Warning: The title's not the only bit of bad Latin in this week's post.
This past weekend, Ted invited me to bring my Strength & Honour forces for another game. I obliged, as I wanted a refresh on the rules, and it's going to be one of the games for this month's club meeting.
As my order from Korhyl is currently making its way from Italy to the States, I used the same units from my first game of Strength & Honour. Individually, the Roman Legions are more than a match for most of the Pontic Greek units, but the Greeks were more numerous and had three units of cavalry to the Roman's none.
Last time the Greeks had received a decent beating, so I was interested to see how it'd turn out in this game.
John and Ted controlled the Greeks, while Steve and I controlled the Romans.
In the first couple turns the Romans largely advanced as a front, while the Greek cavalry surged forward, outpacing their infantry counterparts and forcing a unit of Roman Skirmishers to retreat.
And it was fairly early on that, if I were to latinze the appropriate idiom, stercus percussit flabellum.
A failed discipline test saw the only Veteran Legion, which had been a powerhouse in the previous game, instantly rout. Not only that, but the Legion lost their Eagle as well; a double Disaster Card result.
With Steve's Experienced Roman Legion keeping the flank protected from the Greek's Skirmish Cavalry, his Raw Legion was facing both the Pontic Cavalry and Cataphracts. I swung my own Experienced Legion to hit the Cataphract's flanks, but was then flanked by one of Ted's Imitation Legions. And my own Raw Legion was staring down the length of a wall of pikes.
One early result may have sealed the Roman army's fate early on. Now Steve and I were on the back foot, trying desperately to find some sort of equilibrium.
Of course, my own traitorous dice weren't having any of that.
To try and stem the Pontic tide, Steve and I both used our Skirmishers to head off enemy units. Unlike last game (where one unit of Skirmishers routed two Pike Phalanxes), this was more in line with how skirmishers should act in a game.
Unfortunately, my one Experienced Legion was still stuck with an Imitation Legion in its flanks (thanks to a failed maneuver test), and my Raw Legion was pushed back and Disordered. The Romans were accruing Setback cards at an alarming rate.
While somewhat scatted, Steve's unit were at least hanging on. My Raw Legion managed to rally, and while Disordered the Experienced Legion at least ended up next to its Raw counterpart which had successfully reformed.
Distressingly, I was utterly outnumbered on the Roman right flank, and it was only due to a couple Greek Reversal of Fortunes that had kept my lone Experienced Legion from being overrun.
Of course, that didn't much matter much after my Experienced Legion in the center failed to reform and instead routed and lost its Eagle (for two more Disaster cards)!
John and Ted finally took pity on the poor, beaten Romans and called Homonculus Est. The final tally was 34 points against the Romans, and a measly 2 points against the Pontic Greeks.
This was an even worst disparity compared to the last game! Here it seems like the Romans couldn't get anything right, as though the entire army had managed to drink the same soured wine the night before.
At the very least, Ted's ordered Germans and my reinforcements should be arriving soon, at least the variety of armies I'll be defeated by will soon increase.
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