Game Report: Sarcina Vitalis

Southern Gaul, 147 BCE

Gauis Portius Carbo was beginning to regret volunteering for the 'special' assignment. Taking a small team so far from the safety of the Legion in such an uncivilised part of the world would have been bad enough, leave alone doing so in the face of threats of monsters to find a magical spear. Fortunately he and his party had seen off the monsters who had tried to take the spear for themselves without too much difficulty and they'd found what the spy had assured them was the relic they were interested in. Foolishly, as they group had made their way back to their camp, he'd assumed his task was complete and that acolades awaited him. Now he was taking the spy, carrying the spear which, despite it supposedly being able to slay any of the monsters with the slightest graze, he was forbidden to use with a small escort from the marching camp to the main base of operations in the area. 

He had this horrible feeling the enemy would not let such an opportunity to retrieve the weapon before it was unreachable pass.

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Garzan Thrice-Cut waited impatiently, perched upon a rock in the cursed dry-lands, under the burning glare of the sky fire. His scouts were due back soon, having been sent to find the group of mud crawlers with the spear that they were so convinced would be their secret weapon against his kind, which Sargessir had failed so spectacularly to capture. He had gathered a warband and was here to correct the mistake. 

A scout arrived, bowed, and gave his report. "They'll be here by the time the sky fire reaches its peak." Garzan nodded and glanced around the area. It would do for his ambush. 


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Following on from a previous game, we recently played a game of Dragon Rampant (using the Lion Rampant The Messenger scenario), with a Roman force escorting a spy carrying a magical spear with a Formorian warband ambushing them en route to a fortress. 

The Roman force consisted of:

1 Unit of Picked Principii (Elite Foot) (Leader Unit)
2 Units of Principii (Heavy Foot with Offensive) 
1 Unit of Syrian Archers (Light Missiles with Sharpshooter)

The Foromrian Warband consisted of:

1 Unit of Formorian Adults (Bellicose Foot with Mystical Armour and Terrifically Shiny Armour) (Leader Unit and Reduced Model Unit)
1 Unit of Formorian Adolescents with Spears (Light Foot)
1 Unit of Formorian Adolescents with Swords (Light Foot with Offensive)
1 Unit of Formorian Adolescents Scouts (Scouts)
1 Unit of Blood Raiders (Heavy Riders with Fear) (Reduced Model Unit)

The site chosen for the ambush

The Romans chose to attach the spy to their archer unit, while the Formorians detached their scouts and spear armed adolescents to flank the Romans. 

The Formorian flanking force

 

The Formorian main body

The Romans found the size of the deployment area constrained their options significantly, and chose to deploy their archers facing towards the flanking force, with their melee units deployed between them and the Formorian main body.
 

Roman troops march into battle

Initially the Romans moved to attack the Formorian flanking force, hoping to use their archers to soften them up before hitting them with the principii. 

The Roman advance begins

The Formorians attempted to manouvre to unite the two parts of their force, and to avoid the Syrian archers, but were hampered by poor order rolls, allowing the Romans to begin to form a battle line and close in. 
 

Roman soldiers form into a battle line

The Romans were also able to draw first blood, the Syrian archers shooting down some of the Adolescent Spears, causing the unit to go battered, preventing the Formorian's attacking the Principii unit at the head of the Roman advance. 
 

The Syrian archers make their presence known

At this point, the Romans began to suffer from a horribly familiar problem, a string of failed order rolls at the very beginning of the turn, which allowed the Formorian main force to arrive and begin to square off against the Roman line and the flanking force recovered from their battered state, the advantage they had hoped to gain by destroying the flanking force slipped away in the face of the stalled advance. 

Indecision or fear paralyses the Roman advance, giving the Formorians the chance to close in

Finally the Roman troops overcame their paralysis just as the Formorians closed in, the Syrians loosing off a volley at the Formorian spears, killing a further two and once again battering the unit, before the Roman principii failed an attack order. Wasting no time, the Formorians smashed their Blood Raiders into the principii, killing two and forcing the back, but the Roman troops managed to pass their Courage test. 
 

Snarling monstrosities crash into the Romans

Romans fall back in the face of the horrors

The next turn, the Romans failed their first order again, and the Formorians attempted to exploit this, throwing the Blood Raiders against the damaged Principii unit. This time, however, the Romans were able to hold firm and threw back the attackers.
 

The monsters return

Round 2 favours the Romans

Being pushed back left the Blood Raiders exposed and the Syrian archers dutifully filled them with arrows, killing one and routing the other. The Roman leader and the undamaged Principii both attempted to attack the Formorian leader, both being driven back and losing a man in the process, the principii becoming battered in the process, but killing one of the Formorian adults in the process. 
 

The Roman line buckles under pressure

The Formorian Adults unleashed their Wild Charge on the demoralised Romans, killing more of them and pushing them back, leaving only three survivors, while the sword armed Adolescents charged into the other Principii unit. Unfortunately for them, the only result was a dead Formorian and them being forced back. In the Roman turn, they manged to rally the mauled Principii unit, but the Picked Principii failed to charge the Formorian adults, handing the initiative to the Formorians. 

The line breaks and Formorians pour in

Aiming to smash the somewhat isolated Principii unit, Garzan Thrice-Cut led his bodyguard in a Wild Charge into them, cutting down two of the Romans which would lead to them being driven back and becoming battered. A spectacular dice roll however, killed one of the Formorian bodyguards, in spite of the armour bonus and mystical save. 
 

With a roar, Garzan leads his men in a savage charge into the desperate Romans

And then Garzan Thrice-Cut, Champion of God of the Deep, Warlord of the Formorian people, failed his morale check and routed. In addition to depriving them of their leader, this loss took the Formorians to over 50% losses by points, leading to a pair of Courage checks, which led to the remaining spear armed Adolescents fleeing and the Scouts becoming battered. 

Desperate resistance by the Roman infantry causes Garzan to flee

Deserted by their leader, and with the fighting power of their warband halved, the Formorians begin to melt away

Fast running out of options, the Formorian Adolescents charged the battered remnants of the principii unit in front of them, killing or routing all of them for no loss. In the mean time, the scouts rallied from their shock.

One Roman unit is cut apart and flees

The remaining turns saw the Formorians withdraw back, aiming to lure the Romans in closer, while the Romans attempted to get into archery range and exploit their missile advantage. Eventually, the Formorian Adolescents saw an opportunity and rushed the Syrian archers, taking a few volleys on the way in. In the ensuing fight, terrible Formorian dice rolls killed one archer, while the archers impressed anyone and cut down two more of the monsters, leaving a single survivor who promptly routed.

A suicidal charge at the spy and his escort ends in defeat, the sole survivor flees.

In a desperate move, the Formorian scouts moved into range and fired at the archers, causing no harm. One of their number was cut down by a retaliatory volley, before the three survivors were charged and cut down by the Roman centurion and his picked guards. 

Gauis Portius Carbo leads his men to crush the last resistance on the field, cutting them down without mercy.

Gauis Portius Carbo surveyed the carnage around him. More than half his men were down or had fled, although the odious spy had survived at least, his precious cargo unharmed. One of the terrifying mounts the enemy had used was bellowing in agony, thrashing about, while the archers were using it for target practise, laughing at each hit.

Carbo turned to his remaining legionaries, "I want all the bodies checked, theirs are to have their throats cut, make sure none of them get up again. Find any of ours who are still alive and get them as comfortable as possible, we'll move as soon as we can." The men dispersed to carry out their orders as the spy sauntered over, carefully picking his way over dead Romans and monsters alike. 

Before Carbo could speak to the man, one of the creatures at his feet squirmed. He leapt back and raised his sword to finish the creature off, causing it to raise a hand and blurt out something. "Centurion, wait!" the spy cut in. "That was the local Gallic language." 
 "What?"
"That creature speaks a language we know. I want it alive. We've never been able to interrogate one of these things." Carbo spat and turned to his nearest soldier. 
"Tie this thing up, then try and bind its wounds." He turned back to the spy. "This had better be worth it."

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The torture the priest was inflicting upon him was nothing compared to the pain the shame he felt was causing Garzan. His armour had been stripped from him, his flesh tearing as it was prised from him, and now he was being burnt and cut, shamed before he would be killed to appease the God he had failed by running. 

This time the mud-crawlers had been willing to fight, fight with savagery and desperation of those possessed of madness, and in a mad, terrifying moment of madness he had run. 

A wave of pain passed through him and the priest inflicted some fresh horror, and he felt his strength begin to fade.

Summoning every ounce of will and strength he had left, he screamed a curse upon the mud-crawlers as the blackness raced up to embrace him. 

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In a first for this particular series of games, this one was actually close, with bad luck crippling the Roman plans, then crushing the Formorian's hopes when their leader broke and fled. Both sides did seem to have fun though, and the Dragon Rampant rules performed, as usual, very well. Once again we had implausibly unlikely order rolls, with multiple 5+ rolls being failed in a row. There was discussion of mitigating this somehow, or relaxing the rule about ending your turn on a failed order roll as a consequence. 

With this game ending in a Roman victory, the spear is now safely ensconced within a Roman fort, and both sides will have to consider their options for the final game in the series. 

The Roman figures are from Warlord Games and the Formorians from Brigade Models. 

Jacet Sepultus

Southern Gaul, 147 BCE

The smell of the burning enemy stronghold’s buildings and fields and the screams of the barbarians suffering their just end hung heavy in the air, or at least that would be what the report to the Senate would say. Truthfully, the three farm hamlet that was burning was no stronghold, and the ‘rebels’ had mustered perhaps ten men, only one of whom had a real weapon, the rest wielding farm implements. Now the survivors were nailed to cross, some still had the energy to scream, the rest were moaning softly as Gaius Portius Carbo marched past, summoned by the praetor.

It was clear that something was not right as he marched into the tent’s secluded rear compartment, the praetor looked impatient, a strange man wearing a hooded cloak and a mask across his face waited in the corner, and on a table was a sack full of something. “Centurion, we have a task for you. You are being asked to volunteer, succeed and you will be greatly rewarded, but we cannot reveal the nature of your task until you do volunteer and swear yourself to secrecy. Naturally, this task will be dangerous.” With the current Primus Pilus due to retire soon, Gaius felt he couldn’t turn down a chance to ingratiate himself with the upper ranks. “I’ll do it sir.” he said “What is it you require?”

The first thing they asked of him was to swear a fearful oath binding him to secrecy. With that complete he faced the two men. “The massacre of the tax collecting party we are here to punish the locals for” the praetor began “was not in fact carried out by the locals. It was carried out by… another… group of barbarians.”

The masked man stepped forward “The enemy massacred the party they ran into and barely lost anyone in the process. As will become clear, when it comes to facing them in battle we will need to have every advantage to overcome the morale disadvantage, especially given our first encounter.”

“Our masked friend here speaks true. He has located the burial ground of a legendary spear, one said to be able to slay any of the foe with the slightest graze. You will take a small party and retrieve it.” Gaius was, to say the least, confused. Roman legionaries feared no barbarian. “What is so special about these barbarians that they warrant such concern?” he asked.

The masked man upended the sack, and some heads spilled out, twisted featured, pointed ears, one with horns like an ox. “These barbarians are monsters Centurion, not men.” the masked man said needlessly. “This legendary spear may be the critical weapon in our fight against them.”

“You are to retrieve the weapon and bring it back, under no circumstances are you to attempt to use it. We do not know what power it has, nor if rituals are needed to wield it. The priests will attend to that when you return. Pick your team, take only those you feel to be most reliable and the bravest, if the enemy learn of our intent you may have to face these horrors.” 

The Warrens

Garzan was sitting on his throne as Sargessir Blood Bound approached him, consternation writ large across his face. The seer was standing by his side, looking as tranquil as ever. “Sargessir, I have a task for you.” Garzan said. “The mud-crawlers we defeated on our last raid, the seer has seen them plotting revenge, and their leaders claim to have located a spear.”

“A spear, said to be able to slay any of our kind with the slightest touch.” the seer joined in the conversation. “A weapon they claim will enable them to destroy us.”

“I have never heard of such a weapon.” Sargessir said.

“Do you not remember the old tales, our ancestors were driven from the dry lands, and the mud-crawlers came into our warrens and scorched them. Perhaps this weapon was involved in that war.” Garzan replied. “Regardless, they believe it will be useful, so we must deny it to them. Take a warband, retrieve that spear. Kill any mud-crawlers you encounter.”

As a follow up to a previous game where the Romans were utterly smashed by a Formorian raiding band we recently played a game of Broken Legions at the office. This game pitted a small band of Romans tasked with retrieving a legendary spear against a Formorian band sent to stop them (using the Barbarian faction list) in the Shrine of the Ancients scenario. The forces consisted of:

Romans 152 points:

1 x Centurion with Tower Shield
1 x Frumentarius (Spy) with Light Armour
3 x Legionary
1 x Legionary with Spear
1 x Praetorian [Side note, since this is a Republican era game we called him a picked Principius]
2 x Numerii

Formorians 152 points:

1 x Tribal Chieftan with Battleaxe
1 x Tribal Champion with Battleaxe
3 x Warrior with Celtic Lance
2 x Warrior 
1 x Beserker with Warpaint
1 x Druid with Familiar and Arrow Warding
1 x Huntsman

The legendary spear was said to be buried in a stone circle, and both bands convered on it (and the two additional objectives in play).

A half forgotten stone circle is about to become the centre of attention.

The Roman party advances towards the stone circle, braced for the horrors awaiting them.

The horrors await, aiming to frustrate the Roman attempt to retrieve the spear.

In the first turn, the Romans moved their spy into sight of Grawl, the Beastman beserker, aiming to lure him out into sight of their two archers. Overcome with bloodlust, Grawl duly obliged and stormed ahead of the other Formorians as they moved into the nearby woods containing one of the objective shrines.

The enemy are sighted.

The Formorians move into the woods to shelter from the threat of the Roman archers, leaving Grawl to face them alone

With the main Formorian force in the woods, the Romans shifted to face down the onrushing beserker, knocking off one of his hit points with archery, while the Formorians pushed towards the stone circle. Grawl charged rapidly at the two archers, getting rather too close for the comfort of the Romans. 

Don't stand there, keep shooting!

Formorians start to swarm the stone circle.

 Grawl's lone charge allowed him to reach the archers, his warpaint allowing him to shrug off another arrow on the way in. Unfortunately, as he was unsupported, the Romans were easily able to swarm around him and before he could strike a blow he was cut down. 

Defiant, but defeated, Grawl falls in a flurry of blows.

The Formorians meanwhile were massing on the far side of the stone circle, aiming to fall upon the Romans.

Formorians await the order to charge.

Recovering from the fight with Grawl, the Romans rapidly rebuilt their shieldwall, felling a Formorian warrior with arrows as they did, while the Formorians moved across the stone circle, ready to strike at their foe. 

Training, discipline and pointy things, the barbarian killing trinity in action

 

The Formorians swarm forward, siezing control of the stone circle containing the legendary spear.

The next turn saw the action reach a climax. The Formorians edged closer, preparing to rush the Romans in the following turn, only to be surprised by a Roman attack which isolated and cut apart two more of their warriors, while another fell to arrow fire. 

A space opens between the two sides as Formorian warriors are cut down by the Roman legionaries who can sense victory is at hand

The final turn we had time for saw the Formorian priest entreat their God of the Deep, gaining a bonus Fate point for all the Formorian heroes, which they put to good use in the ensuing combat rounds to prevent any harm coming to them. Unfortunately for the monsters, being outnumbered, they were unable to inflict any harm upon the Romans by way of reply. 

The clash of weapons finally heralds the full engagement of both sides.

At this point it was getting late, and, heavily outnumbered, the Formorian players conceeded, leaving the Romans with a decisive victory. Only their spy came close to harm, having been shot at and having to use a fate point to avoid taking a wound. The rules were easy to pick up the basics of and kept the game interesting, although our unfamiliarity with them probably prevented us using the various abilities in the most advantageous way, but we'll try better in future games.  

Garzan Thrice Cut was, to put it mildly, apoplectic with rage when Sargessir met him at the campsite. He had brought a raiding force on the assumption with the cursed spear safely out of human hands he could pillage the land at will and drive the mud-crawlers back to their homeland. After he had calmed himself by tearing apart a captive with his bare hands, Garzan turned to his cowering underling. 

"We will retrieve that weapon, and you will bring it to me yourself or die in the attempt." he snarled.   

A few things seemed to be highlighted in the game that we found either odd or confusing. Firstly, Roman Legionaries are really tough, easily comparable to some hero classes (like Tribal Champions). Given the Formorians were never in a position to use their numbers to their advantage, this really hurt. 

Secondly, massing for a charge or similar is very hard, and given the advantages that it conveys this can severely hamper a side. Again in this game, this hurt the Formorians the most. I suspect this is more of a familiarity and implementation issue than a rule one, and will hopefully lessen in future games.

Heavy weapons seem more of a liability than a benefit. The minor damage bonus seems vastly offset by the loss of agility, particularly if the defenders can bring any allies charging into a fight. Maybe it's a case of using them better, but I might well aim to use them less often. 

Finally, the Shieldwall rule is a bit confusing, and open to some generous interpretations. I'm probably going to house rule out some of the more obvious exploits before any future game.

Despite these quibbles, everyone had a good time, even if there were some glum faces among the Formorians towards the end. With the legendary spear in Roman hands, it now remains only to see what the Formorian response will be, and what game that will result in next.     

The Romans were mostly Warlord Games, with the triarii coming from the Crusader Miniatures range, while the Formorians come from the Brigade Models Celtos range.