(Play)testing, (Play)testing, 1, 2...

A few weeks ago the session sign-up opened for MillenniumCon and I quickly registered for a few sessions of Mortem et Gloriam.  My friend Brian also signed up but he had not played the rules since last year's convention. In preparation for the upcoming convention gaming sessions we were able to get in a two games over the past few weekends.

It's been five months since I last played a game of Mortem et Gloriam so I needed to brush up on the rules while getting Brian familiar with them himself.

Attack of the huffalumps!

The First Game - Late Achaemenid Persians vs. Seleucid

Most people probably just want to see the pretty pictures so I'll keep it short.

Who: I brought out my in-munch-need-of-repair LAP army vs. Brian's Seleucid force.
What: Roughly 11,000 points per side but I did have to proxy a few LAP units with my Ancient Spanish figures.
Synopsis: Elephants smashed cavalry, cavalry fought cavalry and the Persian infantry became kebab's on the Seleucid pikes!
Outcome: This was mainly a learning game to see how the different troops fared against each other and to be sure we understood the phases.  Neither side was near break-point at the end but the Persians no longer had a right flank. However, my wallet did reach break-point by the end of the week as I had already purchased more figures to augment/replace my LAP forces.

Mortem et Gloriam - Spanish Iberian vs. Classical Indian (5/5/18)

Or, "How Average is Better".

Indian elephants at breakpoint - The moment when the Iberians win!

I first played Mortem et Gloriam at the MillenniumCon convention in November 2017.  I filled in for someone who left the game early and I think I commanded imperial or republican Romans.  I enjoyed the game very much and although I already had a Late Achaemenid Persian army I wanted to build something else.  That night, indeed during the game, I looked online at the various army lists, did some initial research on miniature manufacturers and then finally settled on an Ancient Spanish army. 

I chose to build a Spanish army because it could be used by itself or the units could be part of other armies.  I can easily field a Celtiberian, Iberian or Lusitanian army. I can add other forces to build a Carthaginian, Roman or even Sertorian army. I'm sure there are other armies I can build using these figures as a basis. I figured that if I didn't like how they played on the table, I had other options and could add different units to get a wide range of options from the units.

But there's really not much to the Spanish forces by themselves.  There's not much formed cavalry; most units do well in charge combat but get no bonus for melee; infantry is tribal which means there's not much tactical nuance. If you want to do anything other than moving straight ahead then you're going to need yellow or red cards in MeG to accomplish this.  But the one thing they have going for them is their numbers. For slightly over 11,000 points I could field two cavalry TuGs, ten infantry TuGs and five skirmish SuGs. Any opponent would have to kill six TuGs (most infantry is eight stand units) in order to win.  

So with amazing speed, I acquired and painted and fielded an army of over 350 15mm figures in less than six months. For the first time in a long time I completed a project - not, "oh I still have four packs of infantry to paint but I'm tired of this project" but honest to goodness, "I have completed the project as I planned and have nada, zilch, zero figures left to paint". Everything I ordered for this army has been painted.

Since the army was complete I needed to get them on the table to be bloodied and Grant obliged. He brought his Classical Indian army who I first faced a few months ago.