"Illi damnati moriuntur deos!'

In the latter part of 2022 I struck a deal to sell a large part of my Late Roman collection to a long time wargames chum. Like many of my collections it had grown like Topsey, largely without me noticing or intending that outcome. I was left with the rump of the collection and no real idea how I might use it in future, if at all. 

Now recently Phil and I had moved away from using Neil Thomas's Ancient and Medieval Wargames as our rules of choice and picked up Hail Caesar again following the release of its second edition. It seemed to us that giving the Late Romans an airing with the rules might give an incling as to direction in future developments. So, a few pictures from today's small game with the odd added comment here or there ~

Foundry Late Roman Heavy Infantry take up a defensive position.

The baggage train and it's escort heading for the home villa, worth 2 Victory Points if occupied, worth 1 to the defenders if held.

A mixed division of Heavy Infantry backed by Heavy Cavalry supported by a Ballista ready themselves for an assault.

Worth 1 victory point to the side holding the siege engine, pretty much held all game by the attacker's.

The centre of the defender's battle line, four units of heavy infantry, one with integral archers.

Medium and Heavy Cavalry on the defender's right flank are outclassed if not outnumbered by the enemy.

The villa, the object of the attacker's efforts, defended by Light Infantry armed with javelins or bows. The Horse Archers were in need of some better dice...

Saxon mercenaries smash into the defending Romans, but cannot break them.

Despite losses the defender's heavy cavalry sweeps away the entire attacking side's Centre Division.

Their Medium cavalry is less successful but fends off the threat to the right flank.

Although forced to retire in good order the Medium cavalry have held the right flank while the Heavies have swept the centre away. A victory for Pompus Minimaximus over Baldinus Iunior.

A fun game lasting seven of the allocated 12 turns with Phil conceding facing mounting losses. His cause was not well served by really awful dice throwing, loosing him his entire centre division and making his cavalry on the left almost impotent! 

Clearly the collection could do with a few new figures, on reflection I probably sold just a couple of bases too many. That's hindsight for you as usual! There remains room in the allocated RUBs for two more bases/units of infantry and 8-12 bases of skirmishers. Perhaps I will have saved up enough by Partizan!