Gangs of Rome - Episode 1, Wagons Roll!

Yesterday I finally managed to kick off the Gangs of Rome campaign. Gus, Graham, Jamie and Ron were able to visit Stately Counterpane Manor for what will hopefully be the first of six episodes (seven if you include episode 0, which was more of a learning/teaching exercise).

Jamie and Ron were already established as Green gang members so Gus and Graham were signed up to represent the Blues.

Each of the two street gangs has a list of six objectives that will need to be fulfilled over the course of the six-game campaign. The two lists are not the same and each side chooses a mission for each episode. Thus, at the start of the campaign even I as the umpire have no idea what each scenario will entail.

In this case the Blue gang of Tarquinius Caerulius elected to "dispose of a body". This saw them having to get a body to one of two manhole covers and chuck it into the cloaca maxima (Rome's main sewer). To add complications, they had to do this while no-one was in line of sight! At the start of the game the body was in a raeda, a four-wheeled, ox-drawn carriage.

Meanwhile the Green gang of Spurius Verdius had to escort a wagon-load of wine to the gates of the Spurius townhouse.  

With both sides driving wheeled vehicles this had to be a night-time scenario as they are banned from the city during the day. I created a new Action for the driver of each wagon. Drive would allow a wagon to be moved four inches. A given vehicle could only be subject to a Drive Action once per turn. Obviously the Fail State for the Drive Action is "The vehicle doesn't move, Activation ends here."

Junius encourages the oxen forward

My creative input to the process is in deciding on the detail of the objectives, such that conflict is at least reasonable if not actually required! In this case the Greens had to cross the table diagonally and the Blues had to get to a location near the centre of the table so a clash was likely.

And a clash there soon was. The action opened with Maximinus (of the Blue gang) shooting an arrow at Plinius. He missed and to add insult to injury his bowstring broke! Almost immediately further injury was added as his target closed the range and beat him unconscious.  First blood to the Greens!

Maximinus (top right) shoots at Plinius (off camera)

Things continued well for the Greens as Laetius shot Januarius and took him too out of the fight.

The Blues, given a choice of two manholes down which they might dispose of their incriminating cargo, elected to move to the one nearer the centre of the table rather than the one nearer their opponents' deployment area. In retrospect this was the wrong choice but with limited intelligence as to the Green gang's mission this was definitely forgivable. They reached the manhole but with both Greens and vigiles milling about, there was never a quiet moment to ditch the body.

The raeda has just crossed the manhole
but the vigiles are nosing around

The German slave siblings Clovis and Arminius fought fiercely for the Greens, Arminius mostly against the vigiles and Clovis against a series of Blues.  In the end Clovis was stabbed by Pomponius and breathed his last just outside the temple of Minerva. 

Pomponius (in the purple tunic) prepares to stab
bare-chested Clovis as Musca and Titus look on

Arminius holds his own against the vigiles

In the meantime Junius of the Greens had got the wine most of the way to the Spurius mansion.

For a while it looked like Balbus might have a go at interfering with the delivery of the wine as he lurked behind one of Spurius Viridius's ornamental trees,

but in the end, with the law on the scene, he decided to withdraw.

In the event, with time moving on we decided that the Greens were close enough to the mansion to claim victory and that the Blues, who had finally decided to try the other, now deserted, manhole would be able to dispose of the corpse.  

Both sides were therefore awarded three points for achieving their main objectives. In addition, both sides had put out of action two of the opposing side (one of them permanently). They each therefore received a further two points. The campaign score is therefore now as follows:

Blue Gang - started with six VP, spent one to make sure we were playing a nighttime scenario, gained five this time around, new total = 10 Victory Points.

Green Gang - started with one VP, spent none, gained five this time, new total = 6 Victory Points.

Several gang members came away with injuries. For the Blues, Maximinius has a sprained ankle and will be unable to benefit from his personal ability for episodes 2 and 3, while Januarius has a head wound and won't benefit from any re-rolls for the rest of the campaign. 

For the Greens, Plinius has severe lacerations and will be limited to three Actions per activation for the rest of the campaign whereas the unfortunate Clovis has gone to feast with his ancestors. Doubtless his brother Arminius will be out for revenge next time!

-o0o-

I was slightly disappointed with some aspects of how the game went. The rules for using vigiles in a night-time scenario are unclear to me. I need to do some more reading of the rules and perhaps ask a few questions on the dedicated Facebook group. Whatever, I'm confident that we can come up with an acceptable solution, even if it means house-ruling the situation.

Thanks are due to those who contributed to the planning stage and to playing the scenario. Watch out for the next episode soon!