This is the tale of our third evening of playing First Man in Rome with DBA. We began with Rick taking his last game as Roman facing Bill's Parthian invasion. Rick stuck numerous woods around the field. In short order he had his cavalry facing left against Parthian light horse, his infantry center facing cataphracts and his spear facing right against more light horse. Bill charged on all fronts. The cataphracts rode down two cohorts. Rick struck back, slaying a squadron of heavy lancers. Then a cavalry squadron and a spear unit were slain by light horse. Bill won 4-1, for a score of 6 as enemy of Rome. Added to his previous 3 this made a respectable 9 for Enemy of Rome. Rick got 1 for taking a Parthian unit with him and his 12 tied my score for First Man in Rome.
Bill now took his run as Roman, facing my invading Carthaginians. He managed to deploy behind a river, which my Numidians immediately found to be paltry and insignificant. I aimed at his left. He wheeled to meet me as I deployed. My light cavalry were driven off with loss from his left by Roman cavalry. I charged the line of blades and was repulsed. Bill enveloped my flanks. He killed a warband in the center and then flanked and killed my general on my left flank. He won 3(G)-0 for a score of 7. I didn't kill anything to add to my enemy of Rome score.
Bill next defended against Tom's Gallic invasion. Tom rushed to the attack. Units went down on each side. Then Bill's general scored 1 while Tom's cavalry got a 6. The Roman general slept with the fish. We continued the turn. Tom's general was unable to retreat and we considered a game with both generals down. But Tom managed a tie. Another Gallic unit died against the legionaries and the score was 2-2. The game continued with the Romans leaderless. Tom flanked the unit facing his general and killed it, ending the game and Bill's run as Roman, 3(G) – 2. Bill's Roman score was 2, for a total of 9. Tom added 7 to his score for a huge total of 17, making him the First Enemy of Rome.
Rick and I were tied for First Man in Rome with 12 each. We had agreed to settle any tie with a Roman Civil War. But it was after 9 and Rick won't be able to make next week's meeting. Rather than leave the issue hanging, we decided to roll dice. I rolled a 4 and Rick got a 6, making him First Man in Rome. The concept gave us a lot of fun for 3 weeks. We are considering doing First Man in Macedonia (Alexander vs. Greeks, Persians and Indians) or First Man in Mongolia (Ghengis vs. Sung, Russians and Teutonic Knights).
Some minor statistics from our games: The Carthaginians lost 4 straight games, and 3 generals. The Parthians won both their games, no surprise there. They killed one Roman general, the Gauls bagged the other. That made 5 generals killed in 10 games. The Gauls won 2 and lost 2. Tom drew a very funny sketch for Rick's triumphal arch. It got a chuckle from my wife the next morning. Bill supplied us with fine desserts – a cheer for him!
Final Scores – Romans Rick 12+, Vincent 12, Bill 9, Tom 8
Enemies of Rome Tom 17!, Bill 9, Vincent 9, Rick played no enemy games
discovers a lost dinosaur.