Not Noreia 112BC

Here are some shots of a game of "To the Strongest" I played with mate Ian last week. In the foreground a horde of migrating Germans approach a Roman blocking force protecting a town. Below is a photo of the Roman centre and right, including three of their four legions. All of the photos are clickable.

The Roman force was Polybian, organised into small units of 8-16 figures, whereas the Germans (proxied with Gallic figures) were in 40+ strong blocks. One of the reasons I wanted to fight this match up was because I'd read an account of one test game where the small units of the Roman legions were entirely swept away by a wild Gallic charge, and I wanted to check that this wasn't going to happen every game!

Below Ianus advances the Roman and Numidian cavalry screening his left, against my rather scruffy German cavalry (most of whom were "raw").  

The velites also rushed forward and showered the German warriors with their javelins, disordering several of them (note the stepped-back element in the right foreground). Disordered warriors only hit on an 8 instead of a 6, and are really hard to rally. I pushed the warriors forward as quickly as I could, in an attempt to minimise Roman shooting, and eventually managed to catch and kill a couple of units of pesky velites.

Below is a view from behind the German right.  At one point I managed to get a scruffy German cavalry unit onto the flank of the left-hand Roman legion (rear, centre, in the wheat field). Unfortunately the legion's Triarii flanked them, in return, and drove them off.

In the centre, below, the warbands collided with the Roman line. They managed to smash through the Roman Hastati and then the Principes, but took a lot of casualties along the way, becoming progressively disordered.  It is very hard to rally warriors when the enemy are in charge or shooting range.

Unfortunately the Roman Triarii proved too tough a nut to crack, and I just couldn't kill them and break through to loot the temples on the edge of the town. It turned into a very narrow Roman victory - they had one medal left when the Germans ran out!

It was a very enjoyable game that lasted around two and a half hours.  I took some video clips- I'll see if I can work out how to post them, tomorrow. We played the game using my new "Chits of War" instead of playing cards, you should be able to make them out in some of the photographs.  The last two sets of chits (more to come in a couple of weeks) and the rules are available in my shop.