Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Caesar vs Britannia Turn 1

This is the first turn of the scenario with the rules in their current form.

Caesar and his forces (2 legions, 2 Auxilia, and 4 Skirmish infantry units) are aboard ship and disembark to amphibiously invade the southern coast. He decides to invade away from any village, as this could immediately mobilize and allow them to contest the invasion. He wins the invasion easily (being opposed only by some nominal defense units) and lands.

Casselivaneus is randomly determined to be in the center at village 4 after the invasion. He is too weak by himself to attack, but from his position he defends a large portion of the island from Caesar's landed force.
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Now, the weather takes a turn for the worst (Storm), damaging Caesar's fleet (he loses 1 ship counter) and forcing them back and into port. Isolated and alone, Caesar decides to advance to village 1 instead of taking on the force of Britons immediately to the North.

For the Britons, village 6 mobilizes (force B). Cassilivaneous rolls a bad AP roll (you need Action points to do things) and comes up with a "1". He wanted to consolidate Force A & B, but decides to make the best of it and move to a more central position to contest Caesar's advance when he moves East. Delay is the name of the game and the storm weather favors the Briton cause.

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The weather finally changes to clear for the next impulse and he brings his loaded, but depleted fleets out of port. He decides to forgo bringing cavalry over from Gaul and instead chooses a force he can use to invade (with a leader) or reinforce Caesar as neccesary.

With the clearing of the weather, Caesar burns Village 1 and decides to move East. Cassilivaneous reacts and a battle is fought.

The Romans win the ensuing battle with the damage to a Light unit and the loss of a Skirmish unit. The Britons lose 1 Warband and 2 Skirmish units.

Despite losing the battle, Cassilivaneous delays Caesar's advance and chooses to take up a better defensive position. The Britons should only get stronger in the coming turns as more villages mobilize.
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The Britons manage to merge the Northern force B with his main force A for his impulse. He checks for the end of the the turn for the month and it ends.
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As things stand for the month of the Qunitillis (as July hadn't been renamed yet for Caesar as of yet :D), Caesar is ashore and has burnt 1 village. He has weathered (pun intended) bad weather, fought a minor battle and put himself in a position to advance further into the island. His forces at sea can either invade elsewhere or be merged with Caesar to destroy Cassilivaneous' army.

Cassilivaneous has managed (with a little help from the weather Gods) to minimize the damage done, and amass a decent force to contest the next Roman advance.

Monday, May 14, 2012

Caesar vs Britannia (Rount Two)

I've created a small scenario based on Caesar's 2nd invasion of Britain in 54 BC to test and tweak my boardgame rules . The board area is a modified part of my bigger DSR IR map:

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Here are the forces and misc marker counters: (note all but the last row show are double-sided):
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The Romans start in the port in A2211. The Britons start on the 8 mobilization points randomly with "?". Each turn they roll to see what (if anything) mobilizes.

Victory for the Romans depends on pillaging the mobilization points, along with (maybe) killing Cassivelaunus. Victory for the Britons involves destroying legions and preventing pillaging of tribal points. Of course they gain an automatic victory for killing Caesar himself.

I can fight the battles generated using a battle-board system (I'll have to make a blog post about it sometime to explain it a bit) or using my miniatures rules as desired.

The boardgame rules allow for sea movement and invasions, as well as weather. It is a an I-go-You-go system, but with possible reaction moves by the non-moving side and the turns variable,  you can never nail down when a turn will end with certainty.

The situation is interesting, as the Romans have a somewhat limited fleet but can land almost anywhere, while the Britons are scattered at first. Does Caesar land a small force and push inland in an attempt to overwhelm some of the scattered tribes (scattering his forces in the process) or does he make a more careful buildup, allowing the Britons to coalesce ?

With the season possibly changing in September to winter (ending the scenario) and the possibility of nasty weather (which can damage his fleet) during the other months, Caesar has to quickly and decisively make his mind up and execute his plan.

As a side note, in testing my version 1.0 of the rules, I used a ad-hoc Gaulish uprising scenario.

Caesar craftily side-stepped a river between a large Gallic force and managed to engage it on more favorable terrain. The hard fought battle caused lots of casualties to the Gauls but Caesar's Army still took some casualties, which caused its Army to fail its morale check and forcing withdrawal. In the pursuit after the battle, he lost his baggage train, causing further losses due to attrition before he could get back to friendly territory.


After the battle I noted that the hex the battle occurred was Gergovia ! I kind of took that as a sign that I'm doing something right with the game :)

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

DSR Imperium Romanum Map

I think I've finally gotten a more finalized version of my Imperium Romanum map I'm happy with (for the moment :D) :
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Its been reduced to 30% size so I can upload this up to my blog.

I've changed a number of the provinces (e.g. broken some of them up), added/removed a few cities and changed sea movement to sea-boxes (this greatly simplifies sea stuff).

These changes were done so that I can run my campaign game the way I think it should. With the addition of my province cards (and additional province properties).

I've of course created my own rules and counters, some of which I hope to post on this blog.

In addition, I hope to put together a mini-quasi historical game covering Caesar's campaigns in Gaul using my new rules and counters as well as a partial play-by play

As always, stay tuned ! :)


Friday, May 4, 2012

Province Cards

I've created province cards for my modified Imperium Romanum campaign game (named DSR IR). These are snapshots of the game map, along with some of the important features of that province (if any).

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I'll use these for each of the major powers to help them keep track of the money and total population(important for mobilizing units) they control. In addition, I can use the deck for random events.

Its all still a work in progress though :D