"Chainmail" post 2

Somewhere on the Edge of the Empire...

A dispute is being settled the Old-Fashioned Way...

Having played a game, and been pleased with the results, I persuaded one of my favorite victims - Ken - to try out "Chainmail, 3rd Ed" using his Imperial Romans and Germans. As we were just doing a playtest, we through down some hills and terrain, and I gave the Germans the option to toss three areas of boggy ground anywhere on the table.

For the forces:

Romans

4 x 24-fig Legionnaires, Armored Foot, Pilum - one has Levy morale.

2 x Auxilia, 12-fig, 24-fig, Heavy Foot, Javelins. May use Loose Order.

1 x Auxilia, 20-fig, Heavy Foot, Bow.

1 x 8-fig Heavy Cavalry.

Germans

6 x 36-fig Warriors, Heavy Foot, Impetuous - two have Elite morale.

2 x 12-fig Light Infantry, Javelin

1 x 8-fig Light Cavalry, Javelin

Below, Turn 1-2. The Germans win Initiative and force the Romans to move first.

Germans advance, pushing out their Light Infantry.

Romans also advanced, taking a hill and securing some bogs by their deployment area. Nothing surprising.

Turn 3, Germans continue to advance, toss Javelins at Armored Foot to little result.

Romans shoot back, with the Archers inflicting some casualties on German skirmishing Javelins. Below, the Horde is approaching!

Yeah...that's a lotta Germans! And they left the catapults behind...

As they hurry close, the Germans are picking up some Fatigue.

Meanwhile, on the Roman left flank, the Auxilia exchange Javelin shots with the Light Cavalry, and come out ahead, rolling up and killing 3.

Romans win Initiative Turn 3, and force the Move on the Germans.

Interestingly, Ken chose to charge his Lights into the Bows. They didn't do well and fled.  The rest of the Germans frothed at the mouth and shouted insults, as one might expect from "barbarians".

Turn 4, the Romans again won Initiative, and took the first move for themselves.

This did allow them to make some preparations, and continue to distract a Warband with their cavalry unit far off on the right flank.  

Germans charged everything possible, of course. The melee results were mixed, with both sides getting some wins. On the hill, the Roman Auxilia Archers Routed, exposing the adjacent Levy Legion.  In the center, the German horde was forced back down the road. To the left, the melee continued with neither getting the upper hand, but both getting some serious Fatigue along the way.

On the far left, the Romans had a Legion and an Auxiliary poised to flank the German line, but they were positioned against the wrong units, and the Auxilia were Fatigued. In any case, the Light Cavalry were not going to be able to hold off the Armored Foot class of the Legionaries.  

Turn 5, the Roman Cavalry managed to squeak by around the right flank warband, and was now in a position to threaten the flanks and rear of two Warbands fighting closely with various Legionaries.  This put the Germans in a bad spot, with multiple units in trouble, plus the flank guard warband was out of position to help.

At this point, we called it, as both German flanks were in trouble, with units either out of position or seriously threatened.

I felt that the rules did just fine, providing plenty of interesting choices, and gave me a better idea of how to class Units in the game. In general, I'd be looking for the main battle line units to have comparable value, and for the "default" result in a matchup between them to be a close call, i.e. "continue melee" result.

Ken didn't like that there was math involved in the combat resolution. He felt that his idea of an Ancient / Medieval game was that it should be pretty simple.  At the first melee resolution, when I began to do the math, he stared at me like I was an escapee from Wargame Bedlam.  I figured that it wasn't his cup of tea at that point.

I could simplify the math for combat resolution, most likely by making a chart. But it doesn't really take long [especially since every cell phone has a calculator]. I really do not want to change the way melee is resolved - my checking into results has shown that a couple of factors can change the result along historical lines. As it appears to work, I hate to tinker with it much.

Overall, there were a few things I want to clarify and streamline, but I'm not interested in changing any of the core mechanics.  It is a solid, interesting and entertaining wargame that demands a little more effort than a simple game, but delivers more entertainment along the way. I especially like the Fatigue points, which periodically interfere with the fight in a way that feels very realistic.