Once again our intrepid time-travelling war reporter packed his travel bag and headed from the Golan in 1973 to Armenia in 336AD. The forces of Imperator Constantius II codename “Malcolm” was facing the Sassanid General Narses otherwise known as “Phil”.
In the run-up to Thursday there had been some surprise as to how few units there seemed to be. Sassanid double-armed cavalry and Roman Legionaries are pretty powerful troops....but pricey in points!
Phil had deployed with a largely infantry centre and cavalry flanks. Malcolm responded in kind albeit with weaker wings and a powerful centre. It looked like a game of which would collapse first, the Sassanid centre or the Roman wings.
Undeterred by numbers and quality Phil pushed his centre aggressively forward. As usual Chris had a sluggish start on the Sassanid left and Rob advanced on the Sassanid right albeit he did seem fixated on the elephants.
Malcolm pushed the massed cohorts to engage leaving Dave and Tony to try to hold the wings.
First blood went to Rome as a Sassanid light cavalry unit died in a hail of archery. Unfortunately for Rome that was to be their sole “unit kill” that day. Malcolm’s seasoned legionaries moved into combat but inflicted a single disorder, suffering two in return. This wasn’t in the plan!
The superior Sassanid cavalry soon began to wreak havoc on the Roman flanks.
Tony lost cavalry and found himself facing elephants emerging from the woods.
Dave lost light cavalry and cavalry, but was holding the flank until Chris sneaked a unit of lights through a gap to dash for, and capture the camp.
Malcolm lost a Legion to a determined unit of javelin men, and then Tony lost more cavalry. Chits of 1 and 2 saw the adjacent light cavalry break and it was Game over....
All a bit of a massacre.
Over in one hour twenty.
Best summed up by a plaintive cry from Walkern Road....”we haven’t even had time for coffeeeeeee....”
Next week we try to find our sea-legs and head back to the world of “Black Seas”. Will we remember the rules??”
Simon
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