A bit of Infamy

With Ebor Lard coming up in little over a month, I'm well into a programme of preparation for my Infamy Infamy game The Iron Hand of Mars. The scenario is written, I have sufficient terrain (though more is in development), and I have 75% of the figures painted and based.

The plan now demands that I properly master the Infamy Infamy rules (I've previously only played in other people's games) and playtest the scenario. Rich Clarke did a series of play-though videos on YouTube when the game first came out and following these step-by-step is proving very helpful.

The coming weekend sees the next stage as Jamie, Matt, and Phil will hopefully be joining me for a practice scenario I'm calling The Summer of 69AD. Set during the civil wars following the death of Nero, the outline is as follows:

After the assassination of the tyrant Nero a year ago, first Servius Sulpicius Galba and then Marcus Salvius Otho wore the purple. Now Aulus Vitellius, commander of the Rhine Legions has seized Rome and been declared Emperor by the Senate. This year will surely go down in history as The Year of the Three Emperors!

With the legions away securing Vitellius’s position, the situation of the Roman cities and forts along the Rhine is precarious. Several have already been sacked by rebellious Gauls and Germans. Marauding barbarian warbands and, it is said, rebelling Batavian auxiliaries haunt the countryside.

Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (modern-day Cologne) is in a particularly difficult position. Its strong defensive walls have attracted soldiers and civilians from across eastern Gaul but drought is making it hard to feed these additional mouths. Having largely exhausted the resources of the surrounding farmland, foraging expeditions must now be mounted into the forests across the Rhine.

I'm going to use smallish forces and leave out some elements of the rules. A straightforward foraging scenario should enable us to master the basics of the system.

I need three areas of habitation and Jamie will hopefully be bringing along a couple of suitable buildings from his Saga collection. I have another in production thanks to foam core, cardboard, coffee stirrers, Milliput and an off-cut of MDF...