Thoughts from an Australian Gamer
Learning SPQR - a Wargame of Republican Rome
I'm currently still in an "expanding" phase as regards to my collection. There are too many interesting games I don't have, and that I haven't played yet. The games I play tend to cover a range of types and themes, but one thing I'm always on the lookout for are more games I can play solo.
Wargames have recently become more interesting to me, and so I'm investigating a few of those whilst I wait for my copy of Agricola to be shipped to me. Or printed in the first place. You know you it goes. GMT Games have recently reprinted SPQR, one of the "Great Battles in History" series of wargames. Randy has Alexander, the first of that series, so I thought I might pick up SPQR and see what I made of it. It arrived in the post yesterday evening, and soon it was out of the wrapper and on my gaming table.
One of the delights of having ASL as almost my first wargame is that almost every other set of rules seems simple in comparison. SPQR has a 32 page rulebook, and then a scenario book, and, because I bought the Deluxe version, another scenario book. The rules have a lot of things I find unfamiliar in them, not least because I'm very unfamiliar with this era of warfare. However, there are many historical notes from the designers that I'm delighting in, as they give context to many of the rules.
For instance, the reason that the maps are so bare of terrain (which is such a difference with ASL) is because the early phalanxes and other units had great trouble staying in formation in more difficult ground, so the battles would take place in areas where both sides could manuever. Looking at these historical notes makes me want to get Alexander as well, just to see how warfare was back then in an even "simpler" time.
There are five scenarios in the original SPQR, and also a suggested "learning" scenario, which uses only a few forces. That's the one I chose. Unfortunately, it doesn't give any details on how the forces should be deployed. "In the middle of the map, with at least 5 hexes between them" is basically what it says. So, Hannibal and his elephants, some cavalry and infantry all ended up in a long line facing Flavenius and his infantry and cavalry. The elephants were in the middle of the line, the cavalry (of both sides) was on the end.
Glancing at the other scenarios, that seemed not quite how to do it, but it'd do for this introduction to the game.
Learning the game rules by playing, even after an initial readthrough, was an exercise in page-flipping. This is pretty standard for all wargames though, so I wasn't daunted. In fact, even though playing through a single turn of the game took about 2-3 hours, it wasn't really that difficult to pick up on how the game worked.
Basically, you activate each leader in turn, from lowest initiative to highest (changing sides as required). Each leader can activate either a "line" or two of similar troops, or 3-7 individual units. For various reasons, I was using the unit activation more than the line activation, not least because I didn't really have that many units and I was beginning with a cavalry charge.
Leaders are also able to activate several times in a row (momentum) or seize the initiative from the opponent (trumping), and I'd investigate that more as the turn went on. As it happened, Hannibal was the superior leader and was able to nominate one of his subordinates to activate first, even though normally the Romans would have had the first activations. So, it was a cavalry charge with two Light Cavalry units towards the left flank of the Roman army.
Actually discovering how you declared melee combat took more time than most other tasks in the game. There's basically two methods: first, if you move into base contact with a counter, you place a "Shock - Must Check TQ" marker on it, which indicates that combat must occur. Then, after you finished all the activations of that leader, any of your units in his command radius can also be involved in Shock combat.
Charging means you get an extra roll to see if the involved units lose Cohesion. Once a unit takes "Cohesion Hits" equal or greater to its Troop Quality (TQ), then it routs.
The actual business of Shock Combat requires the checking of three tables, all of which took me little time once I started to get the hang of it. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if I memorised a few of the more common results... However, for some reason that eludes me, the three tables were printed on opposite sides of a sheet of tables... I would have thought that if they'd all been on the same side (as there indeed was room for) it would have made more sense? No matter.
Wham! The cavalry hit the opposing Roman cavalry and a legion, and both sides took a lot of Cohesion Hits. The legion decided to call it a day, and I discovered that there was this lovely rule that cavalry occasionally must pursue routing units... even off the far side of the map at times (and can only be recovered by the overall leader sacrificing his entire turn). It didn't happen in this instance, with Hannibal's cavalry breaking off and staying in a position that was just a little vulnerable...
As I continued to work through the first turn, I discovered how ineffective slingers were, and likewise for javelins, although the latter did have some small effect. The Roman cavalry charged the Carthaginian flank, and caused them to rout as well. This time, the cavalry unit continued to pursue, reaching the routed Carthaginian cavalry and then utterly destroying it.
Once the two-hex phalanxes of Hannibal's reached the fray, I began to see their power, unwieldy though it was. They hit the edge of the Roman line of units and began to systematically destroy and rout them. Especially with Hannibal fighting with the phalanx... the +3 to the combat roll was quite devastating when added to the 3:1 numerical superiority of the phalanx over the lone legion.
The battle soon turned into a mass of small clumps of battling troops: the cohesiveness of the initial lines had been lost entirely. Hannibal's elephants did some damage to the Romans, but then were routed. But wait! Elephants don't rout... they rampage! The first elephant unit gored the unit next to it (causing it to rampage) and then both units ran around the map for a while, causing damage to the units nearby, until finally they both fell over, dead. Hannibal breathed a sigh of relief... there had been a chance that the elephants would have attacked his unit and killed him!
The turn ended with two units eliminated on each side (not counting the elephants) and with many more units both running away. I moved them towards the edges of the map, and prepared for the second turn.
Hannibal chose to begin the turn himself and rallied a bunch of his troops and then continued the Phalanxes Of Doom on their path through the now hurt Roman forces. The Romans activated their leader on their right flank and continued a cavalry attack on the Carthaginian skirmishers on that side, who demonstrated their ability to withdraw from battle. More and more rules were coming into play, but the whole was making some sort of sense, however poor my tactics were.
Then the cavalry leader tried for Momentum and achieved it... he was able to activate again and chase those skirmishers further. However, Hannibal "Trumped" him and took his second and third activation (Momentum for the third). More doom and gloom for the Romans, but they'd get a lot of activations after Hannibal finally finished his turn, and they still had a lot of activations left.
Unfortunately, at that point I dropped a book on the table, dislodging way too many of the counters for an easy reset. Hannibal and Flavenius both fled the earthquaking battlefield. This wasn't actually as bad as it sounded: I was out of time and had to leave for work (having started the game last night and begun again the next morning). I'd achieved my first goal: I now had a much better handle on the rules than when I began.
I expect that tonight I'll have another go at the learning game, and see if I can play it faster with fewer errors. After that, it'll be on to The Battle of the Bagradas Plains, which is suggested as a good scenario for those players not entirely familiar with the system.
It's looking like I might rather enjoy this game, which is always a bonus.
Wargames have recently become more interesting to me, and so I'm investigating a few of those whilst I wait for my copy of Agricola to be shipped to me. Or printed in the first place. You know you it goes. GMT Games have recently reprinted SPQR, one of the "Great Battles in History" series of wargames. Randy has Alexander, the first of that series, so I thought I might pick up SPQR and see what I made of it. It arrived in the post yesterday evening, and soon it was out of the wrapper and on my gaming table.
One of the delights of having ASL as almost my first wargame is that almost every other set of rules seems simple in comparison. SPQR has a 32 page rulebook, and then a scenario book, and, because I bought the Deluxe version, another scenario book. The rules have a lot of things I find unfamiliar in them, not least because I'm very unfamiliar with this era of warfare. However, there are many historical notes from the designers that I'm delighting in, as they give context to many of the rules.
For instance, the reason that the maps are so bare of terrain (which is such a difference with ASL) is because the early phalanxes and other units had great trouble staying in formation in more difficult ground, so the battles would take place in areas where both sides could manuever. Looking at these historical notes makes me want to get Alexander as well, just to see how warfare was back then in an even "simpler" time.
There are five scenarios in the original SPQR, and also a suggested "learning" scenario, which uses only a few forces. That's the one I chose. Unfortunately, it doesn't give any details on how the forces should be deployed. "In the middle of the map, with at least 5 hexes between them" is basically what it says. So, Hannibal and his elephants, some cavalry and infantry all ended up in a long line facing Flavenius and his infantry and cavalry. The elephants were in the middle of the line, the cavalry (of both sides) was on the end.
Glancing at the other scenarios, that seemed not quite how to do it, but it'd do for this introduction to the game.
Learning the game rules by playing, even after an initial readthrough, was an exercise in page-flipping. This is pretty standard for all wargames though, so I wasn't daunted. In fact, even though playing through a single turn of the game took about 2-3 hours, it wasn't really that difficult to pick up on how the game worked.
Basically, you activate each leader in turn, from lowest initiative to highest (changing sides as required). Each leader can activate either a "line" or two of similar troops, or 3-7 individual units. For various reasons, I was using the unit activation more than the line activation, not least because I didn't really have that many units and I was beginning with a cavalry charge.
Leaders are also able to activate several times in a row (momentum) or seize the initiative from the opponent (trumping), and I'd investigate that more as the turn went on. As it happened, Hannibal was the superior leader and was able to nominate one of his subordinates to activate first, even though normally the Romans would have had the first activations. So, it was a cavalry charge with two Light Cavalry units towards the left flank of the Roman army.
Actually discovering how you declared melee combat took more time than most other tasks in the game. There's basically two methods: first, if you move into base contact with a counter, you place a "Shock - Must Check TQ" marker on it, which indicates that combat must occur. Then, after you finished all the activations of that leader, any of your units in his command radius can also be involved in Shock combat.
Charging means you get an extra roll to see if the involved units lose Cohesion. Once a unit takes "Cohesion Hits" equal or greater to its Troop Quality (TQ), then it routs.
The actual business of Shock Combat requires the checking of three tables, all of which took me little time once I started to get the hang of it. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if I memorised a few of the more common results... However, for some reason that eludes me, the three tables were printed on opposite sides of a sheet of tables... I would have thought that if they'd all been on the same side (as there indeed was room for) it would have made more sense? No matter.
Wham! The cavalry hit the opposing Roman cavalry and a legion, and both sides took a lot of Cohesion Hits. The legion decided to call it a day, and I discovered that there was this lovely rule that cavalry occasionally must pursue routing units... even off the far side of the map at times (and can only be recovered by the overall leader sacrificing his entire turn). It didn't happen in this instance, with Hannibal's cavalry breaking off and staying in a position that was just a little vulnerable...
As I continued to work through the first turn, I discovered how ineffective slingers were, and likewise for javelins, although the latter did have some small effect. The Roman cavalry charged the Carthaginian flank, and caused them to rout as well. This time, the cavalry unit continued to pursue, reaching the routed Carthaginian cavalry and then utterly destroying it.
Once the two-hex phalanxes of Hannibal's reached the fray, I began to see their power, unwieldy though it was. They hit the edge of the Roman line of units and began to systematically destroy and rout them. Especially with Hannibal fighting with the phalanx... the +3 to the combat roll was quite devastating when added to the 3:1 numerical superiority of the phalanx over the lone legion.
The battle soon turned into a mass of small clumps of battling troops: the cohesiveness of the initial lines had been lost entirely. Hannibal's elephants did some damage to the Romans, but then were routed. But wait! Elephants don't rout... they rampage! The first elephant unit gored the unit next to it (causing it to rampage) and then both units ran around the map for a while, causing damage to the units nearby, until finally they both fell over, dead. Hannibal breathed a sigh of relief... there had been a chance that the elephants would have attacked his unit and killed him!
The turn ended with two units eliminated on each side (not counting the elephants) and with many more units both running away. I moved them towards the edges of the map, and prepared for the second turn.
Hannibal chose to begin the turn himself and rallied a bunch of his troops and then continued the Phalanxes Of Doom on their path through the now hurt Roman forces. The Romans activated their leader on their right flank and continued a cavalry attack on the Carthaginian skirmishers on that side, who demonstrated their ability to withdraw from battle. More and more rules were coming into play, but the whole was making some sort of sense, however poor my tactics were.
Then the cavalry leader tried for Momentum and achieved it... he was able to activate again and chase those skirmishers further. However, Hannibal "Trumped" him and took his second and third activation (Momentum for the third). More doom and gloom for the Romans, but they'd get a lot of activations after Hannibal finally finished his turn, and they still had a lot of activations left.
Unfortunately, at that point I dropped a book on the table, dislodging way too many of the counters for an easy reset. Hannibal and Flavenius both fled the earthquaking battlefield. This wasn't actually as bad as it sounded: I was out of time and had to leave for work (having started the game last night and begun again the next morning). I'd achieved my first goal: I now had a much better handle on the rules than when I began.
I expect that tonight I'll have another go at the learning game, and see if I can play it faster with fewer errors. After that, it'll be on to The Battle of the Bagradas Plains, which is suggested as a good scenario for those players not entirely familiar with the system.
It's looking like I might rather enjoy this game, which is always a bonus.
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