Infamy, Infamy Romans v Gauls

Having played a few games of Infamy on table top simulator I had my first actual game against Dave's Gauls. I used my Late Romans as proxies for Early Imperial Roman and we both used the starter forces with no extras.

We decided on the patrol scenario with the Romans entering from the south and the Gauls from the east and west (plus their six deployment points). The Romans have to scout four terrain pieces to accomplish their mission. Luckily for the Romans a lot of the terrain ended up close to the Roman deployment area:

Four groups of Legionaries supported by some archers arrive for the Romans and move forward:

A group of Gallic archers appear and open fire on the Legionaries. One is killed (my units don't have single figures so casualties are marked with green counters)!:

The final Roman unit, some Auxiliaries, arrive and advance on the Gallic archers. The Roman archers also fire on the Gauls killing three of them:

Some Gallic skirmishing cavalry pop up next, they throw javelins at the archers and kill one:

The cavalry attempt to charge the archers but are slowed by the field giving the archers time to evade:

The Gallic archers have fled but two units of Gallic levy have dashed out of the woods to threaten the flank of the Legions. Unfortunately for the Romans their Auxilia had been redeployed to the left once the archers fled!:

The Gallic cavalry charge the archers again, this time the archers decide to stand:

Despite the odds being against them the archers slaughter the cavalry though they take heavy losses themselves:

Two Legionary groups wheel to face the Gallic levy who decide to charge the Auxilia instead as an easier target:

The Auxilia are pushed back:

Charging the Auxilia has left the flank of the levy open to the Legions. They seize the opportunity and slam into the flank of the Gauls:

One unit of levy is slaughtered:

In the second round of combat the other unit of levy is cut down:

Two units of Gallic warriors charge out from the forest into the flank of the Legionaries. The Legionaries fight back though, surviving to turn to face the Gauls:

The Legions are triumphant! The Gallic warriors fall back though the Romans are now greatly weakened and have  a lot of shock on them:

The Gauls fall back while the Roman Auxilia advance to support the Legionaries:

Sensing that the embattled Romans are weakening the Gallic general throws in his has reserve, Noble warriors supported by their cavalry counterparts:

Remarkably yet again the Roman line holds and cuts down several Gallic nobles:

The surviving mob of Gallic warriors attacks the Roman lines, can they hold yet again?:

The Roman Auxiliaries break! The Gauls follow up into the battered Legionaries:

The front group of Legionaries flees as well. The rear unit holds on though:

The Gauls charge on into the surviving Legionaries:

The second group of Legionaries also flees from the Gallic warriors:

The Roman archers fall back shooting at the warband:

While the battle has been raging elsewhere the other two groups of Roman Legionaries have been largely unengaged and remain fresh. The Gauls only have a group of Noble cavalry left plus the Gallic warrior unit that, while very successful, now has a lot of shock and is vulnerable to a flank charge by the Legionaries. The Gauls decide to withdraw into the forest and await another opportunity to take on the Romans:

A quite close game that could have gone either way. On reflection it is noticeable that the Romans barely advanced 1/3 of the way on the table, partly as there were enough terrain areas to scout near their deployment zone and partly as it seems suicidal to advance past barbarian deployment points leaving yourself vulnerable to ambushing flank attacks. The ambush seems very powerful for the barbarians, even frontally the Roman auxilia and archers will suffer badly the archers especially as they can't evade.

The legionaries are much more resilient but of course you don't get that many!

As ever with TFL rules they were slightly confusing (we couldn't find anything about moving and shooting for instance) and the similarity to, but significant differences, with Sharp Practice and Chain of Command perhaps does not help as you have to remember which rules are specific to which set and not just assume they are all the same!  

They also have the usual TFL issue in that, while they have missions, there is no time limit on them so it is always an option to just kill the enemy to win though on the few games we have played so far it appears very hard to drive force morale down so most games end when one side has hardly anyone left and admits defeat!

Overall I think CoC is still by far the best TFL game with SP and Infamy being similar, fun to play now and then but probably not more than that.

Infamy, Infamy Ancient British

Having enjoyed a solo game of Infamy and another two over TTS I thought I'd make up a couple of forces for the rules, Ancient British and Romans. 

Initially I looked at Victrix 28mm but with a total cost of around £150 per army (and, due to the pack sizes, a load of figures I wouldn't need) that was rather more than I was prepared to pay. Instead I went with Newline Designs 20mm figures where an entire force (almost) was available as an army pack for a mere £39.50!

For a change I thought I'd paint them using some Vallejo "Game Wash" paints which I'd bought a while ago, using the washes over a base coat making them very quick to paint.

Firstly the Leaders:

Enough Chariots to upgrade two mobs to Chariot mounted:

Mounted skirmishers:

Three Mobs:

Three more Mobs:

A group of Fanatics:

Finally some Slingers and Javelin men:

The washes made the figures very quick to paint compared to shading or highlighting everything as I would usually do. I must admit I'm not that pleased with them despite not quite being sure why! I did all the shield patterns with a bronze rim and central rib, I think they would have looked better with coloured rims and ribs (as the Fanatics have) so I suppose I could repaint all the Mob shields. I also don't like the Mob movement trays, they look a bit sparse.

Having said that they look okay I think and are certainly useable and they were very quick to paint!

Infamy, Infamy Roman v Germans

I wasn't intending to try Infamy just yet but being unable to play at the club anymore and a visit to the Orc's Nest shop resulting in an impulse purchase of the rules and cards last week changed that. 

After a quick read through and the impression that it was basically Sharp Practice with sticks I thought I'd give it a go as a solo game using my 25mm Late Romans as Early Imperial Romans and some Carthaginian Gaul's and Spanish as Germans. 

With room for only a 4x4 ft table I used just the fixed lists and put down some terrain. The Romans quickly appeared and started to move into the Germanic wasteland:

The Roman archers are ambushed by some Germanic warriors! 

The archers are broken quickly and the Germans pile into the Legionaries behind:

The Romans stand fast and repulse the Germans:

Some Auxila arrive and advance while the Germans deploy slingers (heavily influenced by Spanish fashion!) in the broken ground as the ambushing German warriors fall back:

The German war leader arrives with the German cavalry to support the slingers:

The rest of the Germanic warband moves out from a forest and begins to build up fervour: 

The Auxila are charged by the German cavalry. Meanwhile the German slingers have been inflicting kills on the Legions:

The Auxila only just hold on and the cavalry fall back. Both have large amounts of shock:

The Legionaries continue to advance on the German warband but take more losses from the slingers:

The Germanic warband leader attempts to raise the fervour of his men. They are less than impressed and appear unenthusiastic to face the advancing Romans losing most of their fervour!:

The Romans charge home throwing their pila to little effect:

The first round of combat goes largely to the Romans with the elite German warriors in the centre coming off worst:

In the second round two lots of Germans fall back but the one on the left pushes back some Legionaries that had been weakened by the German slingers. A second unit of Romans, also weakened by the slingers, falls back as well:

The Germans break the Legionaries on the Roman left:

Most of the units involved now have too much shock to do anything else:

The German cavalry having rallied off their shock close on the Auxila and throw javelins at them. Combined with losses from the German slingers the Auxila break:

With the Romans only having one effective group left (the Legionaries on the far left) the battle is over and the Germans have triumphed over the invaders:

After a slow start I quite enjoyed the game. It is a bit different to Sharp Practice (which to some extent is confusing) and, on this small game, it seemed quite hard to inflict losses on units (though it was easy to inflict shock on them). At the end of the game both sides still had high force moral levels despite losing a few units each. The way the flag cards are used is quite different as you can't use them to activate units apart from at the phase end and they are mainly used for actions instead. I'll definitely need to re-read the rules again as I'm sure I did several things wrongly. 

The German slingers were very effective but the warband groups are much less effective than the Legionaries so for the Germans I suspect it is vital to weaken the Legions before they contact the warband units. I also think they could have made more use of their ambush ability but of course that's hard to do in a solo game. 

When we are able to play again I think I will try to arrange a game and see how it works on a full-size table with a proper scenario.