Strength & Honour – Initial Game, Watling Street

This was our first run-out with TFL’s new Strength & Honour rules. We decided to keep it simple, so used the Watling Street scenario, straight out of the book. Dave took the Romans and I took the Iceni.

From the deployment, it was clear that the Romans were going to be outflanked, having only 4 units, vs the Iceni 9 units. The Romans placed the 2 legions in their centre, with the veteran Auxiliaries protecting their flanks.

The Iceni placed their best warriors (the Iceni warbands) overlapping the Roman right and the light cavalry and chariots overlapping the Roman left, leaving the Artebates & Trinovanti warbands, to face off the legions, in depth (which turned out to be a bad move!).

The barbarians led with a fairly spirited move forward, but to their surprise, the Romans also quickly advanced. This actually led to the barbarian right over-shooting the Roman Auxiliaries there, causing some delay in getting them back into action.

While the Roman Auxiliaries were having a bit of a hard time of it, on the flanks, the Roman legions closed with the centre. Unsurprisingly, the Legions were getting the better of this, pushing back the warbands.

However, then things then started to go awry for the Romans. The Roman Auxiliaries on the Iceni right, were pushed back and disordered, by the chariot stiffened Trinovanti warband. Then the Iceni light cavalry started aggravating the flanks of the Roman XX legion. This, plus the annoying Iceni habit of rolling defence saves, stalled the XX legion’s drive forward.

The XIV legion on the Roman right was fairing little better. Boudica had driven off the Roman Auxiliaries guarding the flank of the XIV legion and now the Legion was suffering at the hands of supported and flanking warbands.

Things were not looking good for the Romans, but over-confidence overtook the Iceni. They called Homunculus Est, but shock, horror, not enough points!

Then Roman discipline started to tell. Reforming a legion, with a Discipline of 5+, was not that hard! Even Reforming the Auxiliaries on a 6+, away from the warbands, was quite feasible. Thus the Roman units rallied and pressed back into the fight.

The run of luck on Iceni defence saves had also passed and soon the warbands were being driven back. A couple of critical Discipline check failures and first the light cavalry was routed, then a warband. The Iceni then also discovered that Recovering a warband, on a Discipline roll of 8+, was a tough ask! The Roman legions started to press forward, looking for revenge for the earlier reversals.

The Iceni, now snowed under by Setback and Disaster cards, were forced to face Homunculus Est. Only 34 points, vs a Break value of 18!! Guess you call that a win!

It was now only left to the Romans to mount a bit of a victory parade at Wroxeter!!

Overall, a good first game. This will be back on the table again.