A few years ago I went on a quest to find the best set of ancients rules. The first I tried was Clash of Spears, which I found at my local game shop. It’s a nice skirmish set with interesting rules for disorder and changing formations but it didn’t have the mass battle feeling I had gotten from playing Rome: Total War II. Around the same time I found DBA 3.0. It promised to be a simulation that could play out in around an hour. It had issues... Namely restrictive basing requirements, a rock-paper scissors resolution style and an archaic writing style that would make my English professor cry.
Anyhow, I've had Basic Impetus sitting around as a pdf in my laptop for over a year now. Only this week did I actually put in the time to learn how to play. The rules are confusing in some areas. Specifically for multiple combats, where there is so much room for interpretation that even the forums didn't solve my issues.A vast array of army lists are included with the book that allow you to run games with a relatively small number of models.They have a standard template with a few options like, "switch one light foot for one crossbow".Games close in about 2 hours from start and I suspect that could be brought to 1 1/2 hours if players are experienced.
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| Roman and Pyrrhic lines clash under the gaze of the God of war (in his cat form) |
Turn order is I-go you-go with a bit of a twist. In each round both players take one turn but priority is determined with a roll-off. This means that a player can take 2 turns consecutively. While players activate all of their units before the next player goes, engagement is kept due to a dynamic combat system. In Impetus both units roll dice simultaneously, with the charging unit getting an impetus bonus. The unit that takes more losses makes a retreat roll and can be pursued. Interestingly, if contact is made again, the whole combat restarts. This means that once combat begins, it's explosive and holes can form in lines very quickly. Both offence and defence is determined by a unit's VBU, which is kind of an all in one stat. In effect this means that once a unit takes damage, it becomes more vulnerable to further attacks and less able to deal out damage.
Troop types are fairly simple. Skirmishers can evade troops slower than them on a 3+. This means that they evade heavy infantry on a 4+, which I don't like. I made a house rule that gives S a speed of 3 for the purposes of evasion. So they evade other foot non a 3+ and war bands on a 4+. Another change I made was introducing a minimum shooting attack of one dice, which I think is present in the full game. In rules as written, skirmishers can't shoot at each other due to heavy dice penalties. This results in a line of skirmishers kinda awkwardly standing at the start of the game. Warbands are impact units that lose a lot of power once they take losses and auto charge in certain circumstances. All light infantry don't take disorder when moving in difficult terrain, which doesn't sound like much but this is huge. Disorder doesn't stack up, instead you take additional losses. In many cases it's a death sentence for heavy infantry or cavalry to fight lights in terrain.
One thing that bothers me is the portrayal of Roman maniples. In basic impetus, the line relief system is simulated by a large unit of Hastati and Principes, with the latter at the front. Large units take losses on the back unit first but combat and cohesion tests are made with the front unit, so the front is not affected by losses. The unit can't split though and it's just as unwieldy to use as a phalanx, which I'm not convinced by. Flexibility was the main advantage of the maniple system and they've tossed it out the window. I have some ideas for alternatives: Units of Roman FP can interpenetrate one another if directly in front or behind. This would allow for line relief yet allow more complex tactics with each unit keeping its individual flexibility. Units of Principes in the back line can move to face flanking cavalry for example. I'm not sure how powerful this will be, so some restrictions may be needed.
I played my test games of Roman vs Pyrrhic with cardboard rectangles representing the eventual base sizes. Factions were fairly even with the Romans having a smaller more elite army and Pyrrhus leading a corps of powerful cavalry.
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| The Greek right (unreliable mercenaries) disintegrates but the romans, tired and bogged down in terrain, are unable to capitalize. On the left thureophoroi retreat into the cavalry, causing chaos. |
I very much recommend that you try out Basic Impetus 2 if you're interested in a mass-battle game with decisive combat that plays out in a timely manner. I will likely buy a copy of full Impetus in the future so I can use the command and control system.
