Lessons were learnt...

My troops at the start - confident and shouting lots of  'helpful advice' at the enemy

Had my first outing with my new Carthaginian army and my first play through of the Basic Impetus rules on Wednesday. Thoroughly enjoyed the game and the army despite receiving a hiding. 

The Basic Impetus rules offered more depth than I thought they would. I was originally dubious about needing a '6' or double '5' to score a hit - but seeing how quickly units could disappear on a damage/save roll, it balanced out. My units could hit hard, but if the Roman heavy infantry could absorb the initial blow, they were able to grind out the combats, which I felt reflected the flavour of the armies we were using. 

Have to learn to use these guys better...

Because they and my General were all I had left at the end

In fact, I was so pleased with the rules that on the drive home I just kept churning through all the other periods it would be cool to play with these smaller Basic Impetus armies (until a look at my painting inbox sobered me up).

I'm certainly keen to paint up more units and have another crack at Rome, I'll definitely try some tactics more advanced than "charge", now that I have a better understanding of the rules.

The view when two bloggers clash

Everyone has to start somewhere.

And so it begins...

Having played only GW games for many, many years I have returned to where I started - Historical Gaming. My first big project is teaming up with a mate (Dux Homunculorum) to re-fight some of the great battles between Republican Rome and Carthage (I wonder what the score stands at among gamers over the years). I've loved getting back into a project like this and am looking forward to rolling some dice. 

Here is the army in all its glory using the Basic Impetus army list. Still working on how to take better photos, on which the internet is fortunately full of helpful advice. Shields are mostly transfers by LBM studios.

Next up for the project are some Italian Allies and hopefully a victory or two! We will be initially trying out the Basic Impetus rules and hopefully will get to give Sword and Spear a run later on down the road.