Is Bad Dice Rolling Infectious?

This is the questions we all had to ask ourselves following a fun game of Impetus Baroque at the Club on Wednesday.

Rob (B) and I were playing a small Impetus Baroque Game using the supplement and the Basic version of Rules.  We were playing against Mick and Bob.  

We have created a quick scenario were the Parliamentarians (played by Rob (B) and I ) emerged on the to table in column of march and the Royalist (played by Mick and Bob)  were waiting for them.  The terrain was laid out like a Valley mouth, the idea being the Royalist were trying to stop the New Model from breaking out.

Orders of Battle

These were taken straight from the sample armies on the Impetus Baroque Beta Lists

New Model Army

3 Units of Trotting Cavalry 2 of good quality 1 slightly less so.

3 Units of Pike and Musket units of good quality

1 Artilliery Piece.

The Royalist

3 Units of Galloping Horse

3 Units of mediocre foot

1 Artilliery Piece

Deployment

The Royalists were deployed amoungst some enclosed fields on either side of a small village with their cavalry massed on one (the left) flank

The New Model Army came on in column of march, Cavalry First, then foot and then artilliery.

A more one sided game I have yet to play!  Rob (B) had command of the Parliamentarian Cavalry and I had the foot and cannon.  We marched on and spent some time organising ourselves in to a battle line.   Mick and Bob were in a well defended position so decided not to interfere.

We then advanced but  did not co-ordinate the attack so the majority of the  Cavalry headed off to take on their Royalist opposites and the Infantry rumbled forward supported by a single unit of Cavalry and the Artilliery.

The Royalists had good positions and it was impossible to isolate any units as each were well  supported by cavalry or artillery. 

Things started badly when a unit of Royalist Foot got 2 hits against the lead Cavalry Unit.  A dreadful saving throw pretty much reduced the units effectiveness to zero. 

This set the standard for the rest of the game with myself and Rob (B) rolling bad roll after bad roll.  For those who have not played Impetus (and you should because it’s great!)  A successful hit is a dice roll of a “6” or a double-5's with the strength of the unit and tactical factors determining the number of d6's rolled.  A saving throw must then be made by the target player the which require low dice rolls.  ("1" generally been a pass and a 6 being really bad news.)  What was happening here is that both myself and Rob (B) were throwing plenty of 6’s and plenty of 1’s…just not necessarily in the right order!

In fact the extent of the truly appalling dice rolling by Rob (B) has tempted me to arrange to play him as an opponent soon.  Bob did raise and interesting point however....It may not be Rob (B)'s rolling but my own legendary dice throwing that was infecting Rob (B) and that as soon as he sits far enough away from me, things will surely improve!  Watch this space for an update!

Getting back to the game: Unit after unit was blown apart by our opponents without so much as causing a powder burn to the enemy!

It was all over very quickly with 50% of the supposedly superior New Model Army being destroyed without causing a single casualty.

Conclusion.

To be fair Rob (B) and I did not really think much about our attack and we certainly could have co-ordinated it better.  Rather than exploit Mick and Bobs static defence we rumbled forward.  We had no superior numbers and so such an attack was suicide.  All the same; the shear predictability with which our  distastrous rolls mounted became hilarious.  It really needed to be seen to be believed.

It was great fun but I would like to replay it again.  Probably give the New Model a slightly stronger force to counter the Royalist defensive position and probably discuss with Rob (B) first so we come up with  a more thought out plan of attack.

Rob (S)