Danube Blues - To The Strongest! AAR

This past weekend was the monthly South Jersey Gamers Assocation meetup. Having no game to run myself, I took part in two games. The first was run by Bill, and was a good old Romans v. Germans bashing using the To The Strongest! ruleset.

While I have a copy of To The Strongest! as a pdf, I picked it up on a whim and never did much with it, mostly because the Ancients/Medieval game of choice in the local area has been ADLG. I decided to use this game as an opportunity to see how the rules worked. 

The commands deployed around their camps, with the Roman and German forces looking exactly like you'd expect - Legionaries on one side, Warbands on the other, with a smattering of cavalry and skirmishes to taste.

A large hill and a stream helped to separate the battlefield into three sections, meaning each command was going to remain unsupported as long as there were enemies to the front.

Thanks to some poor command chit draws on the German side, the Romans had the initiative for most of the game, quickly moving across the table and looking to engage.

As the only Roman commander with cavalry units, I decided to move even faster, getting around the flank of the opposing German forces and pinning them down.

While disorder tokens were being exchanged back and forth, my cavalry were the first to rout an enemy warband, putting the German's rightmost command into peril with Roman cavalry in their rear.

It seemed as though fortune favored the Romans as the German commands kept drawing low on their chits and cards, failing activations and losing combats.

Ultimately, the almost-complete loss of the German right command, along with casualties from their center and left, was enough to break their resolve. The barbarians fled, leaving the Romans in command of the field and with a solid victory.

It turns out I'm a big fan of how To The Strongest! plays. One of the biggest complaints I have about ADLG and other games like it is how fiddly movement is, and how players can get away with some pretty heinous looking shenanigans if they muddle their commands and start sliding units left and right. TTS! does away with this completely using its grid-based movement. And as you can see from the pictures, the game still looks like an Ancients battles, with lines of infantry clashing, light troops skirmishing, and cavalry flanking.

It would likely be a longer term project, but I may be a convert...