Gallic War Campaign Battle Seven – Battle of Calubriga

[Whirlwind]

Please see here for the latest battle in my refight of the Gallic War: Ariovistus and his Germans attempt to defeat a tribe of Roman-supporting Gauls on the Gaulish side of the Rhine…

[Guy Farrish]

Poor old Treveri, keep switching sides and get thrashed whatever they do!

Ariovistus is on a roll now.

Leaders seem to have a pretty short life though.

Are you still hankering for Neil Thomas’ rules half way through battles?

[Whirlwind]

Guy Farrish wrote:

Poor old Treveri, keep switching sides and get thrashed whatever they do! Ariovistus is on a roll now. Leaders seem to have a pretty short life though.

Yes, they do seem to have suffered a lot of disasters! It is basically a function of the Caesar’s Gallic War boardgame (as the campaign engine); controlling the territory at the end of a year forces the alignment of the local tribe to the occupier.  As Belgium and Northeast France have forever been the highway of armies, the same factors make it a key target for both Caesar and Ariovistus.

As you have noted, Ariovistus has been on a bit of a roll recently – he has really changed the situation, I had been almost ready to concede on his behalf.  The Romans were quite ‘busy’ early on, but that has led to a more constrained supply situation and consequent reduction of activity, allowing Ariovistus to largely avoid large concentrations of Romans and focus on their Gallic allies.

Leaders do have quite a short life in these rules – if they lose a combat, they have a 50% chance of becoming casualties…for campaign purposes, there is a chance that they will only be wounded and will return after the battle, but even so, there have been a lot of dead Gaulish chieftains in the last few years!

Guy Farrish wrote:

Are you still hankering for Neil Thomas’ rules half way through battles?

Bluntly, yes.  Polemos SPQR appears to me as a better tactical combat model (which is why I stick with it) but Neil Thomas’ rules are just so intuitive that I spend almost no time ‘administering’ and the whole time ‘playing’ and that makes for a fun game.  But SPQR gets that command and control right in a way that feels very convincing, in which ancient armies are powerful but lumbering beasts, which can just about be controlled going into battle but progressively degenerate.  The Roman beast is typically a little more controllable than its opponents.  And there is very little of that in Neil Thomas (or DBA for that matter).

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