Late Romans(West) vs Early Anglo Saxon

The battle in full swing!

Nick and I had a very nice fun little Basic Impetus bash last Saturday featuring Nick as the Late Romans (west) vs myself running the Early Anglo Saxons. Nick has played little to none in regards to Impetus so I thought playing a game of Basic Impetus was a great way to ease him into the rules instead of going straight into full Impetus. In some ways Basic Impetus is as good as full Impetus when taking in certain factors. For example it's far easier to collect Basic Impetus armies especially in 28mm and the rules are simplified allowing an easier learning curve both at an introductory level and if you play infrequently to remember the rules. You also need less space to play. However regular full Impetus does allow more tactical options and gives a fuller experience, but that comes with cost in both time to play, space needed and bigger collections. At the moment I like the idea of Basic Impetus at 28mm and full Impetus at 15mm, but that's not set in stone as I'll play full Impetus at 28mm as well. I would say it's more of a guide for now and see how things develop.

The game itself was great fun and Nick who is normally a skirmish type gamer really enjoyed the game as well. A real nice feature of Basic Impetus is that you don't have a lot of units so each unit becomes important so you really need to think about what you want to do. I suppose what I like most about Impetus is the big bases, because of the visual aspect and the ease of movement. The game itself was a tight one, but in the end the Roman's prevailed in large part to the excellent performance of their cavalry. Nick who normally has difficulties in getting something in the win column largely due to his poor dice rolling this time was able to come out the winner and throw back the uncivilized barbarians. Of course this is only temporary as the Saxons will have their revenge!:-)

Still need to work on the photography, but hopefully you'll enjoy the pics I was able to half decently take. Nick has decided to leave his lovely Late Romans at my house so he doesn't need to drag them out of the attic any more which is a boon for me! Thanks Nick! Since he kindly has allowed me to use them in his absence it will give me something for my Saxons to fight as I'm still developing my own Late Roman army although my cataphracts did manage to get on the table for their first game albeit not controlled by myself.

Well I must say I'm pretty pumped to get painting some more Impetus armies so stay tuned for more of that soon!

Thanks for viewing!

The Late Romans line up for battle.

Screaming insults the Saxons form up.

Late Roman cavalry hoping to outflank the Saxon battle line.

Late Roman infantry lock shields and advance.

A massive melee erupts across the battlefield.

Cataphracts hoping to punch a hole through the Saxons instead become boged down in close fighting.

Saxons push the center, but struggle on the flanks.

Cataphracts grind down one unit, but find the Saxon Generals unit a much tougher challenge.

End game with Late Roman heavy cavalry catching a large unit in the flank collapsing both the unit and the Saxon army with it.