Last week me and a mate fought a game of "To the Strongest!" (in which I must declare a vested interest, as I wrote the rules!). I fought a battle loosely based on the Cimbri and Teutones invasion of just about everywhere north of the Med., late in the second century BC. I wanted to see how Polybian Romans would perform against Celts or Germans; anecdotal evidence (that's you Mog) suggested they might be massacred. Historically the Romans were defeated several times before Marius reformed the army and smashed the invaders.
Above the Cimbri and Teutonic hordes (proxied by my Celts) advance along the line of a Roman road, somewhere in Northern Italy., towards the edge of a Roman town. Their big units with 40+ minis each have three hits; the weeny Roman units opposite a mere one each. However the Romans have the advantage of having more units and being more manoeuvrable, and the veltes can sting. We used forces of 135 points each in game terms. I used lots of minis, but the game could have been fought with a fraction of these numbers, and in any scale. The photo depicts the action at the end of turn one, with both sides already in contact and one German unit disordered by javelin fire from the velites.
A shot of the Romans (above) shows their smaller units in the triplex axies. They had 4 legions (2 Roman with red shields and 2 allies with white), with cavalry and lights on the wings. You may just be able to make out the ammo markers for the velites, who can fire twice before running low (there are reserves of ammo in the camp). In TtS, everything is played on a grid; a 20cm one in this case. There is no measurement. The grid is marked with tiny black dots that one can't really make out in the photos.
For this game I used my new MDF "Chits of War" activation chits drawn from a bowl to determine which units can move, and how often, instead of the playing cards generally used with the game, because I wanted to take photos. No dice at all were used.
Attacking above, as the Germans, I though I had outflanked the Romans. Unfortunately it later turned out that they had outflanked me, as their superior cavalry rode down several units of my horse. The units with an element at an angle are disordered (a further disorder will kill them).
In the centre my warriors thundered into the Roman lines and killed first the velites, then the hastati and the principes. By the time we reached the triarii, however, the warriors were on their last legs and one after the other my units perished on their hasta. Despite me being 10 medals up at one stage, the Romans sneaked a win by the narrowest of margins.
It was a jolly game; we kicked off at 9PM, took a couple of breaks to chat, drank a bottle of the finest Falerian and finished just before midnight. Although defeated I was very pleased that the special rules for Romans had given such a balanced game. There's more about the rules (and a link to the shop) on my blog.
http://bigredbat.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/TotheStrongest%21Cheers, Simon
10 April 2011, 09:31:18 PM