FoGgy day in Gig Harbor

I played Field of Glory on Saturday at Bruce Meyer's house in Gig Harbor. We were going to have a FoG day at The Game Matrix in Tacoma, but we got faced out at the last minute by a War Machine tournament. Bruce offered his humble abode at the last minute. And by humble, I mean a huge gaming room in a detached building.

There were eight of us and instead of playing four separate games, we decided to play one big game using two armies on a side. The clash was Romans and Gauls versus Carthaginians and Spanish.

I was on the far right commanding a mid-republican Roman legion plus two Roman heavy cavalry units. Facing me was Tim McNulty with the Spanish cavalry and caetrati and Mike Garcia with some Spanish heavy caetrati. Mike also commanded some Spanish scutarii and more caetrati (there was a world of caetrati on that battlefield) facing my fellow Roman Gary Griess.

On our left, Bruce commanded the Gallic cavalry and Scott Murphy commanded the vast horde of Gallic warbands. They faced Dale Mickel and Al Rivers who commanded the Carthaginians.

Tim, a neophyte to ancients gaming as a whole and FoG in particular, started out by charging his light cavalry into my heavy cavalry. A mistake, despite initial success in the impact phase. Superior Roman armor and weaponry told in the ensuing melee. We both added second units to the fray, but the end result was predicatable: two routing Spanish light cavalry units and two Roman heavy cavalry units threating the Spanish flank.

At one point, Tim charged his Spanish medium cavalry against my supporting hastati/pricipes unit but after getting fragmented in the combined results of impact/melee, he had to break off in the joint-action phase and lick his wounds.

Further to the left, Mike charged his heavy caetrati into one of my hastati/principes units. "Hah!" I laughed. However, he got very good results in the impact phase and I was disorganized and minus one stand as a result. I was able to add a supporting hastati/principes unit and put the triarii behind for supprt as well as attaching a general. The additional morale support helped avert disaster, but the "easy" win against the lighter Spanish never happened. For the rest of the game we were locked in mortal combat with ups and downs on both sides. I eventually lost a second stand, but still hung in. Mike lost stands, too, but he started as a 12-stand unit with a third rank absorbing losses. My losses reduced my dice, his never did.

Even further left, Gary charged his Romans into Mike's Spanish scutarii. After just a couple turns, Mike's spanish were running. This is what should have happend for me against the heavy caetrati. If I were a legate, I'd have decimated my feckless hastati/principes.

In the Gallic-Carthaginian match-up, Bruce ran the Gallic cavalry roughshod over the Carthaginian right. while the Carthaginian Libyan spearmen s-l-o-w-l-y advanced against the wild-eyed Gallic warbands.

We called the game after a few hours of gaming when things looked very bad for the Carthaginian-Spanish coalition. They had several routed or destroyed units to very few losses, and no routed or destroyed units, for the Gauls and Romans.

It was a great way to spend a cold, rainy Saturday in late June.