6mm Impetus - First Testgame

I had my first Impetus testgame last Saturday and I really like it. Players that consider any other scale than 28mm obsolote, should just stop reading here.

In combination with our 6mm armies (1x Polybian Romans, 1x Marian Romans, 1x Carthago and 1x Syracus Greek army) you really got the feeling, that you are in control of a massive army.

In 6mm you actually have a lot of men under your command. My Marian Roman army consists of 254 men and is not even finished (6x bases of legionaires, 2 medium cavalry, 2 skirmisher bases). I will add two more legionaire bases, because I want to order those great new Marian legionaires from Baccus. Superb sculpts and a nice price.

With our four armies we formed two long battle lines and the Greek and Carthago player deployed their light forces on their flanks. Although the Romans had the advantage of their strong heavy infantry, those pesky skirmishes and light cavalry men really ruined our day. Additionally this day Fortuna was quite a bitch, both Roman Generals seemed to have swapped their battle-hardended legionaires for new recruits (8 Dice and no 6 or two 5s and this several times).

So every time our glorious cohorts smashed into the enemy, their pilums missed, their sword were blunt and they died away one after the ofther.

Lesson of this day, I need a second 6mm army and finish my Romans. Plus I want a rematch, this time we should spend more time thinking about the initial deployment of our forces and hope that the dice goddess presents us a smile. Great rules and I'm glad I let myself get drawn into 6mm Ancients.

First some close ups on my Marian Romans:

Some beautifully painted Greek hoplite phalanx:

Carthago's heavy infantry advances:

 Battlefield overview in the early stage of the battle. On the left bottom you find my Romans, right bottom the other Roman army, left top is the Carthago line and right top the greeks. We should have put up a long line instead of placing our troops rather loosely:

Those damn three Numidian light cavalry bases (bottom) managed to get behind me to harass my troops and slowly withered them down:

The fronts collide, but our dice rolls made sure that our troops bounced off the enemy line:

On my flank, I finally brought my legionaires to the front, but the time they arrived, they were disorganized and not in th best shape (bad discipline rolls and effective enemy fire).

At least we managed to break the strong phalanx line, but we had to call it a day, because the store was closing:

These pics really don't do the models justice. Nevertheless the overview pictures demonstrate the feeling, mentioned above, that 6mm delivers (15mm could do it, 28mm does not): You are the general of a vast army and with a word order hundreds of troops towards the enemy.