Vorsprung vs Titus (updated)

  

At long last, it's our much anticipated Infamy campaign. Conceived during 'lockdown', we had 7 players express an interest. By the start of this year we were down to 6, but when it came to putting troops on table, we were down to 3! Oh well, we will just have to improvise.

The format we have chosen would work better with 4 players but is still doable with 3. We have gone with the 'wall' campaign from the Infamy rulebook, with minor amendments. In our 4 player format, we have 2 Roman Centurions and 2 German tribal leaders, competing for places on the 'wall of fame'. In each game, one player from each side (termed the Primus) will be the Force commander with the other player (or Secundus) providing support. Players will alternate the roles of Primus and Secundus, each game.

The core forces are different from the main rules, as below.

Roman Core Force

Roman Centurion, Primus, Status III Warlord, plus Status II Optio, with 3 groups of 8 warriors.

Roman Centurion, Secundus, Status II Warlord with 2 groups of 8 warriors.

German Core Force

German Tribal Leader, Primus, Status III Warlord, plus Status II leader, with 1 group of 10 Oathsworn and 2 groups of 10 warriors.

German Tribal Leader, Secundus, Status II Warlord with 2 groups of 10 warriors.

Support Options

Support is calculated, as per the rules, but to ensure all players have enough troops to get a decent game in, all scenarios have an extra 10 support points.

Game One - Ubique

The scene: a Roman fort on the frontier, which is the base for our heroes Dubious Figulous, played by Channing Tatum in this movie, and Titus Neutus (as played by Dick Emery)

Opposing them are the tribes of Vorsprung in this movie played by Liam Neeson and Dominatrix who has been missing in action lately. 

The campaign began on the Kalends of Aprilus and the positions on the wall were as follows:

Titus Newtus - Pugnacious; Dubius Figulus - Moderate

Vorsprung - Notable; Dominatrix - Notable

 

Oh hell, Germania!

Rome won the first initiative and ‘attacked’ into German territory. We rolled the Ubique scenario, so the game saw Titus’ auxilia, supported by Dubius’ legionaries, escorting a group of engineers, on an engineering type mission – not being an engineer (or too bright or even sober) Titus doesn’t understand this technical stuff.

Titus rolled high for support (45 points plus the 10 points multi player campaign adjustment), spent on an extra group of auxilia, with an Optio; a group of Archers, with a Status 1 leader; a group of tribal slingers; and a Capsarius.  We had a couple of spare points, which we could have spent on some Exploratores but as the Romans start on board I didn’t think it was necessary. How wrong I was, as I lost the chance to close down some of the German Ambush points – doh! Given the scenario, a musician would have been handy as well – as it is Titus will need to stay close to the Engineers to activate them.

 

Centurion Titus Neutus (III), Optio Furius Tempor (II), 2 Groups Auxilia

Optio Lucius Bowlus (II), 2 Groups Auxilia

Centurion Dubius (II), 2 Groups Legionaries

Gluteus Maximus (I), One Group of auxiliary archers

Gruber (Supra Numerum), One group tribal slingers

 Opposing them were Vorsprung and friend with 3 groups (incl. 1 Oathsworn), Dominatrix with 2 groups, and lots of support. The latter include those damned slingers, woodland archers, tribal javelins and Germanic cavalry.

Things didn't go well for Titus from the outset. Starting with the Infamy cards, Titus I drew the Machinator card, which means someone in Rome is plotting against him! A lost game will see Titus automatically drop a level on the wall!

NOT A GOOD START!

Vorsprung drew a card which allowed Rome to draw 2 more Infamy cards.

The opening moves of the game saw the Germans surrounding the Romans and building up fervour, whilst Titus tried to manoeuvre to protect the engineers, so they could pack their kit (a Task roll). Luckily, the engineers packed speedily and were soon ready to go with their little cart. The trick was now to escort them off the table.

Titus used lots of signa to perform drill (mainly form up) which allowed him to manoeuvre the Romans into position, from his original tight deployment. Quite a few cards were also used to allow the Auxilia to lob javelins at the assembling German hordes in a spoiling attack and an attempt to disrupt their fervour building.

We ended the game with an ‘End of Act’ – which gave both players another Infamy card! So it was all to play for in week 2, but the Romans have a tough task ahead.

 

Germans attack from the East, whilst Auxilia archers attempt to hold them back. 

Lucius Bowlus advances his auxilia into the woods to gain space.

There's going to be a scrap!!

The engineer cart gets under way but the path is blocked by tribal levy.

Lucius driven back and wounded - minus 3 on Force Morale - ouch!

Titus piles in with a flank attack to save the day.

Titus goes 'all in' but there's an assassin about. Titus wounded!

An End of Act gives the Romans a much needed breathing space 

Engineers attacked by Levy.

Levy driven off. Titus saves the day - again. He's all over, this boy.

With the cart poised for a home run, the Germans concede.

A close run thing, and a narrow win for the Romans. Despite that, nobody advanced on the wall. Titus did recover from his wounds though.

The campaign now moves on to the end of Aprilis and the Roman garrison receive news that Dominatrix has raised the Sacred Wang and is raiding into Roman territory........

All along the Watchtower

 It's all kicking off in Germany's as the Roman watchtower was attacked twice in quick succession on the same night.

Game 1
Germans
Status III Vorsprung
Oathsworn @17
Warriors x 2 @15
Status II Dominatrix
Warriors x 2 @15
Support @45
including faggots

Wome
Tower + Engineers
8 Legio in tower as garrison.
Centurion Dubious
Optio
3 x Legio @21
Status II Titus
2 x AuxiliaCapsarius
Slingers
Cavalry

Centurion Dubious Figulous  (Pugnatious)

Titus (Diligent)

Vorsprung  (Notable)

The watchtower

And a tourist`s view of the valley

Dominatrix is first n table pointing the sacred Wang at the Roman fort

Tribal slingsrs, "splitters" challenge the Germans

and my celt/Germans are unflocked!

On marches Dubious, played by Channing Tatum in his movie.

Some slinger on slinger action

Titus Newtus comes on screened by those slingers

But all he has to do is touch the wall of the fort.  Seems like a cheat!

Howls of "Unfair, unfair" and the Sacred Wang is pointed mercilessly.  Even Vrsprung cant stop the Auxilia as they "win" the game.  Shame! Shame!

Dubious has dubious friends it seems

Dubious is upgraded to "Vigorous"

The others remain at Diligent (Titus) and Notable (Vorsprung)

Game 2

Watchtower Redux

Same valley.  

German archers in the fields

Vorsprung brings his mobs on

Nearby the Napoleonics were Sharpe Practicing 

Germans in the village

Titus and his boys appear

Dominatrix gets his faggots piled up against the rear wall

Rome's tribal slingers are attacked by spear chucking warriors.  Effective!

Rather a lot of Germans out there

The Auxiliary cavalry attempt to screen the legions arrival

The Legion arrives, Dubious and Optio Felix (Cattus) march on

Dominatrix lights his faggots

Not looking good to the front!

Vorsprung goes for bust.  Its a tight fight, drill against fervour.  

And the drill dice were pants!

Felix the Optio holds the line.  Grim but they are repulsed.

Meanwhile the fort is on fire

Called at a win for the Germans, but once again advancement dice are poor.  All of the characters remain at their current status level.

Uriah buys British

 There seems to be a shortage of barbarians on Table E if last weeks game is anything to go by.  Since I was going to build a Briton core force for use against my Caesarian Romans in Cyprus, I'm now planning to push that forward and get a force ready to face my Early Imperials here in Durham.  They will also be able to pose as Gallic fashion influenced Germans for our Germania games.

I'm going for the basic Southern Briton Infantry warband force.  It has a few Cavalry and slingers to give variety, but basically I'll only need a box of Warlord Celtic Warriors (40 men but only 20 shields for some weird reason) and a few ebay sprues to add on.

A box of Warlord Celtic Warriors, 40 figures (20 shields but I have lots of spares) courtesy of the North East Model centre, gives me the two groups of Warriors and the levy.  It also provides eight armoured figures.

In an eBay purchase I added three stories of Victrix armoured Gallic warriors, twelve figures, who when added to the other armoured eight, will provide the two groups of Noble Warriors.

Back in Cyprus I have two groups of Gallic Cavalry, but they are armoured nobles, so I may go for Warlord cavalry but I'm leaving that decision until these foot are painted.  Given of course that our campaign Game is set in Germania these Britons will pretend to be hairy Germans

For add on options I will throw in some chariots to mount the nobles, at three points this seems a good deal.  I'm also considering a small group of fanatics lead by a level one nut job, just to distract, and possibly a dyke, although twelve points seems steep.

A work in progress then.

Dominatrix plays it hard

Finally Table E had its chance at trying multiplayer Infamy, Infamy!  With the Legio II Minima, redeployed from Cyprus, and the Auxiliaries of Titus Newtus ready to go, we scratch built a revolting auxiliary force to add to the Germans of Dominatrix.

This was to be a patrol action, into the forests across the Rhine.  Terrain came in at seven woods, four hills, three marshes and the hemp field of Herman the hermit.

The dark valley of Germanic evilness.  Terrain deployed.

The Roman Cavalry scouts two pieces and takes two ambush points off.  They also convert the two nearer points to deployment points.

The Decurion takes his Cavalry groups up the centre of the table.  Perhaps unwise.

Our Auxilia come on and make progress.

They look like they mean business.

Herman the Henchman comes on after some big man confusion.

Poor use of that Roman Cavalry.  I try to withdraw them to reorganise.

The Auxilia go for the rebellious German Auxilia in the woods.

The German Cavalry come on, as do piecemeal German forces on a hill.  Hold the hill, tactics after my own heart.

And I discovered that I had mysteriously failed to photograph the rout of my Roman Cavalry, bitten on the arse by the German horse, the advance of the Legion and the bloody uphill attack of the Auxilia.

Dominatrix did indeed play it hard.

I think I was too caught up in it.

Some ideas.

It occurred to me that Mr Babbage could command these Germans in a solo game, using build fervour and ambush into the tables.

However the balance in the deck probably means this is unnecessary.

Multiplayer games using Infamy are more restrictive.  Nine German leaders in the deck stretched it.  Equally the terrain and force size are matched for this game.  Perhaps an answer is to increase  the table size (double?  Or maybe just larger terrain squares with more terrain) , to in effect use two Adjoining tables, and use two core forces with two card decks in use at once, perhaps playing separate scenarios as we did for the Sudan.

With five or six players a Roman Tribune could deploy centrally as detachment commander, with his own force, perhaps then balanced by an additional German big chief.

Players can I think help speed these games along by using force cards, with named "characters," to avoid the mystery big man IX incident, and get the initial admin out of the way.  I will be amending my own core force card by adding unit characteristics, and common add ons.  By building six legionary groups I have of course narrowed my own options, but one of the things I took away from yesterday was just how cheap an Infamy force can be, legionaries being essentially a £20 army, and the barbarians Infantry based forces only a little more.