Infamy Infamy: Plunder & Pillage

This is the Slave revolt scenario from the 2024 TFL magazine where a Slave force is out to pillage a Roman farm, hoping to murder the local landowner as well. The landowner has a group of ten family/overseers to help him defend the farm whilst awaiting a relief force from the local town.

The slaves deployed en-mass ready to cross the river. 

 whilst the landowner readied to defend the farm.

The Roman relief force still hadn't shown up and the slaves were advancing rapidly on the farm. Things could get dicy very soon.

Hooray, shouted the landowner, as the Roman relief force finally turned up.

Unfortunately the slaves used their best troops to break down the farmyard door and sent their Gallic allies on a tour around the farm. The Romans charged in, resulting in a very protracted fight with handbags.

 However, soon the might of Rome was evident and the slaves started to break.

Back at the farm, the Slaves managed to break down the farmyard door with the landowner and remaining family retreating to one of the farm buildings, chased by a pack of hungry dogs.

The Roman force was now being distracted by the Gauls who had now circumvented the farmyard whist the herdsmen and their dogs broke into the farm building and murdered the landowner, thus winning the game.

Infamy Infamy: In Goth we Trust

Inspired by Colin Murray’s article in the 2023 Too Fat Lardies special we played a game of Late Romans defending a farmstead against a Gothic warband. The Goths were tasked to capture some Roman civilians, although the likelihood of it descending into a punch-up to see who was the last-man standing was highly probable.

The Romans deployed early and started to head towards the farmhouse much to the dismay of the Gothic player.

The Gothic warbands now deployed from the woods

 

 

with the Romans turning to face them.

 

The Goths started to raise their fervour in anticipation of a mass charge into the Roman lines.

The warbands charged, but the Romans held and managed to push the Goths back.

However, the Limitanei on the Roman left were struggling to hold the Goth Nobles

 

and the Gothic archers were sneaking their way through the farmstead, on the lookout for any civilians.

 

 

It was looking bad for both sides as their force morale was failing. It was down to who was activated first on the next turn. The Gods were smiling on the Romans as their Warlord came out of the bag first. Activating the last unit of Comitatenses to charge the Goths in the flank, breaking the warband and wounding their leader.

 

The Goths at this point were obliged to withdraw empty handed, dragging their many wounded away.

No Pain No Grain

This week for a change we played a game of Infamy Infamy from the Too Fat Lardies. The scenario chosen was the civil war in AD69 one from a WSS magazine written by Richard Clarke. The scenario involves the Othonian and Vittelian forces both looking for supplies from the same farm whilst the locals looked on nervously.

The Othonian gladiators headed straight for the farm,

Whilst the marines made for the river ford as this was the only available crossing point for the Vittelians.

 

 

The Vittelians arrived, with the legion heading down the road.

 

The marines were soon at the ford.

With the Vitellian archers and auxiliaries advancing and heading for the woods near to the ford.

The Vittelian legion slowly lumbered up the road, having severe command and control issues.

They eventually arrived at the ford to face off the Othonians, but the gods (and command cards) were not with them, as they spent several turns looking at the marines.

Pila were thrown by both sides with minimal effect and the legion charged in. The bun fight ensued and both sides were forced back due to morale issues.

Meanwhile, the gladiators were raiding the farm and soon had all the supplies they needed.

The Vittelian legion were unable to clear the ford and blocked it preventing the fresh auxiliaries from taking the fight to the depleted marines.

At this point the game was called as it was late, due to time spent checking the rules as we hadn’t played in quite a while, and also the Vittelians were unlikely to prevent the gladiators making off with the supplies.

Mistle & Oak – Part 1 (An Infamy battle)

Septimus had known this was going to be a fool’s errand. “Follow the stream and scout-out the shore-line”, the Legate had said! “The British won’t be expecting us”, he had also said!. Well two of his lads were now dead as a result, along with four Auxilia troopers and eight of the Auxilia archers were missing! For what? OK, he had counted at least eight dead British warriors and his archers appeared to have accounted for at least as many of the damned British slingers, but they were still no closer to knowing the British strength along the shoreline.

Why had he allowed the Legate to persuade him to follow the stream? It had just divided his forces. Initially things had looked good. A decent show of force had caused one British Warband to pop-up in the hills to the East, jeering feebly from their hilltop. His archers had driven off one group of slingers, scouted the wood to the North of the ford, thereby allowing his legionaries to cross the ford and head toward the single native hut. However, another group of slingers had then popped-up to the rear of his legionaries, but these too were quickly dealt with by his archers, dashing to the other side of the wood and peppering this new group of slingers with very well placed arrows.

In the South, the first warband had finally lumbered off the hill and down into the auxilia. The fight looked tough, but manageable, but then another Warband started to filter down through the trees, to the North of his legionaries, scattering his archers, This forced him to deploy his legionaries into close order line, shields braced, facing this new threat. But just as Septimus thought that this was going to be just another tough day in the legionary meat grinder, a group of British cavalry appeared far to his rear. They splashed across the stream, weaved magically through the marsh, bordering the stream’s Southern bank, then crashed into the rear of the auxilia, breaking their ranks.

So, next time Septimus would do it his way. Not follow the stream, but maybe use it to properly screen one of his flanks. He’d also take another couple of auxilia units, or maybe some cavalry, to better scout out the terrain ahead of him. These British bast**ds would not get the better of Septimus again!?

One thing he did reflect on, was just how slow the British seemed to react to the Roman movements?! He was sure that as his legionaries had surged across the ford, he had heard distant native wailing. It sounded like, “Not another frigging Tempus Fugit….. the Gods must be against us!”. Very odd!?

Romans Take a Walk in the Forest...

This is another Infamy tale where the Romans decided that the corn in the fields looked ready for collecting. Unfortunately the local Germanic tribes weren’t too happy about the Romans stealing their winter supplies.

The task for the Romans was to collect corn from two of the three fields. This was simple for the first one as this was near where they could deploy, but the other two fields were deep in German territory.

The Roman main force deployed into the field and how they sang as they harvested the corn.

They would soon be singing a different tune as a Germanic warband looked on menacingly.

The Romans advanced to try and hold off the Germans, but another even larger warband turned up on their flank.

“Steady lads”, shouted Centurio Tonius Starkus, “we can hold them here whilst the Numidians flank them”. Unfortunately Adalhard had spotted this and sent a warrior group to head off the Numidians.

The two warbands crunched into the Romans, who hastily formed line but forgot to close up. Buckets of dice were rolled and the Roman line buckled and then broke.

Soon the Romans were running, with only the Legion recruits and the Numidian cavalry able to avert a complete disaster by holding off the flanking warrior group.