217 Invasion of Britain (55 BC)

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Played this against King Billy as the Romans. An easy win for Caesar in the end despite the early loss of the Tenth Legion and some archers (0-2). The Romans managed to get off the beach easily with a timely Line Command that punched a huge hole in the British line (3-2). Eventually the Britons ran out of units with enough clout to hurt the Romans as Caesar and his cohorts muscled their way towards the hills (5-2).
A last gasp charge by the British forced some losses on the Romans but a 'Order 3 units Centre' saw the legions advance on the weakened Celts and take victory decisively with Caesar at the fore (7-2).

Romans: 7 Barbarians: 4

The Romans advance in the center seemed unstoppable and with a "clash of shields" card they took control of the hills. But the friction of war and some lucky fire roll by the Britons led to the loss of the tenth legion and Caesar. Moreover the Britons cleverly retired from the center and the Romans had to restart the advance process on their left flank. However, now the Barbarian troops were scattered and an easy prey for the Roman legionaries.

Naturalmente tutto si risolve nel Centro. La X Legio avanza mentre i Britanni cercano rifugio sulle colline. I legionari d'elite si sacrficano ma creano lo scompiglio nel centro Bretone. La carta "Line Command" in mano ai Romani permette di portare tutte le unita' sulla terra asciutta. Finale prevedibile. Vittoria Romana 7-2.

7-4 Romans. Brits came out and killed 10th Legion from the get-go by surrounding them with a chariot and some, horse, but Caesar quickly brought the line up and took revenge, even though a medium foot he was leading also died and he ended up commanding an auxliary unit for the rest of the game. Brit cards were very piecemeal and did not come up well, Roman cards came up perfect with line commands and darken the skies wreaking havoc. Very difficult for the Brits to win this one I think with the card disadvantage, a horrendous leader disadvantage, and worse quality troops, and two special Roman units.

We played this game twice today. The first time I, as the Britons did what appears to be the usual Briton strategy of attacking and destroying the 10th Legion. I got the legion and the usual result as the Romans drew something like 4 Activate Medium cards in a row and vaporized my center. Final score was a Roman win 7-2 but it was closer than that as my opponent kept having to rotate damaged units out of the line.

After talking it over, I decided to try again with a very different strategy. My infantry and sole leader held the hills while my Cav attacked the flanks. This scored immediate successes with the left side Roman bowman retreating into the sea. My opponent played a Line command and attacked with the hill with the 10th but only got 2 dice instead of 5. My Auxilia returned the favor and scored 2 hits. I swept off the hill and finished off the 10th.

Caesar moved forward and took a First Strike card with 2 hits again but killed a Warrior unit outright.

The game continued for quite a while, Caesar got 3 units shot out from under him and I was similarly depleted. A lucky Rally card got me back in the game while the Romans continued to be depleted and unable to completely protect their vulnerable units from my Barbarian Chariots.

The finale came when I made an attack on a depleted Medium infantry with a Chariot and missed completely. His retaliatory strike scored 2 hits killing the Chariot for the last flag, final score was 7-5 but it was closer than that.

Both sides made good use of missile fire. I had numerous chances to kill Caesar, which would very likely won the game for me but kept on missing.