After seeing a negative review of SPQR I had to give it a try to see if it was that bad. After a few quick practice games I think it is okay. That review has some valid points but that's for a one off charge ahead and kill sort of game, it's here:
TMP link
Good: lots of choices on army lists, 40 scenarios, quick game, lots of possibilities
Bad: BUCKETS of dice (that always seem to get rerolled), no command rules, no flanks
Basically, when it's your turn you activate a unit which can then do two things, moving, fighting, shooting, or special. You can double up and move twice, fight twice in a row, etc. You roll at the start of the turn for who chooses who goes first, so you can get a double turn.
The previous post mentioned that a single huge giant unit was the way to go and rather dull, along with needing about two bricks of dice. That is one way to play it, but it won't work for many scenarios where you need to grab multiple items, take more land, escape with more units, etc. If you only have one it won't do for the scenario.
So here's the dope on a few quick games. I grabbed some multi-bases Romans and Gauls for ease of moving the toys around.
Game 1, 3 blocks of 8 Romans and 4 slingers against two blocks of 24 basic Gauls and 1 block of Gauls in mail. 600 some points. The slingers take one block down to 18 or so figures, but they have a slow rate of fire. The Romans shift right, beat up the hurt unit of Gauls, use a double turn to shift to the elite Gauls who barely hang on, and then get steamrolled by the last large mass of Gauls. Epic amounts of dice and modifiers for big units, +1 to hit for every 10 guys in the unit.. Armor for the Romans kept them in the game, their chain mail gets them a save on 3-6 on the dice. Everyone has a large shield and swords so the Parry makes everyone reroll the successful hits. Worth adjusting and trying again. Forgot the pila.
Game 2. Same Gauls. Romans shift to two blocks of 10 legionnaires and 12 archers. The archers have a shorter range and less power than slings, but they can shoot twice a turn instead of taking a "special" action to wind up. The archers get an extra +1 to hit for every 10 guys in the target unit and these big blocks aren't armored. Shields cause a reroll, but not an armor save, but when you hit on 2+ due to the huge target that's not a big deal. They rapidly zap a Gaulic block down to about 10 men. The Romans hit this guy and wipe him out. The Gauls charge in but I remember the pila which makes the charge less effective and they stand. It's now 22 Romans in good armor against 24 unarmored Gauls and 12 armored ones. The dice decree the Romans can't hit much for a turn and they do beat up the Gauls badly but get zapped.
Game 3. Gauls trade up for a unit of cav to try and get into the archers fast and downsize some infantry, plus I play a scenario with objectives and actually get terrain on the table. Now this is a proper game. Cav lurking behind terrain and ready to charge, archers sweating it trying to shoot someone but not get overrun, the infantry going for the livestock but mindful of the other guys troops and terrain movement. And it's a wargame so someone must die. The end result is the archers whittle the Gauls down a bit then get hit and pounded, the legion grabs the goods and sees off the cav, the Gallic infantry got hurt and half of it slowed up by terrain that they were hiding behind and couldn't catch the Romans in time and those that did get in weren't enough.
Overall, not bad. It's worth trying again with some of the single based stuff and trying out some other scenarios and army lists. I'm thinking of experimenting with random activation for a more free wheeling game.
considers the Battle of Delium, 424 B.C.
