I had originally planned to take Marian Romans to Challenge, but a successful test game using the Gauls against Ray Briggs' Marians under the Caesar geezer (didn't put that one in his book, did he?) persuaded me otherwise. I also cite that game as the reason that my lot's baggage consisted of "tents, goatskin, legionaries for the use of".

The army consisted of:
Command 1: Cv(O) C-in-C, 10Cv(O), 8Wb(O), 2Ps(I)
Command 2: Cv(O) Sub, 6Cv(O), 16Wb(O), 2Ps(I)
Command 3: Cv(O) Sub, 31Wb(O), 2Ps(I)
Command 4: Ax(S) Ally, 11 Ax(S)

The allies were Ligurians. Each command had 2 Bge(O), those of the Gauls themselves being grouped as army baggage.

Game 1

The first battle was against Mike Pickering's Marians, led by the brilliant Lucullus. In the event, Lucullus didn't make a brilliant stroke during the fight (incidentally, in view of other recent correspondence, how did people use their brilliant strokes, if at all?) but masterfully chose to invade along a navigable river. When laid, this ran from my right flank, sloping across the centre line until it took a sharp turn to end up on the Roman side of the table a third of the way in from their right flank. There was a marsh on my right flank on my bank of the river, a large and a little wood on my left flank and a further small wood away on the Roman edge on the right. I was expecting the Roman army to be on the bijou side, given that half the points would be in the C-in-C and compulsory blades. I thought that they would deploy on the far side of the river to slow the Wb and provide a defence line, and put my troops down with command 1 on the left, 3 in the centre with 2 behind and the Ligurians in the marsh on the right.

The Romans, so bijou that at first I thought there must be a flank march, all deployed on my left between the table edge and the river. seeing an elephant was a tad unexpected too. That put my commands in totally the wrong order. The Ligurians did roll a 6 first bound but I forgot to move them then. Their subsequent dice meant that I wasn't able to get them into contact before the end, although if they'd started straight away they might have been threatening a flanking attack. There was a risk of rain that might have affected the Roman artillery, but some abysmal PIP-rolling on my part dispelled all chance of that. The opposing Ax(S) advanced to screen the blades and the elephant lumbered forward to block command 1. I moved command 2 (painfully slowly) over to support the C-in-C  whilst letting command 3 loose as they approached the river, the idea being that they would speed along the bank until contact became likely and that I would be able to feed them into oncoming Romans from the side.

The two armies set to. Command lost its Ps(I) to their better counterparts on the left, but managed to kill a couple of Ax. The torrent that was command 3 was checked momentarily by a bolt shooter but started killing Bd(S) and disheartened the fist enemy command that they came into contact. Part of them screamed down the riverbank towards a bolt shooter, scaring off a general on the way, but the artillerymen but up an epic resistance and prevented their command from breaking despite a number of assaults. Elsewhere, command 2 killed the grey monster bearing down on them and the lines dissolved into face-offs between Bd and Wb with Cv generals unwisely assisting. At 3 hours and 25 minutes into the game, it looked as if a grinding stalemate was looming.

Then both sub-generals got themselves hard flanked. The first lost his combat by 1. In the second, anything but a 1 would have saved him. Guess what he rolled...

Mike suffered only the penalty point for a disheartened command, his army having 10% more hit points than mine and me missing killing a tenth by one element. So, a 1-24 start.

Game 2

The next tourists to Cisalpine Gaul were Adrian Coombs-Hoar's Goths. Despite what the brochures might tell you, we do get wet weather in spring and although the the risk of further rain dissipated in the face of my poor PIP-rolling skills, the mud from previous wet weather persisted and Adrian's Kn were at a combat disadvantage throughout.

There was a marsh on my baseline close to the right flank, a gentle hill a little further in and a large wood on my left flank. Two small woods were back towards the far side, left and centre as I looked at them. There was a scrubby hill just right of centre near the centre line, and another gentle hill in the far right corner. Command 3 filled the centre of my line, with command 1 on the right, 4 in front of the wood to the left flank and 2 between it and command 3. A mass of Goth Wb fronted by Ps faced command 3, with a Wb(S) general and his bodyguard leading its left. On the Goth right flank was a line of Kn with LH on their outside.

As the Cv from command 1 advanced, a further body of Goth Kn was revealed behind the far gentle hill. The Goth centre steamed forward whilst, as in a nightmare, their Kn thundered forward with thoughts of quick kills filling their beer-clouded brains.It wasn't long before the lines clashed. The hard men on the left of the Goth line did their bit, driving off Cv and killing a few Wb whilst the Ps at the front of the centre did their job of screening quite well. It was different story on the flanks, however.

All praise the god of mud! With the combat disadvantage, the Goth Kn didn't kill swathes of Gallic Cv. However, when the Gauls were pushing, they not only won, but drove some of the Kn down to the point of doubling, after which time even the Ps(I) could come in and provide hard flanking. Whilst the infantry struggled manfully in the centre, the Goth flanks dissolved and suddenly the invaders were rolling only one die until the last few Wb needed for an army break were killed. Inevitably, the Gauls had taken casualties exceeding 10%, but that was all they'd lost and so the result was 23-2, a distinct improvement.

Game 3

The first leg of the Gaul's tour of the Far East had them facing Jon Smith's Tamil Indians. It was a beautiful spring morning. Rather than get cracking right away, the Gauls decided to watch the tropical sunrise. As the light came up, they could see a pair of wooded hills, one centre right on their side and matched by another on the Tamil's rear. Beyond them on the right flank lay a built-up area, without visible walls. To the left was almost continuous forest, with a single dirt track cutting through the far one and coming their side of the other.  A small area of scrubby flat lay in the centre of the field.

Command 3 took front and centre again, with command 2 behind, its infantry on the wooded hill. Command 1 took the left, next to the wood, and command 4 formed up in two columns on the right. The bulk of the Tamil line consisted of four-deep Wb(F) with elephants (including generals) in every third file. Parts of the line were front by Ax or Bw, with some Ax and Ps on its right end. There was nothing facing the built-up area.

The Tamil C-in-C was fashionably late, arriving on-table in the first bound with a flourish and a 6. He brought his own elephant, and another and some Cv.

The two lines ground towards each other and crashed like two bull elephants, although the Tamil elephant has often the stronger, the generals in particular inspiring their flanking elements to greater efforts. Yet, the Gauls did not give up and cut holes in the opposing foot yet could do little against the grey Juggernauts. The Ligurians doubled through the BUA and hit the opposing Ax, slowly wearing them away. Even where the lines did start to break up, there was no decisive breakthrough anywhere. Command 3 eventually became disheartened just before time ran out. Each side had taken 10% casualties, so the disheartened command was the deciding factor, giving a score of 12-13.

Game 4

The following morning saw the Gauls on the banks of the Yangtze (even if it did look like a sea) facing the Ch'u under Keith Nathan. This was not an encounter I was looking forward to; potentially large numbers of Kn chariots, a reduced frontage because of the waterway and precious little in the way of cover.

The Yangtze flowed on my right flank. Due to a degree of generosity on Keith's part, we ended up with a small area of scrubby flat in the far left corner, a large gentle hill on the left flank in the middle of the field and another jutting out in the river on my baseline. There was a large scrubby hill on left towards the rear and another in the centre about two thirds of the way towards the middle of the field from my rear. Command 3 took up position behind the scrubby hill, but too big to be concealed. Command 2 was to its right and command 1 to its left, with command 4 on the scrubby hill to the left.

The left of the Chinese line was Wb(F) backed by Bd(F), flanked towards the centre by Kn fronted by Bw. 4 boats floated lazily on river. The centre consisted of Kn flanked by Bw fronting Bd. Next to them were even more Kn, with a flank guard of Bd and Ps stretching up onto the hill on that side. There was a collective holding of breath from the Gallic line as the rising sun glittered off the naked steel down the valley. The holding of breath by the Ligurians, for the first and only time over the weekend, was protracted. No way were they coming off their hill to face that lot, thank you! Keith's ally, in the centre, had no such qualms. However, a desire not to activate my ally made Keith's right-hand command wary of coming forward. As he was averaging PIP dice with his sub-general on the other flank, this hampered some of his maneouvring in the early stages.

Command 3 advanced to occupy the hill in the centre whilst command 2 pressed forward, hoping to take out sufficient opposing foot before the Kn came into play. Command 1 put Cv forward as having a better chance against Kn than the Wb. Command 2 hit the enemy line and started to make inroads. However, the boats had disgorged further Wb(F) and the Kn from the Chinese centre pulled across to that flank also, putting a lot of pressure on that command. Command 3 came down from the hill and command 2 advanced on the infantry isolated by the Kn pulling away. The Chinese right flank also began to pull over to the centre.

The slaughter continued, eventually swinging far enough in the Gauls' favour for the Ligurians to decide to dance with the person they came with, except that they rolled a 1 for their PIP on the next two turns. Despite inflicting significant casualties, command 2 first broke and then shattered. At the same time, the general of command 3 was hard-flanked and killed whilst the Chinese C-in-C advanced to act as an overlap on the other flank, hoping to take out command 1. That failed, and in the next bound the Ligurians rolled a 5 and took their only action in the battle, which was to hard flank the enemy C-in-C whilst the Gallic C-in-C charged in. The enemy C-in-C perished, breaking his command at the same time that the allied command (I think) finally succumbed to its wounds. A Gallic victory then, but due to heavy losses and the extra general, only an 18-7.

Game 5

Back home once more, the Gauls were invaded by Pete Haines' barbarian conspiracy theory (Picts plus Irish allies). The table groaned under the weight the lead in the two armies. Again, the spring weather was not good. Activities started an hour after dawn, with risk of rain and mud being a factor for the first 6 bounds, with a risk of rain. Again, my PIP dice dispelled the rain clouds before anything happened.

It was a field of two halves. On my side were three scrubby hills; a large one in the centre with one on each flank. On the Pictish side there were two small woods and an area of boggy flat. Command 4 occupied the hill on my left. Command 3 and the foot from command 2 occupied the hill in the centre, with command 2's Cv in the gap between hills and its Ps lonely on the right-hand hill. Command 1 was between the hills on the left side.

The Pictish centre comprised LH fronting Cv, some of whom were chariots. To its right was a block of Pk(F) and then Ax(S) with Ps behind. To its left was another block of Pk(F) with Ps and on the left of that the Irish Ax. The Irish must have been on the Liffey water or something, as they rolled either 5 or 6 on their first five bounds and came  hurtling forward, outflanking the Ps on the hill and managing to come round and start sacking the baggage, which was between the hills on my right. After one move forward, the Pictish mounted in the centre started to move backwards, waiting for the mud to dry out and stop hindering  the chariots. On the Pictish right their light troops began to expand out to the flank, something that the Ligurians matched. The pike blocks moved forward, taking full advantage of their free first move. Where it hadn't been deployed as such in the first place, Ps moved in front of Pk that were facing Wb.

The contact that mattered occurred on the Gallic right where as mentioned the Irish broke through to the camp. In the meantime, some of them and the adjoining pike contacted command 2's Cv. There was some pushing and shoving, but the Cv line broke up and suddenly there were hard flank opportunities everywhere. On the other hand, where command 2 or 3 Wb contacted foot, it was almost inevitably Ps, brought well forward which although soundly beaten, were only spent rather than destroyed. Command 2 duly broke when its general was hard-flanked and died for the second time on "anything but a 1". An impetuous Irish Ps had taken out a baggage element in the same turn and the additional 2ME for an adjacent break took the army baggage as well. At this stage the Irish must have found the wine in the baggage, as they managed only a 2 and a 1 for their next PIP rolls and didn't play any further part. On the far other flank there was the beginning of contact as Ligurians met Atecotti and Gallic cavalry started to nibble at the foot there. The main bulk of Wb however couldn't get to grips with anything they could kill rather than drive off (including LH which started to return to the fray). At the end of time, the Gauls had suffered 30% losses (from command 2 and the baggage only) whilst failing to kill enough enemy to inflict any penalty points, with a 10-15 outcome.


It was a great weekend, with five opponents it was a pleasure to meet. Despite my bland narrative style, none of the games were boring or unimaginative in the slightest and after game 4 in particular I needed a good sit down and something to calm my nerves. I must learn to protect my generals.

Thanks to all the contestants, who made it a very well-mannered yet exciting weekend and a standing ovation to Paul Brandon, Dave Mather and Cameron, who did his dad proud. Special thanks also to Chris both for the practice game and for staging the Biggles game which gets better every time I play it.