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In the first couple of turns, the rebels were very lucky with their rebellion rolls, and gained a huge number of new slave units. Turn 2 is the first of the “replacement” turns, so the rebels gained 4 new infantry units, and no longer had anything to fear from the enemy force in Rome.
Turn 3 and 4 saw the rebels take all southern Italy into rebellion, and start moving north; meanwhile, the Romans had managed to concentrate their two legions in the north, but were unable to join them with the force trapped in Rome. In Turn 4, the rebellion was strong enough that Spartacus could think of besieging the enemy cities, and he moved to do so against the main enemy force in the North. However, this saw the start of a run of very poor rebel rolls on the forced march table, leaving the three rebel armies separated and unable to reach the enemy. The Romans attempted to make the most of this, moving out of their city to hit one of the rebel forces—but also failed their force march, and were left sitting in the open, an easy target for Spartacus next turn.
Turn 5 was a replacement turn, so the rebels were suddenly even stronger; however, the bad rolling continued and only one of the rebel armies could reach the vulnerable Romans. In view of the fact that their turn 5 reinforcements were sitting in Rome, the Romans decided to decline battle (50% chance—successful here) and move to concentrate their forces. However, once again they failed the force march roll and were unable to get the combined army into Rome, so were left sitting in the open, within easy range of all three rebel armies.
On turn 6 came the big showdown—the Romans failed to decline battle, and were forced to fight the entire rebel army. Roman forces consisted of four legions (strength 6, and 6 steps each), a smaller infantry unit (3, 4 steps), and one archer unit(3)—accompanied by four leaders, giving a +1 to the unit they accompanied. The rebels had approximately six slaves (strength 2, 1 step), eight infantry (3-5, 2 steps), and seven missiles (mostly 2)—with two leaders.
Missile units fire one round only, after which it’s on to the melee grind. After a lot of die rolling, the Roman army was wiped out, and had inflicted surprisingly little damage on the rebels—slaves make good cannon fodder.
At this point the Romans were approximately 60 Victory Points down, and had two weak units left on the map, with no chance of any more until turn 10. The rebels would have a free hand to gain another 20-odd points by exiting units, and to foment rebellion over the whole map. They might even stand a chance of storming Rome itself before the next reinforcements showed up. Seeing no chance of a victory, the Romans gracefully conceded.
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