Thursday, August 12, 2021

L'Art De La Guerre - Gauls vs Romans

Another LADG game at Stephens today using a Gallic force against Stephens Caesar period Romans. 

Gauls were close to contemporary except that I used 3 Chariots as lacking sufficient Cavalry elements.

Gauls had mix of heavy and medium warband types which generated a large 30 element army (Romans were I think 22 elements)

However it turned out to be a complete slaughter of the Gauls by the tough Roman Legionaries especially 5 Elite types backed by an Elephant which are hard for my 'Irregular' types to avoid (Romans won initiative and attacked).

Gauls need to beat Elite by 3 to do any damage and Average types by 2 which is tough when starting on a factor of 1 vs 2.

In initial clash of lines we fought with 9 elements each and I won one (Chariot General) drew one (Chariot on a 5 vs 2 roll) and lost the remaining 7 warriors vs Legion combats and had indeed taken some double hits, truly awful.

Within 2 more combat rounds my central mass of HI warriors had all but gone.

Only on my left had I any chance of success having several mounted elements to wrap around enemy flank but a initial low Pip roll (ie 1) and taking 3 rounds of combat to take out a single enemy medium cavalry unit, including using a flank charge, stultified my attempt to turn this flank in time.

Even worse I managed to get 3 MI warriors onto a single unit of average Legionaries giving me 2 overlaps and a 3 vs 2 initial advantage but.............of course..............I managed to lose taking a hit and then in Roman round suffered a 6 vs 1 and saw a warrior unit destroyed outright.

I only managed to destroy 3 or 4 Roman units in total and inflicted only a few other hits whilst my lot quickly fell apart.

This was first time we had used so many Impetuous types and we had several new situations involving uncontrolled charges and suchlike, which we did manage to sort out with bit of rule reading.

Pictures only from pre-contact turn of game as too engrossed (always a good sign) once we got to grips.












 


2 comments:

  1. Hi Gary, do you think the rules give a good Gaul v Roman representation?

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    1. Hard to say really as it depends what you think the historical matchup should be ? Compared to DBM/DBMM the Romans are much tougher (the Celts had ‘quick kills’ vs Blade types). The Elite Romans here are very nasty as at initial contact Celts need to beat them by 3 (due to Elite and Armour plus better Combat factor with Celt Impact nullified by Romans) and the Average types by 2. In continuing melees it is more even but Celts often have sustained hits so again playing catch up. Thing is the Celts have ‘Furious Charge’ so of they do win initially they inflict extra loss, but hard to achieve. The Celts do have numbers on their side but nothing (Cavalry types included) that can deal with Legions frontally (overlaps help of course but no guarantees) One needs to work the flanks but not easy to do and you always end up fighting the Legions at some point (as really nowhere to hide in LADG). My left flank had good opportunities to turn Roman line but failed to do so quickly enough. Of course my being pants at the game is neither here nor there :-)

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