Regular visitors will know that my last two games of To The Strongest each involved my Classical Indians getting severely hammered by the Marian Romans. My opponent generously suggested that some of the reasons for my twin defeats were down to the relative strengths of the armies: the Marian Romans were made to kill an army like the Indians.

What might work against them, I asked, to be told that armies consisting of lance-armed cavalry supported by horse archers were very popular on the tournament circuit. Something like the Sasanids, I asked. Exactly, I was told…so this week’s game was to be my Sasanid Persians versus his Marian Romans. Revenge was to be mine!

As is now usual, for the moment, the battle would be played over Zoom, with my remote opponent able to see the table through a combination of helicopter-view webcam and on-table-on-tripod ‘phone camera. Each of his units was also marked with a number, helping with the transmission of orders: “unit 4 will move forward a square” etc

The Romans were unchanged from last week’s appearance: six units of veteran legionaries supported by some light and medium Gallic cavalry. The Sasanids sported six units of horse archers backing the hard punch of escorted elephants, cataphracts and four units of savaran lancers.

The Plan

My plan was simple: pin the Romans frontally whilst hooking around their left wing. Horse archers to weaken and exploit flanks and rears; elephants, cataphracts and lancers to hammer into weakened legionary units.

Opening Moves

I had the initiative, so as the game began my right wing shot forward into the start position for their curl around the enemy left flank. Likewise, my left wing moved up to keep his left wing occupied.

You may have noticed that no mention has been made of my centre. This is because my central, most powerful brigade had decided that they hadn’t quite finished their breakfasts yet, and weren’t moving until all porridge (or whatever Sasanids have for breakfast) had been consumed!

The elephants and veteran savaran look on as the wings engage — The elephants and veteran *savaran* look on as the wings engage

Now what I should have done at this point was to wait for my centre to get moving before sending in my flanking forces…but I didn’t, and fully paid the price!

On my left flank, somewhat surprisingly and extremely annoyingly, my horse archers and lancers were seen off by the enemy cavalry backed up by legionaries. They moved forward very quickly, got their attacks in first, and soon I was left with cavalry around my left flank and nothing much to oppose them except what I could afford to commit from my centre. Hmmm…I’m sure that this was supposed to be the other way round!

One unit of horse archers lost to javelin-fire already; my savaran about to be defeated in combat with the gauls. my left flank is about to disintegrate.

On my right, I was perfectly positioned to curl in and hit the Romans in the flank. Unfortunately, they used their extreme manoeuvrability (well drilled, these Italians!) to not only turn to face me, but also to form an oblique line that effectively protected them from harrying flank attacks.

unit 4, in orbis (all round defence), protects the new roman right flank from my central command…not that that was doing anything even vaguely threatening anyway!

End Game

With my right flank attack effectively neutralised, the enemy right flank was now in the perfect position to curl around my left flank. I had to commit my centre to holding them off, who then got attacked by his centre: effectively he had done to me what I wanted to do to him!

My right flank bravely tried to crack a few legionary skulls before disaster struck, but the truth of the matter was that I had been comprehensively outmanoeuvred. Game one went to the Romans!

romans to the front, romans to the left!

Game 2

As the above really hadn’t taken very long at all, there was time for a second game.

I was keen to have another go using the same tactics, and this time things seemed to be working much better for me: although the Romans had once again adopted their oblique line, this time my left flank was secure and my centre had kept up…so after the opening moves, the battlefield looked like this:

Now, however, Lady Luck decided to intervene.

Really? I hear you cry: you were defeated by bad luck, were you? Not the enemy’s tactics and your own incompetence? Like in the last game?

No, really: it was bad luck.

For those of you who haven’t played To The Strongest, the mechanics work by the use of playing cards (or you can use D10 or chips) with higher cards being better than lower cards. Aces are low so, needless to say, drawing an Ace is generally a very bad thing.

We kept a pictorial record of the cards that I drew as the clash that would decide the game took place: