over is quite full and will not allow easy movement and impacts a fair amount on Barry's greater numbers. I start the game with a strong hold on the main village of Foz d'Arouce but have not got any troops in the hamlet of Poisao close buy. This will allow the Portuguese easy access to the plains before my main force. The stream, acting like a river after heavy rains is to the back of the best part of my force South of it and as only two crossings are available, the bridge next to Foz and a ford passable only to Cavalry further to the east I really have no choice but to stand and fight with what I have to the south. Making matters worse, the troops on the North bank are under orders not to cross the river, they are there just to stop any Allies from crossing over.

Initial positions. I used a huge ziplock bag to make the river and stole my daughters crayon for the bridge and village outlines. Later I will make the effort to build terrain but at the moment it's all figure painting, but they worked! Have you spotted the lone Infantry regiment on the far right with only a few guns for support? Barry has!!!

A nice concentration of French troops, unfortunately the ones on the right will do no more all battle than reposition so as to make crossing the bridge impossible, whichever side you belong to!!

Over the hill and not far enough away! This is the right hand side Regiment I was talking about. In the distance is 5 regiments of foot and behind them to the left 4 regiments of horse. Now this is the first outing of these figures (all of Barry's army has been recently painted by him and he has done a great job on them and the speed he has done them in was fantastic. I believe he has found his scale). Aside from that back slapping, I would hope that these guys being new to the job would be a bit lax at coming up the hill. Well it seems not as he was soon challenging my position.

Their left flank (right hand side as we look at them) was no less impressive, both from a point of painting nor quantity! This force would have to try and win the hill off me. As Barry commented "You always get the hills!!" In the background is yet more troops awaiting their chance at the French. Seems I will have a busy day.

Back to the right hand side. This poor regiment is well out of command and started disordered which is exactly how he found himself several turns later as the Brits closed in on him. The guns could not fire in all directions and whilst they gave the one regiment something to think about they ended up being the first unit to be removed from the game after being hit in the flank. Barry is rather good at getting you into positions you don't want to be, but here he was handed the unit on a plate. I just knew I could not pull all back but had saved the foot regiment at the cost of the guns.

The next showdown was sure to be for the Foz, Barry was loath to attack it as the defenders get a +2 against most rolls and whilst I did not have the troops in the quantity that Barry had I was hopeful that this +2 and the guns supporting directly and across the Stream would help bloody the Brits nose.

Foolishly I had hoped Barry would drag his feet in the centre as both the above flanks engaged but he thought I was making for the hamlet of Poisao so quickened his pace. This meant my only reasonable sized force was really out of position on the plains. Suddenly it was defending itself from 3 directions and just as the British horse had set up on the flank. I was in trouble all right. To my surprise Barry through in less than everything he could. In the first attack he had managed to push back a regiment that in turn disordered two other units as these were forced sideways by the original target. As I was not the player with initiative I did what I could to re-order my troops then I bid high to be the tempo player. This worked and whilst I could not reposition I was now not disordered. This is a poor wrinkle in the rules, I go from one stage off rout to ready to receive whilst the winner of the action sits disordered in front of me. Well as I said he now had cavalry and declared a charge. This as could be expected failed to achieve more than throw me into square and the musket fire did plenty to further disorder the cavalry, these fell back with two shaken levels. However this was no problem as it allowed Barry to again charge in with yet another regiment. Now the Cav came in from the flank so the follow on attack was from the original front, a quick debate about can I fire? The rules don't say I can't but would I be able to re-load? We both said no but miracle of miracles neither am I in square, I take them at the halt without firing a shot but throw him back in disorder. This was really to much, I should have penalties of some kind, but the rules do not cover this. Another strike against the rules as they stand I am afraid.

So my right flank stood when it should have been crushed, stands to reason then that the original attack on the left should carry the day when it should have been repulsed. Both separate attacks forced the defenders back with two levels of shaken! I really did not see my holding out and with the stream close behind I expected to loose the lot. I had charged my Hussars (newly painted and not yet sent to the painting comp for scoring no less) but these were bounced back in some disorder. Again I was looking at the probability of trying to swim back to Spain.

I rallied back the Hussars to just one level of Shaken but with Foz about to fall I could not see how I could do more than make for the ford and write off 50% of my force. I.E. all my units South of the stream except two regiments of horse.

Barry had played well with his troops and had not the rules helped me out with a chunk of rules not being present he would have been looking on a field of wrecked French.

As for the scenario, it ported over well to a figure game, though not as an equal fight. It's not a battle the French can win as such, but this is fine if you approach the game in that frame of mind. We did have points for various objectives and I am sure if I had played it out differently I could have done better that send my best formation into it's destruction. I would be happy to set that one up again but possibly with a few tweaks.

The rules themselves Polemos Napoleonic General de Division did not stand up so well. Don't get me wrong, whole sections really work well, and for me bring a good feel of Napoleonic warfare. But it's what is missing as much as anything else that stands out in these rules. Where is the canister? sure I get the lack of stand off musket duels but so little exchange happens it's as if none did happen. This has lead me t have a crack at putting a set together using Polemos as a starting position but removing the Tempo stage and replacing the command system. I know what I want, now I have to try and get it down on paper.

Thanks goes out to Barry, it was a fun game as always, we just now have to learn to get our noses down and play faster to get right to the end as this could have gone on for a couple more turns to give Barry a total victory rather than an obvious one.