Thunderbolts Are Go

Mark arrived from Grantham down south sharp and early on Sunday at 0830 managing 2.5 hours on quiet roads, he normally brings Normans and Spartans, the former I face with my Patrician Romans and the latter with my Seleucids, the first matching is a good game while the second is a very hard struggle due to the rules favouring Hoplite armies, in my humble opinion anyway. Mark had just bought the Early Imperial Romans he had brought so I met them with my EIR, Legio XII "Thunderbolts" one of my favourite armies.

After a chat and a cuppa we set up, the armies were 3,000 points and we fought on an 8'x5' table, having played Mark's army when Mike Jordan owned it I guessed at what was coming and no surprise to me he had three cohorts of Legionaries and one of Auxiliaries, supported by two large auxiliary archer units, slingers, bolt shooters, cavalry and cataphracts. I went for a change, I normally use auxiliary cohorts but this time took three legionary cohorts and two cohorts of 'recruits', one archer unit, slingers, horse archers, cataphracts and my favoured Lanciari.

 

Twelfth ready.

Thunderbolts on the left.

Mark was a bit hesitant with his centre and led with his right flank, I went forward to meet it hoping all that firepower (the cataphracts of both armies had taken bows as well as the kitchen sink) would kill his cavalry and then I could mop up the archers. My own infantry I pushed forward, I knew I had a good chance of taking out his Auxiliary Cohort and then I would see what happened, I played cautiously on my right. Within the first arrows being fired Mark's cataphracts had routed and carried the archers with them, I made a mistake and moved my Lanciari too close to the enemy cavalry and only running through the wood saved them, thankfully they rallied and then took their revenge on their tormentors and put them to flight. The enemy routers had rallied but I now hit the Auxiliary Cohort and sent it packing, my other troops now engaged all along the line, I cannot recall now what happened on the my right, but nothing that happened there had any affect on the outcome of the battle.

Mark's bad morale begins.

The Twelfth advances.

The Lanciari get their revenge.

A titanic struggle.

 As the main lines hacked at each other the Thunderbolts got the upper hand and soon Mark's army was left with only one battle formation still fighting and the rest routing, Mark offered his sword. As he had come a long way for a game and this one had ended so quickly we decided to have another. My boys had not really tried very hard and only the fact I could re-roll my kill dice in the first round saved me as three times I got nothing as the troops went in, Mark on the other hand had some very bad morale throws which did not help his game.

We quickly had a bite of lunch and reset the game, this time Mark put all his firepower on his right and the cavalry on his left, I put my winning combination on my left again with my firepower on my right. My plan was to push my left protecting the cataphracts and then charge through the Lanciari and ride down one of the archer units, the infantry again would advance in line while the right would try and kill off the enemy cavalry. It all sounded good but there was a flaw, instead of pushing left with the main battle line I pushed right and this turned out to be a mistake. Before I could get the cataphracts into charge reach their protection ran away, they then suffered from the massed archers, I won the initiative for the next turn and charged them in, again they suffered the arrows of misfortune and failed their charge by one! What was wrong with my boys, no one was making an effort, had the first battle been too easy. Before long I had no left flank, the Lanciari did come back but they were only delaying their demise. In the centre meanwhile once again the lines had clashed. 

 

The Twelfth again on the left.

This time instead of sweeping away the enemy Auxiliaries they stood toe to toe with Cohort I, brave men, this held up my plan to roll up the enemy line, I now had a perfectly good cohort sitting doing nothing because it could not get in to the fight. For a short time my attack looked good, but then it all went pear shaped. Again the right flank had a little battle all on its own, they had seen off the enemy slingers and Auxiliary cavalry but then spent far too much time trying to catch Mark's cataphracts.

Mark comes forward this time.

Enemy cataphracts fatally attract my right.

Cohors I about to run, one more turn grrrr.

Mark victorious on his right.

 We were stopping the game at 1600 hrs so that Mark could get a decent run south, and as we looked over the field of battle I had to admit that it would take a miracle for me to get a win, I had three battle units left and mark had five, one in a very precarious position but nonetheless it was a mountain the Twelfth could not climb. 

I made a couple of mistakes in that game which, married to the loss of the Lanciari and then the loss of my left flank and the stand of Mark's Auxiliaries put me on course for a defeat. Mark once again was not helped by some terrible morale dice but his men came through.

And there we have it, an excellent days gaming and plenty of excitement for the both of us and a good result of 1-1. 

Although I have been very busy gaming and mapping I did manage to finish my little SdKfz 10/4 and what a lovely little kit it was (along with the 2cm Flak). I have a British Bedford truck to paint now but I seem to have learned patience so it is still waiting to be primed. I also got a new bridge from Warbases as I am not keen on the one I have, also if and when I get to playing the Smolensk mini campaign I will need two bridges, I have built that but again got no further.