Wednesday 24 August 2016

Sassanids lead the Romans a merry dance - TTS report

The battlefield is set for a showdown on the eastern plains.



As previously mentioned Steve and I wanted to give the very playable To The Strongest a nice run down at the NWS.  We wanted to find out if we could generate some interest amongst the members as well as have a bit of fun blowing off the cobwebs with the rules.


In addition this would be Steve's first game of TTS and so I wanted to make sure he would get a feel for the game mechanics.


My largest Roman Command complete with undecorated baggage camp - this weekends project


We decided to take our old favourites - Sassanid Persians and Late Roman.  Lots of bow fire, missile weapons from those sneaky Persian and a bit of steel from my veteran legions and cavalry.  Surely the safety of the empire is assured!


My second command - smaller, weaker and obviously magnetically attractive to Sassanid arrows!


Steve' First command resplendent with deep raw foot and lovely Saravan and Catafracts

Second Persian command - they don't look too menacing.




The advance commences...




...bloody more quickly than I anticipated to be quite frank!




Pesky skirmishing light cavalry did a good deal of damage to my flanking cavalry.  They hit often and when I needed
to save it was an abysmal 2 or 3 on the counters.




We really need to stick the shooting and save counters on the back edge as Simon suggests.




My activations were a horror story - I drew out two "1's" in a row and was caught very much on the hop.




Here you can see Persian light cavalry on my flank, and my Equites up at the hill on the left of shot. My Catafractarii
are preparing to swap through the light bowmen and see if they can stem the rot.




Whilst Steve starts moving up the escorted elephants ...just because he could.




I do like the look of the great Persian unwashed - raw shieldwall style infantry




Frontal view - a few spears popped off in transport but they are easily fixed!




Another view of my centre - still in tact you may note.  At least at this stage!




Unfortunately it was at this stage that things started to go very much pear shaped for the mighty Romans.  My right flank was being folded in by the quick and incisive flank attack from my Persian foe.  I had been unable to come to grips on my left flank where I had a superiority and when I did engage the enemy in the centre my attacks were met with considerable ease.


At this point we felt that the Roman commander would set a line with two cohorts of legionairies and some cavalry support and attempt to extricate himself from the situation.  Easier said than done methinks.


The game was a great load of fun.  We bypassed the terrain set-up and stratagems this time but will include them next week.


A big thumbs up from everyone who saw the game.

16 comments:

  1. Lovely figures and a nice report. thanks.

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    1. Thanks Paul. The figures have been in God colection for a while and we're going to get for 28mm impetus however I do like the TTS rules in this scale.

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  2. Beautiful figures! Must get TTS back to the table myself...

    Cheers,
    Aaron

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    1. Cheers Aaron, looking to play more games that's for sure.

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  3. Good stuff, it's always good to see a report of Simon's rules. Thanks for posting!

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  4. Glad it went well... At least for Steve! :-)

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    1. Steve did well and certainly took advantage of my poor early activations to outmanoeuvre me that's for sure.

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  5. Nice looking game! I really do need to try these rules out.

    Christopher

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    1. You'll really enjoy the Christopher. A bit of getting used to with some mechanisms but it plays extremely well.

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  6. Looks like you two had a great game, shame I couldn't make it to watch it unfold. Nice stuff Carlos.

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    1. Thanks Guido - we are playing another one next week as well mate.

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  7. Two very nice armies Carlo. I do hope that you get this before you fall on your sword! 8O)

    Salute
    von Peter himself

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    1. I'll be back next week Von Peter with a renewed optimism and more figures- wargamers hope springs eternal.

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  8. Super Carlo! I reckon the Sassanids are one of the best armies, Especially in open terrain. Stick in lots of broken ground next time; see how they like that! ;-)

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    1. I agree Simon. Knowing my luck that will be the night I draw the Sassanids to play!! Early Franks v Romans next Wednesday.

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