Mortiem et Gloriam, Imperial Roman vs Sassanid Persian

Another Warfare warm-up.

My Sassanid Persians, unchanged since the last time, but against a completely different enemy. Mark's Early Imperial Romans. An army I have met, fought and been tonked by on several occasions. Mark is a good player, and I was not expecting an easy game.

All his units were in 4s, 6 x superior legions, 4 x average auxilia (one with melee expert), two superior cavalry, and a superior lancer. Breaking on a 7, its a big force.

The table, Mark wanted 'Dense Coastal', unfortunately, for him, I controlled the terrain, dragging it to plains, and out-scouting him too. The coast stayed, nit much else did.

A blurry terrain shot, my forces to the right.

My initial moves were somewhat limited, with 5 black cards in my hand, one yellow, two green and the rest white! I sent one small cavalry forwards, my large superiors moving towards the outer edges of the table. My catafracts were stuck behind without cards!

Mark sent his auxilia towards my poor spear, I tried to screen his dangerous legions with cavalry, my average catafracts moving into a holding position, and one of my small units fleeing a charge. Turning to face Mark were one on my s small units and a large superior cavalry unit, closing in behind them were my superior guard catafracts. As you can tell, my cards were picking up!

A blurry shot of the action as catafracts and cavalry meet legionary cavalry and lancers. All Mark's cavalry is superior and melee expert, so two levels better than me in melee. This was a holding action, as I wanted my decent kit to deal with Mark on my terms, not his.
In the lower right edge of the game, Marks superiors are already losing to my average horse!

Mark's auxilia, three units of them, charge my spears. On the left, my unit of skirmishing archers had disgraced themselves by not only completely missing his charging foot, and then rolling a 1 on their skirmishing roll, and standing still as his auxilia ran over them. Dudes you're called skirmishers, that involves SKIRMISHING! 0-1 to Mark. My javelins did cause a wound on his centre unit. Mark was up on the charge, I was in trouble!

Except, after impact and melee, for every wound he inflicted, I had inflicted one back on him and taking two losses, I was fine, and Mark had lost two units! How? 4-1. Oh yeah, there's a dead general of mine there too. Strangely, on red dice, no one really cared!

Over in the centre, one of my small cavalry broke, plus my average catafracts, as did my small average unit on the far left, but they had done their job. had weakened Mark's units (fighting at a -2 and winning is always comical, but it didn't last). They had fought hard and yes, I was in trouble! 4-7, but I had caused a lot of hits on the way, plus my superior catafracts were pinning down two of Mark's cavalry which stops him pursueing while I  manoeuvre my superior cavalry moved to take his exposed flanks. I have a unit bottom right threatened in three directions, but I have the ability, and speed to break off.

Over on the right, here's a sight I will probably never see again, poor spears pursuing quality troops!

And as my general respawned, he joined the fight against the melee expert infantry, who also shattered into pieces, three units of auxilia smashed by dross! 6-7, this is tight...

One of my two large superior cavalry catches a damaged legionary vexillation in the flank. They fall apart, causing KaBs (Kill a Base tests) on everything surrounding it. Superior cavalry, you can take a skull and break too! (10-7) The Catafracts deal with the lancer cavalry unit, (12-7), suddenly Mark has gone from being very much up to being in serious trouble.

That's the rear of a very beaten up cavalry unit of Mark's. we each need one hit to break...
But I have the cards, and a charge set up by my superior cavalry on his rear. Mark conceded rather than face the inevitable.
15-7 to the Persians.

I managed to use two units to pin and distract Mark, they paid a heavy price, my average catafracts did their usual trick and died when up, less said about my skirmishers the better!  However, this was always a hard fight for Mark, I was able to pick my fights, avoiding his legions.
But losing three auxilia to my poor spears was rather unfortunate though, if he had sent legion that way, I would have been a one molecule thick layer across the table instead! Great result for me, great game all round.
Next time I'm sure he will mince me.