We picked sides,with Paul commanding the main hoplite army,whilst Richard was the Spartan commander. On the Persian side,Brian commanded the bulk of the infantry,and Graham commanded the elite infantry and the famous Immortals.Both sides were given objectives,ie. the Persians were to beat the Spartans,and capture a hill on the Hoplites flank,the Greeks just had to stop them!!
From move one both side seemed very keen to get to grips,here you can see the centres closing,and the cavalry on the far side of the table,moving ever closer to a conflict!!
Brian's outflanking column can be seen in this shot,Paul doesn't seem too worried though,he's got enough troops to hold this hill,and,what the Persians didn't know ,was that both Spartans and Hoplites were getting reinforcements on moves 2 and 3.
The cavalry battle is shown here,both sides had good and bad dice throws and mixed fortunes,with battle going both ways,absolutely nail biting stuff!!
Graham is sending his Immortals forward supported by his good infantry,Paul is sending his front-line Hoplites forward to block the gap on Richard's right flank,what a nice man he is!!
This shot shows the Spartans and Immortals charging into melee,Richard was deemed not to have ordered a direct charge and fought the first round at -1 on his dice,this was a disaster,and the Spartans were beaten along the whole line,however you can just see the reinforcements arriving,and Paul's reinforcements too,will they be able to stem the tide??
The answer,as can be seen in this photo,is NO!!!!! Spartans being pushed back, unheard of !! However Paul is on hand to help,and actually attacked the Persian King,and his elite body-guard,the man's mad !!
This is the centre,being contested by Brian and Paul,what a struggle this was,Paul being beaten by poor quality troops,holding his morale,getting back into the fray,counter charging again and again,with Brian putting more and more troops into the melees,marvellous stuff !!
Brian's axemen showing the Greeks their backs!! but his mercenary Greek infantry are on hand to shore up this flank,and attacked eventually,driving Paul's Hoplites back,and almost off the hill. If Paul had been selfish and moved his reinforcements towards his hill and not to protect Richards Spartans,the outcome would have been different !
The Greek centre is gone,the hill is taken,and the Spartans are being carried back to Sparta on their shields!The victorious Persian King (Graham) was seen to "Gloat"-Oh boy is that a bad thing to do in our club, he'll suffer,believe me,he'll suffer!!
This was touch and go to almost to the last dice throw,there couldn't be a better game than this,roll on next week.
As an aside,the Plug Bayonet I mentioned in the last blog sold for £400,and I successfully bid for an early 19th century Dragoon flint-lock pistol,shown in the following photograph.
No comments:
Post a Comment