Romans vs Persians. Ancient battle 28.4.13.

Last night 5 became 4!! Graham was skating on thin ice so it remained for Richard,me and Brian and Paul to play a most fascinating game that had my nerves "shredded".

Richard and I were the Roman commanders whilst Brian and Paul were the Persians.

The above photo's show the scenario,map and general table layout,with the Romans on the left and Persian hordes on the right.

Brian is seen here writing his orders,with the whole table covered in figures.Brian commanded the left flank of the Persians,and opted for an all-out attack against our right flank,held by skirmishers and aux. infantry,this turned out to be a bit of a mistake,as he was hit by catapults,slings and arrows of outrageous misfortunes!!

Action!! all along the front cavalry and infantry attacked,with Brian pressing Richard relentlessly,and Paul throwing his Axemen against my cohorts,these axemen should have "bounced",however they did remarkably well and actually pushed 2 of my cohorts back!!

The Roman "secret weapon" comes into play-Elephants!! We used an Elephant unit on each flank,and both did well,disrupting the Persian cavalry,and causing panic among their infantry.

Paul has moved his front-line troops up against the cohorts in this shot,and is backing them up with good solid infantrymen,this tussle lasted a while,with me eventually driving the "dreaded" axemen down the hill,only to be counter-attacked by his second line.

My extreme left flank was held by 2 units of cataphracts,which Paul,wisely, left alone apart from fronting them off with some infantry.Paul's own cavalry,meanwhile,were working their way onto my flank,held only with a unit of archers and an Elephant unit.

This shows my left flank,cataphracts,archers and Elephants,eventually,to stop Paul's move to my flank, I had to charge the infantry in front of me,the cataphracts "slammed" into the infantry and drove them back,however by this time Paul had engaged my elephants in melee,and drove them back,this resulted in a morale check,and they broke!! which left a gaping hole in my line,Paul followed up this success with an attack by his second line infantry against my disordered cohorts,could I hold out??

Brian,is that a GLOAT??-I hope not,although he deserves a gloat,having just beaten Richard's cavalry and infantry on the plain.Richard has "bested" Brian on the far flank,and driven all of his infantry back across the river.

This shot shows the "mess" on top of the hill,with my cohorts in a state of disorder and confusion,front line and second line troops all mixed up,I am moving a cohort to my left in an attempt to stem the flow of Paul's cavalry incursion,but I am about to be "smote" to say the least!!

This is the final photo,Paul's cavalry are on top of the hill and threatening my entire line of cohorts,Brian has driven away Richard's last units on the plain,so we decided to call it a night and the Persians were declared the winners.

Another good and exciting game,held in the balance for so long,played in a good spirit,roll on Thursday morning,when I will be playing Brian in a big Marlburian game.