A little while ago I saw that the print version of Trumph was finally released.
Triumph is an attempt to capture the speed and relative ease of play of De Bellis Antiquitatis, but written in English instead of "Barkerese." Other difference between DBA include a system of army building, more troop types, and a randomized placement of terrain.
Having played the game before, using the in-development PDF rules, I found Triumph to be a fun game that delivered on its promise.
The print version of the rules is a full color, coil-bound book. The text is easy to ready, there's plenty of pictures and diagrams, and the layout is fairly easy to follow. It even has a detailed table of contents and an index!
My two armies for these solo game have been adopted from a couple of demo armies that WGC produce for Triumph.
The Military Order of Azool represents a professional army of quality troops.
The opposing force is a raiding clan from the Rojon Mountains. The Rojonite army prefers quantity over quality, but has a potentially devastating punch from their woolly mountain elephants.
One of Triumph's mechanics that I've talked about before is the randomized terrain placement. All armies have an Invasion Rating and a Maneuver Rating. To determine the terrain on a table, both players first roll a die and add their Invasion Rating. The battle takes place in the home environment of the losing army.
Both players then roll a second die and add their Maneuver Rating. The winner of this roll-off is the attacker, and gets to select the terrain and also gets the first turn. This player assigns a number to each terrain piece (as well as whether or not to take a road, stream, or coastal area), then rolls on a d66 table that shows where each terrain piece is placed
I really enjoy this system, since it removes some of the fiddly bits of terrain placement that other games have.
For this battle, the Rojonites won the Invasion roll, while the Azoolians won the Maneuver roll.
This placed the battle in the forested homelands of Azool, with a mix of Forests and Marshes.
The Rojonites were in three battlegroups, with a main battleline of Warriors, Warbands, and Elephants. Their Rabble cowered in a forest, while a second line of Warbands waited in reserves.
The Azoolians formed up in two groups of mixed raiders and archers, with knights and their artillery on either flank.
The goal of Triumph is to be the first to remove 16 points (a third of a 48 point army) of your opponent's army, while losing less of your own.
The first turns saw both sides advancing towards each other, as most of these games do.
One group of Azoolian Knights swung around to cover the Rabble in the forest. On the other side of the battle, the Rojonite Elephants were forced back from artillery fire.
As the two sides closed, the Rojonite ranks were somewhat jostled by Azoolian arrows.
Undaunted, the mountain clans and ranks of soldiers finally clashed. One unit of Rojon Warband was the first to be destroyed.
The officers of the Azoolian Military Order called out for order and reestablished their lines, causing more Rojonite Warbands to collapse and flee the battle.
In a momentary surge of elation, the Rojonite warlord and his warriors seemed to punch a hole in the Azoolian lines. If they could keep the momentum up, this break could be exploited for a devestating victory.
However, the attack somehow stalls. While the Elephants reach (and easily wreck) the Artillery, a unit of Knights flanks and panics one of the Rabble units in the woods, destroying it in return.
While the Azoolian Archers can't score a hit against the Elephants (which started to lumber towards the enemy camp), a flanking manevuer by the Raiders in the center was enough to destroy a unit of Rojonite Warriors, which placed them over the 16 point limit and ended the game!
Not exactly the most riveting of games, but it was a good reminder of how Triumph played, and solo action still looks to be my only source of gaming for the time being.
