To the Strongest: Roman Civil War

Yes. We're lazy.
The Romans fought each other mostly because we have a lot of them and no opponents. We also haven't played To the Stromgest in awhile and I was once agian reminded how much I love it. Enough to run out and tackle a pile of 15mm opponents for the Romans?
No. Enough I'll finish rounding out my Italian Wars stuff?
Yes.

Spoiler for this game, the Romans won.
Great 15mm minis painted by Jon.

Wee lads for ECW

Just finished these guys for Simon Miller's English Civil War variant of To the Strongest. These represent 1:2 pike and shot base. They're 10mm Old Glory on one of bases. I put small magnets behind the soldiers to hold a name plate (more on that in a later post).

To the Strongest: Roman Revenge

Morgah-Khan and his Orcish horde emerged through the strange mist into an even stranger world. It was too bright and too hot. But the land was ripe for pillage. For 2 weeks they lay waste to the land, until on the 15th day, they came upon another human army. It seemed much like the first they had crushed, so Morgah-Khan had no cares.

This was an 8 person rematch of last week's mauling of the Romans. The Romans got 2 more units of Legionairie, but they didn't need it.
It was an interesting game. Each general seemed so concentrated on his command they didn't notice the battle around them. I for one looked at a one point to realize I was about to be flanked. And when the last victory medals were handed over by the Orcs, four of our commanders said " It's over?"

Everyone seems to be getting the use of their troops. I think some of the Orc cav might get upgraded to Medium, but other than that, I tight game.

To the Strongest ( or is it Strangest?)

The Legion became lost in the Alpine passes. A strange purple mist filled the air. When the mist finally abated, the Legion was in a strange new land. No sooner had they taken in their new surroundings, when they found themselves facing a great horde of green skinned barbarians....
John, over at Curio Clashes, has been steadily building an EI Roman army. With no "proper" foes, Lead Addict graciously supplied his Demonworld Orcs.

Temporary labels to help the players

We had around 200 points each side split under 4 commands. Making the fantasy stats was easy. Giants were treated as escorted elephants (hurling rocks and rampaging around when defeated), Trolls and minotaurs became Warriors with their thick hides providing 3 hits, and goblin wolf riders were an easy Light Cavalry call.

The Romans started with horrible Activations. Again, I used d10s instead of playing cards. The dies sit behind the troops and take up less space than cards in my 6" squares. Orc catapults caused the first casualties. Roman flanks were able to drive back, but not destroy the pesky wolf riders. When the center connected, the Legions pilums had little effect. The orcs clearly had their blood up. The Legion didn't stand a chance.

 Gotta find a better way to mark ammo. The markers were too intrusive for me.

It was a lopsided orcish victory, mostly due to our poor generalship and die rolls, not the rules. With cries of "tonight we feast on man flesh!", the orcs wandered towards an strange, purple mist....

To the Strongest! playtest.

I've always been a big fan of grid or hex based games for the simple fact that it speeds things up, no arguments of ranges or if you wheeled correctly, etc. Commands and Colors is a great game and my pal Chris over at CluckAmok, always brings a great version of it to our local con RECRUITs with miniatures and hex terrain. I've tried in vain over years to make a hex map for own 8'x6' table.

I've been following Simon Miller over at Big Red Bat Cave for years. When I saw he had written a set of grid based rules that combined a lot of the aspects of games I like I pick them up right away. I don't have an ancient army, but I do have a lot of medievals.
The rules are great for a multitude of reasons. Don't need a particular scale, basing or mounting system. The grid can be subtly added like I did with small stickers painted a shade lighter or darker. I settled on 6" grids which is slightly larger than two of my 60mm bases wide. It only took about 15 minutes to add them.

Cards are pulled to activate units (for the most part a 2+) and can keep activating to do things like move, charge, shoot and rally until they fail and then that command is done ala Warmaster/Blitzkrieg Commander/ all current Warlord Games. Generals are there to add rerolls.
My biggest change was to use d10s instead of pulling cards. To the Strongest uses a couple standard card decks with the face cards removed. Personally, I didn't like the look of the cards sitting behind units. It was easy just to put the die back there. They come off at the end of your turn.
The game itself took less than 10 minutes to explain and the guys were rolling without much looking at the rules. They doesn't mean the game is simplistic. It has quite a bit of subtle tactics.
The game itself was a blast. It came down to a difference of 1 Victory point. Just when it look like one flank was going to be rolled up by a flank charge, the general rolled "1" to activate. A failure.
I highly recommend the rules. I will be using them for some Fantasy battles soon.