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Legion reprint
#1
I'd like to draw attention to the Society of Ancient's reprint of what in my opinion is the best of Prof Phil Sabin's games. Legion recreates many of the major battles of Antiquity up to the end of the Republican Roman civil wars.

IMHO Legion is the most ingenious hex-based Ancient's wargame I have ever come across. it compares well against other systems like DBM and Armati. The game uses dice but the effect of extreme throws is greatly reduced - you won't win on a couple of lucky 6's.

A turn consists of rolling a die for command points, though command points are largely determined by the quality of the army. Groups of counters are then put in command and moved. This is followed by a 'Resistance phase' in which the opponent attacks adjacent counters, after which comes the 'Assault phase' in which one's own counters attack enemy units.

Each counter has two 'steps' - the first hit flips it over from 'fresh' to 'spent'. The second hit eliminates it. A second hit may be transferred to an adjacent friendly counter that is fresh, which means a battleline tends to wear down as a whole before suddenly cracking.

Generals come in two kinds: commanders who move freely around the battlefield, and leaders who remain with one counter throughout the battle. They affect the ability to place groups of counters into command and the combat effectiveness of the counters near them.

There are nine general categories of troops: Heavy, medium and light infantry; heavy, medium and light cavalry; and 3 kinds of shock troops: elephants, chariots and cataphracts. But there are subdivisions within these grades. Most troop categories have three levels of quality: veteran, average and levy, and the game places a great importance on the effect of troop calibre. A veteran unit has about six times the value of a levy unit of the same category.

Army morale is important. Each counter lost increases the chance that the army as a whole will decamp on the next rout. This results in real cliffhangers as a game draws near its close.

FYI here is some eye candy. A few of the counters:

[Image: counters.jpg]


Some terrain pieces:

[Image: terrain.jpg]


...and the mapboard:

[Image: mapboard.jpg]
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