Gangs of Rome

On Saturday, Andrew and I played in a game called "Gangs of Rome" at the Fall-In convention.   It was set in the 80's BC during the struggles between the political factions in Rome.   There were 2 scenarios, in the first Andrew and I were the two Consuls Sulla and Pompeius.   On our team was also the son of Pompeius--Pompeius Junior.   Our job was to escape from the forum and get back to our houses, so that the rabble-rousers couldn't force us to allow a popular vote on suffrage for the Italian towns.  We each had a stand of about 12-15 supporters, and were faced by gangs of our enemies, and several neutral players. 

I was bushwhacked by a mob of commoners, but managed to defeat them.   Andrew bought off one gang of enemies, but another beat up Pompeius Junior's guys badly.  Then this gang of gladiatiors showed up behind where Junior and I were.    I outran Junior, bribed one neutral mob to turn against our enemies and found I had an unopposed road home, so home I went.  Andrew also found himself in the clear and got home.   There was a huge brawl among the enemy and the various bribed groups, and Junior got captured, but then paid off his captors.   Some goons tried to bust into Andrew's house, but he sent them packing.   So, all in all we pretty much won hands down.

The funny thing was that Andrew bribed this one guy with some of the plastic coins we were given.  They could be used to sacrifice to the gods for re-rolls, to hire additional men and so forth.  The thing is we both thought that this guy's victory conditions involved collecting cash, and that's why he was bribed.  But, it was no such thing.  I think he was really supposed to be on the other guy's team, but just liked the idea of getting his hands on the plastic money.  So, part of our victory involved one guy just being naturally venal for fake plastic money.

The second scenario was more of a straight up fight, Sulla and his legions swarm into the city to crush Marius and his popular forces.  This time I was Marius, and I rolled really well in a long brawl with Sulla's men in the street and managed to fight my way to the gate and escape.  I lost track of what was happening on the other side of the board, but it looked bloody too.

The terrain was pretty darn awesome, and the system was super fast.  Nobody was sitting down or waiting his turn.   Moves were simultaneous until you got in visual range.   The GM would call a new turn when his egg-timer ran out, and the melees ran in a sort of "real time".  There were as many rounds as you could get in before the GM called a new move. 

The game was fast, exciting and a boat-load of fun.  

(I was going to upload picture of Sulla, but my window's machine crashes every time I try to add a picture to a blog post.  I should have done this on my Ubuntu machine).