Leaving the FOG behind.

Out with the old.

In with the new - Craig has been raving about Impetus for some time now (you need to use that tag more often btw Craig!), Jason and I have the ongoing 28mm Historicals/Fantasy project, and I have another 15mm Late Roman/Arthurian army lying about looking at me accusingly.

I have always been very keen on the the idea of 'Ancients' (anything up to Renaissance, basically) gaming but it has never quite clicked. Some guys at the Chch Wargaming club tried introducing me to DBM, but others there put me off the idea of coming back; I got a DBA army but it was just too hard to get games at the Cavs; I expanded that out to a Fields of Glory army, and actually quite liked the system at an intellectual level - it is clearly well designed and balanced - but playing it always left me with a headache, whether I won or lost. Worse still, the people who played were almost all ancients diehards who were quite happy with 3.5-4 hour games. I am after all a guy who will play GW's WOTR and consider that an appropriate level of thinking for one evening. So that wasn't my niche either. That left me with a rulebook I don't use (now on Trademe!) and an ok sized 15mm army. I hate to sell my stuff, but my wargame budget is justified by my actually using it.

Chris is keen to give another period a go - so I sat down last night and removed my boys from their WRG bases (except the Skirmishers, who are the right depth already) and rebased for 15mm Impetus. Eventually, I am going to have to get more figs, so as to make these two armies work and do something about the hodgepodge of the Romano British Peydt. Something is going to have to be done about the paint-scheme and heavy inf shields, but baby steps. Still, it will work work for now.

The plan for tonight is to go with Basic Impetus but modify the lists to be more like proper Impetus ones. This will give the Romans Javelins on the Light Cav and Auxilia, as well as a unit of Veteran Legionaries with the proper legionary statline, Pilium/Plumbata included. It also gives the Romano British a mix of 2 base deep Peydt units and remnant legionaries/elite household troops, while giving them a proper heavy Cav unit to represent Arthur's 'Knights'. Initially, I thought the Romano British list was slightly better, but on reflection I realise that the Roman one can be pretty mean if he makes use of all the Auxilia shooting then withdrawing, while some of their fellows and the legionaries hold the line. I think supporting archers for the Veteran Legionaries might even just count as normal casualties for it, so I might give the Roman list those instead of some of the foot Skirmishers. That way, it will be very hard to strip that unit of its Fresh status...

Here are the proposed lists:


Late Roman (229 pts):

1 x CM (Medium Cav) Equites
2 x CL (light Cav) Equites Illyicanii with Javelins
2 x FP (Heavy Inf) Comitatenses (longspear)
1 x FP Comitatenses Palatina with Plumbata (Pilium) (Elite) (longspear)
5 x FL (light Inf) Auxilia with Javelins
2 x S (Skirmishers) Sagitarii with short bow B 
(or one could be swapped for supporting bow for Comitatenses Palatina)

Romano British (229 pts)

1x CP (Heavy Cav) Arthur's Knights
2x CM Romano British Cavalry
1x CL Romano British mounted Scouts
3x FP Peydt with 3x FP Peydt as rear rank (so 3x double units and +2 dice in melee) (longspear)
3x FP Household troops and Remnant Legionaries (equivalent to normal Roman Comitatenses) (longspear)
2x S Romano British Archers with shortbow B.

Should be fun.