Alesia - The Epic Battle of the Ancient World

Or so said Avalon Hill Games in 1976. Finally got to play this, my very first board game-proper. My fellow Hawaiian-expat, Kimo, who had some experience with Avalon Hill games, came over to help out. As he hadn't played Alesia before, and not any board games for many years, we referred to the 7 pages of rules quite often during the game. Honestly, the rules are pretty straight-forward and fairly simple. It's the tactics and initial deployment, particularly the Romans',  are what makes it interesting and challenging. Below is the set up prior to the start of the first turn. Kimo played the Romans and I played the Gauls - which included the relieving forces on a hidden Off Board Movement Chart.

The game can be played up to 24-turns, but we ended up going for only four with a pretty clear indication of Vercingetorix being able to make it off the table - which is the victory condition for the Gauls. Although the evenly spaced placement of Roman forces by Kimo around the perimeter of the outer barricades seemed to make sense, it ended up being their downfall. It soon became evident, that the use of more centrally-staged Quick Reaction Forces would have been better.

Early on the Gauls inside fortress Alesia had half their forces, along with Vercingetorix, swiftly move southwards for a breakout. As the Romans were spread thinly throughout the outer perimeter, they only had a small force in the southern area. This area is also the first area which off-board relieving Gauls can enter (Turn 1), which they did.

Maybe if Vercingetorix had the same view as I did, he would've made it out too.

By Turn 2 the Gauls, who although had lower overall Combat ratings overwhelmed the Romans in their area. Kimo and I, both alumni of the Hawaii Public Schools system were initially challenged by the mathematics required to calculate Combat Resolution - namely, ratios of Combat factors, but we ended up getting into the swing - at last we think we did.

Image from the old National Geographic Greece and Rome book - depicting Caesar's cavalry leading a desperate, and successful, counter attack.

I felt bad for Kimo and reminded him that he had swift moving cavalry up in his northern sectors and that he should at least attempt to get then into the fray down south. Unfortunately for the Romans, by Turn 4, it was evident that Vercingetorix had a great chance of making it off the table, and we called it a day in favor of the Gauls.

I'm quite sure we missed some of the details of the rules, but for the most part it played very smoothly and was quite an enjoyable first time for me with a board game. As the game is borrowed from a buddy, I'll likely look for a set on ebay in the future. I have to say the counters make sense, but they are a bit fiddly to move around - particularly when the units get pressed together in close combat.