Late Romans vs Late Romans To The Strongest! (Solo)

 

The rival warlords Nexiust and his loyal legions face off against his rival Primus and his Burgundian allies.

I finally decided to have my first solo game. This came about due to the fact that my wargaming has been reduced to maybe playing a game once every 3 months or so if  even that. Why? Well my regular opponent no longer (war)games very often or least not that I'm aware of as he prefers mostly just to paint in regards to miniatures. The other group lives over an hour away and has their own gaming group, but are also not gaming as often as they used to at the moment due to real life interfering. There is a club I used to go to about a half hour away. Friendly folks, but they mostly play games I'm not really interested in (Fantasy ,Sci-Fi ,some historical but always skirmish) plus often with unpainted miniatures which sadly I cannot overlook, not to mention I really dislike transporting my miniatures. Since wargaming includes both painting and playing for me if I'm not gaming then the motivation to paint is affected. Well, I knew I had to do something or wargaming as a whole would just come to a halt period. This would not be a good thing as the wargaming hobby has had a very positive affect on the quality of my life.

Solo gaming. Hmmm would that really work? When playing a game I've always looked at it as very social activity and probably the part I liked the most even more then the game itself . The hobby talk before the game, friendly banter during the game, and the after game discussions and plans. This would not be present. I also worried about favoring one side too much leading to a boring predictable game.

Well I'm happy to say I enjoyed the solo game a lot more then I expected! Of course I would have had more fun playing a friend no question, but the experience was quite fun which is the important thing! I think the rules To the Strongest! had a lot to do with it due to the friction in activations where units can fail to activate which changes the dynamics disrupting plans not to mention the grid system eliminated any kind of fudging and fiddling of units and speeds the game up. As long as you try to play each side as best you can then you will have a good time as the cards will give you plenty of surprises.

General Nexiust in the center with the legions and commander Cyprus in his cataphractarii leading his division of cavalry on the left and commander Poximer leading the auxiliaries on his right face off in the distance General Primus and his legions center with his cavalry under Optomier and his ally Chieftain Hangar and his Burgundians.

The cavalry prepare to engage.

Poximer's Aux. Begin to advance

Hangar's Burgundians roar their defiance 

General Primus with obvious Germanic tastes 

Genaral Nexius who isn't above showing the heads of previous enemies as an example of what happens when defying his rule.

I decided to use my Late Roman/Germanic collection as it's my largest to play a kind of civil war of two rival Warlords. I did need to substitute some units for others as I didn't have enough of a particular type. For example I didn't have 3 cataphractarii units on one side rather just one and the other two were equites(normal cavalry). There were more substitutes, but I think the overall impression of Late Romans with Germanic allies fighting Late Romans was achieved. 

A mighty clash of cavalry led by Cyperus himself!

More clashes of the cavalry looking for advantage.

Hangar charges with his Burgundians, but Aux. hold their ground.

Back and forth the Auxiliari's and Burgundians fight, but neither can seem to get an advantage

In the cavalry duels Optimer's heavy cavalry manage to outflank one of Cyprus forward pressing units.

Optimer's riders crush the enemy underfoot

Disaster for Cyprus as both he and his cataphractarii are shockingly ridden down!  

I was always holding back from playing To the Strongest! as I didn't think I would like the grid system and the cards instead of dice.....I was wrong to say the least! I really liked the grides as it just made moving units so easy without any fuss and the process of flipping cards was more fun then rolling dice I found. Also, since I could take my time I didn't feel the game drag as often happens when learning new rules. I found myself completely engaged as to what would happen and not wanting to stop playing which is a very good thing. It was a very tense game with charge at the end deciding the game!

I thought maybe the cards on the table would be distracting, but they were not as I picked them up after each "division" was completed and the attack/save cards were played off battlefield. Really like the way the victory medals were worked especially with the amendments. Do you really want to rally that unit? Could cost you victory medal in doing so. I won't explain To the Strongest! here, but those that play will get that. Quite a few interesting choices to make in that whichever side your playing you are making decisions.

Nexiust seeing his cavalry flanked destroyed and his right flank bogged down decides a desperate charge of his legions to break Primus center is the only chance he has before his flank will be set upon by cavalry

Auxiliarii vs Auxiliarrii, Legionarii vs Legionarii and Warlord vs Warlord clash in the center!

Nexiust and his Legionarii's desperate charge pays off and they break both of Primus's Legionarrii's sending them scattering and Primus himself being dragged off to safety by his bannerman.  

Remember when I said that I was worried that my preference for one side could lead to unconscious bias to the side I was playing......well I lost so that answered that! To the Strongest is an excellent game and if I had to nit pick I'd say not having the units base to base takes a bit from the visual, but that can be easily adjusted simply by making the boxes smaller, but I wanted them "standard" until I'm more comfortable with the game. I highly recommend playing To the Strongest! and I plan on playing many more games in the future along with Simon's For King and Parliament and his yet to be released Age of Reason(Corporal John?) ruleset for 18th century warfare all which are right up my ally with a focus on fighting armies.

So It looks like wargaming will continue through a combination of solo and friends which is a very good thing for me indeed and has already fueled my desire to paint more units to fill in the gaps of my existing collections and grow others. Other rulesets like Field of Battle and TFL also look promising for solo due to friction in activations which I think is very useful in solo wargaming. 

Thanks for viewing!

Harlem Heights 1776

 

 Brig. General Nixon's vanguard make contact with Major General Leslie Light Infantry Brigade. Bottom of the screen is North and the top is South. Key features are Clarmont Hill with the LI on top. Hoaglandt Farm behind the buckwheat field on a hill, behind that the orchard on a hill and behind that Jones's  House also on a hill. Both the southwest and northwest have thick woods.

A few days ago I had a few friends over for an AWI game using the excellent Field of Battle 3 ruleset and a scenario from the always good British Grenadier scenario books. The battle we fought was Haarlem Heights 1776. The battle itself took place right after the American's major defeat at Long Island. The British with justification felt the Americans were so inferior that they let their guard down and fell into a trap and were defeated. The British were arrogant and while pursuing American skirmishers with their light infantry actually blew horns like they were on a fox hunt just to give you an idea of the mind set.  The battle itself wasn't a major engagement(although not minor either) with less then 1800 a side actually involved, but it was a significant battle in which the Americans defeated the British on the open field for the first time after a series of defeats and gave the Americans a much needed morale boost. If you check out wiki that will give more detail of the battle itself as it would take too much space in an already long post. 

The British ( Mike and Sebastian)

CinC-  Gen. Howe 

Major Gen. Leslie , Lt. Col. Stirling, Col. Von Donop, Major Gen. Cornwallis, Major Gen.Vaughan, 

The Americans (Franz and Myself)

CinC- Gen. Washington 

Major Gen. Greene, Brig. Gen. Nixon, Lt. Col. Knowlton, Brig. Gen. Sargent, Brig. Gen. Beall

Basically the objective for the American players is to defeat the British light infantry under Leslie and the early reinforcements of  Stirling and Von Donop before the later arrival of the 33rd under Cornwallis and the elite Grenadiers of Vaughan.

Gen Washington and Howe while technically are commanding they both pretty much just funneled in reinforcements using their staffs to figure out where, but did not really get very close to the action therefore I didn't allow them to command individual brigades.

Another factor in the battle is in that most Americans were regulars, but quite inferior to British  regulars at this point so I gave them militia status and actual militia as rabble, with the exception of riflemen units who were given full regular status. 

The last factor is low ammunition for both sides which increasingly became a factor in the battle and so much so it pretty much ended the fight historically. With this in mind about mid point in the game and after a unit had fired it had to make an ammo check before it could fire again. Any fail was out of ammo for the rest of the game. While it didn't decide the game it sure did make it's presence known!

Leslie's light infantry take positions at the fence line and atop Claremont Hill. 

Nixon's riflemen vanguard are engaged by British light infantry, but cause no casualties.

The riflemen move to outflank the light infantry.

Nixon's main body arrives giving an unpleasant surprise to Leslie!

The arrival of Nixon's main body pins the British Light infantry allowing the riflemen to continue their outflanking maneuver.

Completing their outflanking maneuver the riflemen deliver devasting fire into the light infantry.

Disaster for the British as one Light Infantry battalion is routed from the field! 

Leslie retreats to the remaining light infantry battalion on Clarmont Hill as Nixon's men pour over the fence.

Nixon sends half his men to deal with the rest of the light infantry and the other half in the direction of Hoaglandt farm on the opposing hilltop. Things are looking grim for the British!

Stirling's 42nd Foot brigade arrives and not a moment too soon for the British!

Stirling orders the 42nd into line atop Hoaglandt farm and the nearby buckwheat field while the accompanying 3 pounder artillery prepares to engage. 

Knowlton's Rangers arrive out of the woods to support Nixon's advance on the British in the center.

Sargent's unattached infantry and 6 pounder take the field with Gen Greene taking command of them.

And Gen. Sargent arrives with the rest of the brigade. 

Greene and Sargent take their troops on a march around the woods to the west in hopes of outflanking and trapping the British on Hoaglandt farm and Clarmont hill.

Nixon's men begin exchanging gunfire with the light infantry on Clarmont Hill.

Nixon's troops take cover behind the fence and stone wall as the British 3 pounder engages. Nixon is waiting on Greene and Sargent to get on the British flank before risking going into the open field.

The American flank march is almost there until the timely arrival of Von Donop's Hessians near the stone wall and opposite the orchard.

Greene immediately reacts to the Hessian threat and deploys his units into line and get's the 6 pounder to engage the Hessians.

The unexpected accuracy of the American artillery pushes the Hessians off the wall.

This gap was all the Americans needed who daringly poured over the walled and assaulted the Hessians!

 

Von Donop watches in disbelief as his troops are routed from the field!!(newly painted unit....)

Beall's Flaying camps arrive which are rabble militia. Had to use 2 hessians stands as I ran out of rebel's.

In the gunfight between Nixon's regulars and the Light infantry Nixon's men were getting the better and decided to launch an assault to knock the light infantry off Clarmont hill.

Big mistake as the light infantry threw back the Americans causing one battalion to fall back and the other to route! While this helped the British their morale was still getting close to breaking.

Just as Nixon was getting ready to make a push on both Clarmont hill and Hoaglandt farm he was shot dead from his saddle from a stray musket ball temporally paralyzing his brigade until a new leader could take command! 

Some welcome relief for the British with the arrival of Cornwallis and the 33rd near Jones's house.

What do you mean you forgot the second box of ammunition! The British 3 pounder withdraws from Hoaglandt farm out of ammo.

With the Hessians out of the way Green moves to the flank of Stirling who in turn orders one battalion to turn and face the threat. In a blaze of musketry they send the artillery reeling backwards. 

Now that Stirling's artillery was forced to withdraw and his right flank forced to respond to Greene's flanking attempts Knowlton's rangers move through the buckwheat field and send repeated waves of musketry into the 42nd's flank.

Which caused the 42nd to break and run in the direction of Jones house to the shock and dismay of the retreating artillery not to mention Stirling himself! The British are out of morale chips making them vulnerable to the army morale card when drawn.

Vaughan's Grenadiers arrive, but are they too late!

The army morale card was drawn and the British failed their roll causing the crown forces to quit the field. The American's win!

What a great game it was! Remarkably the game followed history pretty closely even using our own adaptations to the scenario. The American Flying columns and the British Grenadiers also did not take part in the fighting at the end as I believe was historically the case. If the British were not so unlucky in losing one of their light infantry units and the Hessians so early I have little doubt the Grenadiers would have made short work of the Americans if allowed to get into the thick of the fighting.

I want to thank everyone who took part in the game for the good atmosphere and fun we had in playing the game! I'm really looking forward to the next one!

Although my AWI collection isn't small I realized it's still not near as big as I want it to be and I have lots more to do! Getting all your figures on the table can be a real morale booster in getting more things added.

Also my initial set of pictures came out so bad, that I basically had to re-do the game from memory and take new pictures of the game. Great thing about having a hobby room and the figures all yours. I'm still learning the camara so not where I want to be yet, but getting better. My friend Mike took some great pictures of the game in actual progress so please go visit him at https://dreispitz.blogspot.com/2025/05/awi-field-of-battle-3rd-edition-battle.html . Because of this the unit's won't look exactly the same in terms of composition of figures.

Thanks for viewing and reading until the end of a very long post!