What have the Romans ever done for us?

Mortem Et Glorium (or MeG as it is affectionately known)  is a set of  ancient rules ( although tghey cover up to 1500AD) written by Simon Hall, who I believe also was the writer of Field of Glory. As such there is a similar feel about the systems. MeG however has stripped back the mechanics and taken a different approach.

The Rules come in with a lever arch folder, with looseleaf sheets, which I have put in plastic sleeves for protection.

You also get two things that drive the game Coloured cards (it is common for these to be replaced by after market coloured chips) and Coloured Dice.

The cards/chips tell you what you can do each turn. The dice are the way of determining the combat.

The colours are

Black – the worst

White – basic

Green – Medium

Yellow – Good

Red – the best.

This game is all about command and control, therefore your commanders are the key.  Each army will have upto 4 Generals who are assigned to parts of the force at the start of the game. Each General will have a level with mediocre the lowest and Legendary being the best. Each type of General will be either Instinctive or Professional. This will depend on the type of Army you have. Each gives you different options in game.

MeG divides the Armys up into 4 things

The commanders – which I have mentioned.

Tactical Unit Groups (TuGs) – the core of your army,  this is the main infantry, cavalry and war machines. These units do the majority of the flighting but if you lose these units it will affect the moral of your army.

Skirmish Unit Groups – like most armies of this period there were the plebs that made up various light troops like slinger’s, Javilin or bowmen. Their aim is to harass and to run away.

Camp – each army has a camp which it needs to defend.

This is a phase or mini game part before the battle which involves two parts.

Terrain layout – which is done through a terrain grid. And the drawing of cards/chips. And where you end up on the grid determines the number of terrain pieces used. These are then placed and removed to generate a battlefield.

Scouting – this again is based on drawing cards and the number you draw depends on you army ability. This is to determine bthe deployment of your army. So it could be you deploy a small numbers alternatively or a large number of troops first if you lose the scouting phase badly.

Each game is Broken down into Turns each turn is then broken down into phases.

1. Draw and assign cards to generals

2. Declare and resolve charges

3. Missile fire

4. Movement

5. Combat

6. Clean up

As mentioned I said I wanted to get some warmachines. So I went for some Scorpion Bolt Throwers 🙂

Once I had decided upon my army it was a case of ordering the mini’s. There are a number of  companies that make great 15mm mini’s.

I decided to go with Outpost Wargaming Services. This is a company I had never heard of until they were suggested to me. I was shown some of their Macedonian figures and they were excellent sculpts. Then I was told that they are around £1 cheaper than other companies so I decided to order their Late Romans.

The was a short delay in getting them, but I had an email from Jeff who owns the company explaining why. However they arrived and I was not disappointed.

• Whilst it’s easy to say yep I will do a Roman army… But which period? Well the idea originally came out of a vision of having war machines… Onogars and Ballistas… So that actually limited me to Late Romans. From there is was starting to think about the Triumvirate period in particular Julius Caesar… (Nothing to do with the fact I grew up reading Asterix … honest)

So this lead me to forming the Army around the Xth Legion.

The army will consist of the following

5 Units (Legions) of Heavy Infantry – 1 with 8 bases anda4 with 6 bases

4 Scorpion Bolt Throwers – may not be very mobile but fun

1 Unit of Heavy Cavalry – although Cavalry is my weakness in most battles I need some to survive being out flanked.

1 Unit of slinger’s – always good to have some people with stones

1 Unit of Javilin – more skirmishers to harass the enemy

1 Unit of Light Horse – more horses more for me to figure out

A small army but the Legions will hopefully act like a battering ram.