Rome: a passion and long term project

So I have always been enamoured by Rome and its history, yet my wargaming past has often seen me shy away from it as a period.

Maybe its by slow painting or the fact sci fi and fantasy took such a forefront along with WW2 etc but I have always wanted to spend more time playing in the time of Ceaser and the Republic

Whilst I have less time to paint delaying any rush into building a legion!

I have had a passing acquisition of gladiators and their ilk

I picked up Songs of Shadows and Dust a Ganesh games rules set for skirmishes in Roman cities between gangs or followers rather than mass battles

I really want to get some proper games in and to that end have been starting on some suitable figures, mostly using the Numidian infantry box set I picked up on the cheap, otherwise I have plenty of Gladiators and now other Roman types to populate the streets and arena

Some of the kit based Raptors below

Some pugilists two bought and two kit bashed

Three Tribunes and a guard

Three Senators out enjoying the games perhaps, also an experiment using nail art gems for rings and such, think it works fairly well on the right models

The Emperor and his aide and a guard

A kit bashed trainer/dokter to referee and train fights/fighters 

Finally got hold of a copy of this OOP ruleset by Warhammer historical

Even includes rules for fighting Ostriches! 

very detailed and lots of information, well worth picking up 

Pre weathering and basing

Bargain Playmobile arena, this thing is pure massive!

OOP for awhile but since I saw it I had to have it to base my arena around, I have lots of ideas to develop it but may end up looking like this for awhile!

Tempted to keep the playmobile statues lol

£22.50 including p&p the next two I saw went for over £70 each! so well chuffed

Two pugilists prepare to fight

Some snaps of the last club meeting - lots of pics

At the last club meeting I partook in a couple of games, photos of which can be found below along with some of the other games on today.

First up I played in a four player game of the Osprey rules Lion Rampart.

I got this for Christmas and have been looking to try them out.

We used rather more fantasy units than the rules were perhaps intended for, but they do give a suggested fantasy list in the back too.

I was pleased to find out the author was involved with the Songs of Arthur and Merlin version of Songs of blade and heroes, and you could see some influences that had carried over into this game.

The roll 2D6 mechanic is not one I have used in many rule sets but seemed to work well.

We ended up having two sets of 24pts a side in a stand up battle.

I provided the Empire and Bretonian forces making up the near side of the table.

Facing off against some Egyptian cat folk and some undead.

For most of the game my units struggled to move as I consistently failed the second activation test every turn...

My co-general King Richard on the other hand had no such trouble and swept into the Cat folk

Finally getting some units engaged

We got the rules on rough slightly wrong which prevented my knights from otherwise being unceremoniously massacred..  

Queen Sue was run off the table and her remaining units fled 

Mike's undead lost the least points in the battle but over all the forces of Human kind held the day.

Thoroughly enjoyed playing these rules and look forward to trying them out again.

Would recommend for a quick play but satisfying large skirmish or small battle.

Once your familiar with the rules you could play larger battles with ease I think - although having more than 1 vs 1 does slow it down a bit.

Some of the other great looking games on today:

WW2 naval

VBCW 20mm

ACW naval

Ancients

Hail Ceaser

Fields of glory

D&D Attack wing was the second game I partook in today, and whilst I lost it was fun.

Hope you enjoyed