Monday's Basic Impetus Games

Monday night at Wessex Wyverns saw a return to Basic Impetus. I was playing Steve, an experienced ancients player but using FoG:Ancients, so this was his first time with Basic Impetus. I had brought down a few armies to choose from & Syeve picked Warring States Chinese & I went with Arab Conquest.

Wei (Warring States) (VDT=14/7)

Num	Type	M	VBU	I	VD	Notes
1	CGP(*)	8	6	4	3	Heavy Chariots – Various Weapons
1	CM	10	5	2	2	Cavalry
2	CL	12	3	0	1	Light Cavalry – Composite Bow B
2	FP	5	5	2	2	Heavy Infantry
3	T	6	3	0	1	Crossbow B

Arab Conquest (VDT=21/11) 

Num	Type	M	VBU	I	VD	Notes
5	FP(*)	5	5	3	3	Impetuous
1	CL	12	3	1	2
1	T	6	3	0	2	Short Bow A
2	S	8	2	0	1	Short Bow B

After a quick explanation of the basics we got started. I got so caught up in explaining things to Steve that I forgot all about taking pictures, again.
Anyway on to the battle. I was the defender and set up 3 hills, two of which were in my deployment area. Steve then moved one of those into his deployment area and I then deployed my troops. Nothing fancy for me, just a line of spear with skirmishers in front, archers on the left flank & LH on the right. Steve deployed his crossbows on his right then the HI & chariot and on his left flank he had his cavalry & LH. I did a general advance with all my figures the skirmishers shot but did no damage. Steve also did a general advance his LH shot but did no damage & his crossbows were out of range. I decided to see if I could get rid of one of his LH and charged my jav armed into contact with his bow armed LH.
At this point I should have packed up my stuff and gone home. I rolled badly Steve didn't, and my LH were gone. You see I did something I always try to avoid. I loaned Steve some of my dice. Whenever I do this they always roll really well for my opponent, much better than they ever do for me. And so it proved for the rest of the night I couldn't get a hit and Steve was rolling 3 or 4 hits each time. He spent most of the night apologising for his dice rolling!
Anyway back to the battle. My advance continued and my shooting did nothing. I turned a Spearman to protect my right flank. Then Steve fired his crossbows and started doing serious damage to my left flank. To cut a long story short his crossbows soon wiped out my left flank and his cavalry finished off my right. Game over.

Game two saw me use the Chinese and Steve took my Samurai.

Early Samurai  (VDT=15/8) 

Num	Type	M	VBU	I	VD	Notes
3	CM(*)	10	6	3	3	Mounted Samurai
2	FL	8	4	2	1	Ashigaru
1	T	6	3	0	1	Ashigaru with Bow – Composite Bow A
1	FL	8	4	2	2	Angry Peasants

I was the defender again and set up first with the cavalry & crossbowmen on my left, the chariot & HI in the middle and the LH on my right. He set up his Ashigaru on his right and massed his cavalry on his left.
I went first and left my X-bow where they were and started to redploy the cavalry to support my right. The chariot & HI advanced to get the attention of the cavalry while my LH swept round his flank. All Steve's forces advanced. Next turn I managed to do some damage to his endmost cavalry with the LH as they continued to sweep round to his rear. My chariot manoevered to intercept his cavalry. His general advance continued and his cavalry charged home on my chariot & one of the HI. Again the dice went his way causing heavy casualties to the chariot and forcing it back. The other melee was a stalemate. The position is shown below, with proof of his excellent dice rolling! (6's & double 5's are all hits).



Never, ever let your opponent borrow your dice!

Both of us encountered a spell of bad dice rolling and melees continued with no outcome. The ashigaru charged my cavalry but entually were defeated. The other ashigaru attacked the x-bows and prevailled after more epic dice rolling (needed to roll a 1 on two occasions to avoid breaking and achieved both). Steve's cavalry entually got round to the rear of the HI seeing them lost. My LH shot the Angry Peasants to pieces in the middle but the game was lost.
Steve enjoyed the games but found them a bit brutal (thats what happens with epic dice rolling!). But said he'd play again but would like to try the full rules next time.

A quick review of Basic Impetus

Ben asked me for a quick review of Impetus so here goes.
Impetus, and the cut-down version Basic Impetus, are wargames rules covering ancient & medieval warfare produced by Italian company Dadi & Piombo. I'm going to focus this review on Basic Impetus (BI) as I've played that more than the full game.
BI is available as a free 9 page pdf download which allows you to play smaller games than Impetus using about 80% of the full rule set. The rules are simple & straightforward. Typically I can play at least 3 games in a night even against someone who hasn't played before. By the second game the new player is concentrating on tactics not on remembering the rules.
Base sizes are 80mm wide with the depth varying according to unit type. This width allows you to play with figures based for FoG (40mm) without having to rebase them. You just use 2 FoG bases instead of one. BI armies range between eight & fifteen bases per side, so it's easy & cheap to build up an army. The number of figures per base is left up to the player (base size determines unit type) so the system lends itself to players building small dioramas on the bases instead of just ranks of figures. Such as in this rather grisly Viking tableau from Mark Rowsell shown below.

Each unit has a simple stat line showing things such as move distance, weapon type & most important of all VBU. This stands for Basic Unit Value it's not BVU because the rules were initially written in Italian & they decided to leave the acronyms the same. VBU indicates the units relative strength and how many dice it will roll when it attacks. When a unit takes casualties figures arn't removed instead the VBU is reduced, when the VBU reaches zero the unit is removed. Certain units also have an Impetus stat which gives them extra dice to roll when they charge into contact. This is quite a nice mechanism forcing units with high Impetus values to attack to gain the benefit rather than being charged themselves when they don't get the extra dice. Combats are done one at a time and fought to a conclusion.
A melee consists of both players working out how many 6-sided dice they each have to roll (VBU), plus any modifiers (not a long list), hits being scored by 6's or if you roll a double 5.  The loser of the melee, if there is one, then has to roll lower than their current VBU on a 6-sided dice or be eliminated. Quick, simple, clean but not as brutal as it seems. The system as a whole rewards good tactics and planning, plus it's so quick to play if you do lose you can always play again with different tactics.
This is just a very quick overview of the rules. If you are interested in finding out more there are lots of other reviews on the 'net. I'll just finish off with a few pictures of some of my figures based for Impetus.

My Samurai General

'Angry Peasants' from my Samurai force.

Some 28mm Saxons for my Hastings refight (if I ever get my Normans done)