Having played a few games of Infamy on table top simulator I had my first actual game against Dave's Gauls. I used my Late Romans as proxies for Early Imperial Roman and we both used the starter forces with no extras.
We decided on the patrol scenario with the Romans entering from the south and the Gauls from the east and west (plus their six deployment points). The Romans have to scout four terrain pieces to accomplish their mission. Luckily for the Romans a lot of the terrain ended up close to the Roman deployment area:
Four groups of Legionaries supported by some archers arrive for the Romans and move forward:
A group of Gallic archers appear and open fire on the Legionaries. One is killed (my units don't have single figures so casualties are marked with green counters)!:
The final Roman unit, some Auxiliaries, arrive and advance on the Gallic archers. The Roman archers also fire on the Gauls killing three of them:
Some Gallic skirmishing cavalry pop up next, they throw javelins at the archers and kill one:
The cavalry attempt to charge the archers but are slowed by the field giving the archers time to evade:
The Gallic archers have fled but two units of Gallic levy have dashed out of the woods to threaten the flank of the Legions. Unfortunately for the Romans their Auxilia had been redeployed to the left once the archers fled!:
The Gallic cavalry charge the archers again, this time the archers decide to stand:
Despite the odds being against them the archers slaughter the cavalry though they take heavy losses themselves:
Two Legionary groups wheel to face the Gallic levy who decide to charge the Auxilia instead as an easier target:
The Auxilia are pushed back:
Charging the Auxilia has left the flank of the levy open to the Legions. They seize the opportunity and slam into the flank of the Gauls:
One unit of levy is slaughtered:
In the second round of combat the other unit of levy is cut down:
Two units of Gallic warriors charge out from the forest into the flank of the Legionaries. The Legionaries fight back though, surviving to turn to face the Gauls:
The Legions are triumphant! The Gallic warriors fall back though the Romans are now greatly weakened and have a lot of shock on them:
The Gauls fall back while the Roman Auxilia advance to support the Legionaries:
Sensing that the embattled Romans are weakening the Gallic general throws in his has reserve, Noble warriors supported by their cavalry counterparts:
Remarkably yet again the Roman line holds and cuts down several Gallic nobles:
The surviving mob of Gallic warriors attacks the Roman lines, can they hold yet again?:
The Roman Auxiliaries break! The Gauls follow up into the battered Legionaries:
The front group of Legionaries flees as well. The rear unit holds on though:
The Gauls charge on into the surviving Legionaries:
The second group of Legionaries also flees from the Gallic warriors:
The Roman archers fall back shooting at the warband:
While the battle has been raging elsewhere the other two groups of Roman Legionaries have been largely unengaged and remain fresh. The Gauls only have a group of Noble cavalry left plus the Gallic warrior unit that, while very successful, now has a lot of shock and is vulnerable to a flank charge by the Legionaries. The Gauls decide to withdraw into the forest and await another opportunity to take on the Romans:
A quite close game that could have gone either way. On reflection it is noticeable that the Romans barely advanced 1/3 of the way on the table, partly as there were enough terrain areas to scout near their deployment zone and partly as it seems suicidal to advance past barbarian deployment points leaving yourself vulnerable to ambushing flank attacks. The ambush seems very powerful for the barbarians, even frontally the Roman auxilia and archers will suffer badly the archers especially as they can't evade.
The legionaries are much more resilient but of course you don't get that many!
As ever with TFL rules they were slightly confusing (we couldn't find anything about moving and shooting for instance) and the similarity to, but significant differences, with Sharp Practice and Chain of Command perhaps does not help as you have to remember which rules are specific to which set and not just assume they are all the same!
They also have the usual TFL issue in that, while they have missions, there is no time limit on them so it is always an option to just kill the enemy to win though on the few games we have played so far it appears very hard to drive force morale down so most games end when one side has hardly anyone left and admits defeat!
Overall I think CoC is still by far the best TFL game with SP and Infamy being similar, fun to play now and then but probably not more than that.
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