Bill and I test-drove the new Basic Impetus edition last Thursday. He took the Patrician Romans (just before the Western Empire went belly-up) and I had a Hun army. This was our first try with the rules. We haven't played the first edition in years.
My Hun army looked like this:
1 medium cavalry with general
7 horse archers
1 skirmisher all armed with composite bows
The Romans:
1 medium cavalry with general
2 light cavalry with javelins
1 light cavalry with composite bows
1 auxiliary unit with long spears
1 archer unit brigaded with above, short bow A
2 skirmishers with javelins
1 Alan horse archer unit with composite bows
2 Gothic foederati units with heavy throwing weapons (point blank weapons)
Bill defended, picking woods for his first terrain pick. My first allowed me to move the woods to my side of the field. His second roll gave him another woods and this stayed in his left center. My second roll gave me a gentle hill on my left flank. We deployed.
Bill said in a normal game he'd hole up behind the woods but since this was a test game, out he came. The Huns rode forward.
We decided to mark current VBU (combat effectiveness) of each unit instead of marking permanent hits. The Alans took some hits and dropped back. Hun horse archers didn't like trading shots with the large Roman infantry unit.
On our right, things began to go our way.
On our left, a Hun unit tried to flank the Romans and ended up charging the Roman general. This was a mistake.
The Gothic foot came forward as the Roman light horse was routed to their left.
On our left, horse archers fired the Parthian shot and fell back.
The Hun general and his noble cavalry charged Gothic foot and drove them back.
The Roman general was target for many horse archers.
The Goths fell back again under pressure.
Late in the game, we realized we had been ignoring the point blank weapons of the Gothic foot. A double volley of thrown axes and heavy spears failed with lousy dice. The Gothic foot routed under Hun hooves. The other Gothic foot unit charged the beat-up Hun archers, who failed to evade. The volley of axes and spears routed them before contact.
All of the Roman light cavalry and skirmishers had been routed. The rout of the Gothic foot broke the army's morale and ended the game. The Huns had two light horse archer units rout. It is very possible has we been counting the thrown Gothic weapons from the start that the Hun general might have been very roughly handled.
The game took a little over three hours. We spent a lot of time looking through the PDF rules. It has been a long time since we played the first edition of Basic Impetus and there are a lot of changes in the second edition. I also took a lot of photos. The game took a while because the Huns inflicted the death of a thousand cuts. Two melee armies would finish the game a lot faster.
The game plays much like I recall the first edition. It is dicey – if you roll 1 on cohesion, nothing can harm you. If you roll high on cohesion tests, your units will melt like snow in the morning sun. There is the odd clumsy translation but nothing is really mysterious. I do wonder if a unit struck in flank can turn to face their enemy if they manage a tie.
We are looking at what set of rules we'll use for our extensive collection of DBA armies. Either DBA 3.0, Triumph or Basic Impetus will make the cut. But first we've got to have everyone play at least one of each so we can decide.
Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Bona Saturnalia (according to your preference).
