Broken Legions - Lost Treasures of the Gods variant

What a month December 2015 turned out to be. a fortnight before time I became a father for the second time - my second girl. With my other girl being 10 years old I had happily forgotten the lack of sleep that comes with having a baby in the house. This together with a vicious virus that gave me colic attacks put a damper on my hobby and gaming time.

So yesterday I had arranged a game with my friend Frank - another try out of the Broken Legions rules. I have started to assemble a Dacian warband, but they have not been painted yet and I never play with unpainted figures. This meant that the Roman Soldiers of the Eagle were pitted against the Germanic Barbarians.

The standard table size for the game is 3x3, but I really think it works better on a 4x4. I had setup the table before Frank arrived, but once we decided to play the  Lost Treasure of the Gods - with our own variations - we altered the layout. The story was that nine pillars in an ancient temple ruin carried clues to an artefact, which meant that each pillar had to be searched by each warband. On a 7+ roll of a d10 the searching warband would gain 1 VP. The table layout meant that the area in and around the pillars would become the main warzone.

Roman - Soldiers of the Eagle

Heroes
Primus Pilum
Frumentarii
Praetorian x 2

Henchmen
Legionaries x 5
Baleares Slingers x 3
Warhound

Germanic Barbarians

Heroes
Chieftain
Champions x 3

Henchmen
Fanatics x 3
Wulfkins x 3
Warhound

In the first round we more or less just moved men forward. The Romans stayed in two groups, while my Germans moved forward more at random.

By the end of the second round the Romans were able to get into position to search some of pillars, while being primed for getting into shield walls - something which the Romans get a defensive bonus from. The Fanatics and Wulfkins from my Germans benefit from Charging, so I tried to get into some good positions - this can be risky since you have to roll a d5 and add your Agility to see how many inches you can Charge, A good rule we think, since it means that you can never be sure to reach your target if you're not close enough.

The third round meant another round with the Romans winning initiative - the special Spy rule that the Frumentarii has really made a difference in the game. This meant that Frank was able to get must of his men into a shield wall while I charged into them with my Fanatics and Wulfkins. One of my Champions called out the Primus Pilum for a challenge meaning that they would engange in single combat for the first round.

The following rounds saw the tide change from side to side - always the mark of a good game for me. But in the end my Germans came away victorious - having killed all of the Romans heroes and half the henchmen. My dice rolling was at times incredibly good while Frank rolled really poorly - an example is the warpaint that I had given my Fanatics - once wounded you get to roll a d10 on a 10 you ignore the wound - this saved two of my Fanatics. We had made some rules changes so that the special Thrust! rule of the Gladius was more balanced and the Fate rolls that allow heroes to survive was less powerful. This all seemed to work quite well. Each of the two warbands have different playing styles but are well balanced.

It was a highly enjoyable game and something which we will continue to play in the future. The rules we play by are not the finished article and there are some things that need tweaking, but the basics are solid. We have yet to play the campaign rules but will try that in the future.

Here are some photos from the game.