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| French vs French Impetus Trial Game |
This week I had a trial game of Impetus for my Early Italian Wars French Army, Dave K kindly stumping up the opposition, which happened to be a Late Wars French Army. Interesting to see the differences in a 300pt a piece army list for one thing.
Still being a newbie to the Impetus Rules, and this being only the second game in recent history that I have played the rules, Dave K was happy to give me a 'friendly' game to help pick up the rules, aided by Dave B and Marco on the sidelines to point us in the right direction.
As is my usual want, and in the interests of picking up the rules I decided there was no point in hanging about and having won the initiative in the first round decided to go 'head down boot swinging' and with the usuial beginners luck with these things (aided by some pretty good dice throws) proceeded to demolish the whole left of Dave's French of Gendarme, Arquebusier and Pike Block, and succeeded in holding his right wing of Archers and Arquebusier, winning the initiative in the three turns we played.
As you might think at this point (as indeed did I at this juncture) that the game was in the bag and what a jolly good game it is. However, and there always seems to be a however in these things, my beginners luck was about to turn.
On Dave taking his third turn there wasn't much left for him to do bar a bit of shooting on his right flank and the big barny in the middle where the two big pike blocks were having a scrum. So, expecting this to be his last move before the collapsed left flank disappeared altogether and what was left of his army to be rolled up from the flank, went for the jugular.
His dice improved slightly, and my dice deserted me, and his pikes proceeded to win the melee and pushed my pike back three times and each time stayed in contact, and on the third failure I threw a six. Dave pounced on this like a fox in a chicken coop and proudly presented me with the rule of....8.2.2
Yup, my General was with this unit and of course the roll for avoiding his death was...not what I was looking for. Death of General and and Command Routed. End of game.
All a bit sudden, and unexpected, but at least now I know the risk of generals being in combat. Thinking back on it, the incident was very Italian Wars with defeat being grabbed from the jaws of victory by the inopportune death of some French General getting in the way of a pike. Great stuff.
Good, blood and guts game and thoroughly enjoyed by all. Hopefully more soon. Just need to get some progress on the painting front. More of that anon.
Unlucky Hendrid at least you could almost taste the victory!1
ReplyDeleteGood stuff! Nothing like a fun game to get the painting motivation going. :-)
ReplyDeleteWould you happen to know how the heads on plastic Perry minis you're working on compare scale-wise to GW's LOTR range? Or even have a good guess?
Thanks!
Jason
A good enjoyable game, even the bystanders said so, but the dice said it all.
ReplyDeleteDF - I would say the Perry heads are a bit bigger/heavier looking than the sculpting on the GW LOTR range. The LOTR sculpting tends to be a lighter feel to it compared to most of the other Perry sculpting. Some might be OK though, or acceptable it depends on the models in question. Did you have something in mind?
I really like Impetus. I'm considering purchasing some slotta bases from warbase so that I don't have to rebase any figures. They're very good - Impetus style bases with cut-outs big enough to slot a 20mm base (or cavalry base) into.
ReplyDeleteThe fox had been pretty much roughed up before he made the coop, but then was able to make a few feathers fly!
ReplyDeleteWe'll have to get a few more game in next year
Imagine getting roughed up by some chickens Dave. :-) Definitely up for some more games next year. This weeks game was good and useful instruction on the game mechanics, definitely makes more sense once you get a couple of games, but the more the merrier
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah the scale in the LOTR range varies a bit especially with the newer metals and old plastics. I won't bore you with the details, but I have conversion ideas/project that would require head swaps. The Men of Dale is one, and Black Numenoreans is the other that would actually use the Perry heads on some older WH Grave Guard models. I'll just have to buy a box someday and find out myself. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks again,
Jason