Impetus - Berbers WIP vs WotRs Lancastrians

Hadn't had a game of Impetus for ages and as I had promised Marco a game a while ago we had arranged to have a game this week.

I pulled out my trusty (but up to date, unsuccessful Impetus-wise) Berbers, using the new army lists for the army from Extra Impetus 5 for the first time. Marco fielded his War of the Roses Lancastrian's, which he has started working on (having retired his Romans recently).

I was a bit apprehensive at the beginning of the game, mainly due to Marco fielding a reasonable number of Longbow A troops due with a bit of successful terrain placement I hoped to delay the inevitable by having some screening hills to prevent early shooting casualties to my likely advancing Berber Spear.

Early advances, with luck on the Berber Left flank
going their way

The game opened up with a general advance by the Berbers and Marco's light cavalry coming out to play on the Berber left flank but the Berbers avoided his charge with ease and retaliated and with meaty dice throwing quickly destroyed them.

Marco next managed to inflict a smattering of casualties on a couple of units but the Berber throws were successful in preventing losses and only received some disorder markers. The one success here was from the Light artillery shooting at my Black Guard which was home to my general and a six on their cohesion test and subsequent casualty roll meant death for my general, but a trusty 'Dice of Destiny' remembered (as I invariably forget about them) saved his bacon.

The next round or so saw my Light Cavalry, Mercenary Knights and Skirmish Javelinmen advancing on the right flank and with a successful tag-team result charged home and took out his Heavy Cavalry unit on his left flank and then quickly followed by destroying a unit of billmen on the pursuit.

At this point I would like to point out that my dice throwing for the game were particularly un-characteristic and were generally pretty good for the whole game. Marco on the other hand had some of the most appalling dice I've seen in a very long time.

To prove the point Marco managed to get a charge in into one of my annoying light Cavalry on his right flank, and into the flank of the unit and despite throwing a whopping twelve dice failed to score even a single hit and in fact my Light cavalry actually won two rounds of combat against his Knights before finally succumbing.

Stewart does the lucky dice dance to try and improve
Marco's chances

Things then went from bad to terrible for Marco as my victorious Right wing proceeded to begin to roll up his army from the side with his Artillery and a unit of Archers being the first to bite the dust.

The Berbers advance and destroy the Lancastrian left flank
and begin to roll up the enemy

With the noose tightening around his army and the Berber Infantry now charging into his surrounded troops and even getting the worse of these encounters, and the light cavalry and skirmishers moving in from the flank and rear we agreed it was really all over.

The end near's - surrounded and diminishing numbers
say's it all!

A victory to the Berbers, their first using the Impetus rules and a pretty decisive one, though a distinct lack of any good dice luck on Marco's part certainly added to this, though Marco relying very much on his archers to do damaged proved to add to his downfall too, as many of his units really played no part in the battle, whereas the Berber units all saw action and the numbers certainly told in the end.

Marco explains what he thought of his dice throwing
 to Kev and Stewart

The new army lists for the Berbers has definitely improved the army, even though there's a couple of slightly unusual omissions from the lists, like no Hasham Guard Cavalry, but generally a big improvement over the Beta lists as you would guess.

I'm now looking forward to some more games with the Berbers soon (and getting some more of the units painted up as a reward for success) and trying them out using the War & Conquest rules.