Thursday December 29th witnessed the much anticipated re-fight of
Chalons (or Catalaunian Fields") from 451AD, fought between the forces of
civilisation ( Roman & Visigothic) and the forces of barbarity ( Huns and their
Germanic allies).
Miraculously everyone made it to the club by roughly the agreed start time despite some very late nights/early mornings.
The Roman line up saw Fred K as Aetius, assisted by Dave
B as King Theodoric and Chris B as Prince Thorismund (these are the very happy chaps in the first picture!). Attila
was appropriately played by Tony M with Greg H as Valarmir, King
of the Ostrogoths and Eileen B as Ardaric,
King of the Gepids (certain members of this line-up were too horrific to photograph!).
The battle saw Chris' Visigoths facing Eileen's Gepids on the Roman
left flank. True to form the Romans let their allies bear the brunt of
the fighting, as Chris laid into his wife (simulated on the table, of course!). This was never going to end well
domestically, particularly as Chris was truly
exultant every time he killed a unit of his wife's army! After an hour of solid beating it looked as if the
Gepid flank would collapse, yet somehow it held.
That meant the Romans would have to fight after all; not in Fred's plan.
Tony's Huns behaved in a truly Hunnic fashion but in reality made little
impact on Dave's Roman/Visigothic command. Fred led his veteran Romans
into an attritional battle in the centre
and eventually the Romans ground-out a hard-fought victory.
The actual fighting took close to four hours so it was well worth making use of the all-day club game facility.
I think everyone enjoyed it to some extent, and once again "To the Strongest" game a very enjoyable game. There is no news yet of the post battle Visigoth /Gepid relations!
Simon.
