For the month of December we played the long-awaited battle between wahj's Late Romans vs Martin's Sassanid Persians. They were a matched pair of armies, but have not met in the field for many years.
Adrian and I played the Romans, and we managed to roll what I thought was a good terrain set-up for our predominantly infantry army. Our main line was anchored on two patches of rough ground, with the centre on a hill, and a small reserve force in the rear. Cavalry covered the extreme left flank.
Martin was worried about the deployment, but nevetheless decided launching cavalry charges on the flanks was the best option. On the Roman right the charge in the rough ground was repelled, but the troops in the open ground were routed by the Persian heavy cavalry, and the reserve force was unable to plug the gap.
On the Roman left there was a large cavalry melee, but Persian cataphracti triumphed against Goth and Roman cavalry. The Roman lines was thus cut up and surrounded.
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| Roman counter-attack on the left |
This was the second game in a row where heavy cavalry settled the issue quite quickly and decisively. I wonder if this is a feature or bug of the game, as the lists do allow armies with historically large cavalry proportions to replicate that in the game. Or perhaps it is a matter of us not having figured out how to counter cavalry-heavy armies.
The next game should hopefully fit two infantry-dominant armies, and we'll see if they give a closer game.
For our second game we played Kill Team, pitting FG's newly-painted Ork Commandos versus Adrian's newly-painted Veteran Guardsmen. The figures were beautiful sculpts and the players did a great job with them, but I found the play rather complex and slow. Perhaps this is a game that requires investment on the part of the player to appreciate its full potential.
