I knew I was in for a rough ride when the Don started to tell me that he would have gone for a maximum of Early Byzantine cavalry trained under Belisarius. How different the game would have been if my army hadn’t neglected to learn to ride a horse. They had also forgotten how to throw plumbata darts and to even wield their swords. My hollow legions were newly painted and shinny means success! Always! Plus, their comrades had been scattered all over the floor of the hobby/spare bedroom😊

Don really did feel the love for the equestrian horseman. He chose Khurasanian and that meant horse archery! It also meant the ability to choose the place where and when he attacked on the battlefield. The place  where that battle was once again in the mountains. Another genius decision from Byzantium HQ as the Khurasanians had been recruiting heavily in the Afghan mountains and brought hordes of tough hillmen. His mediocre spearmen looked a good target but behind them were his fanatic foot and the dreaded elephant. I hate other people’s elephants by the way!

I lurched forward to the unenthusiastic subject spearmen but they were off to my right. Don fancied impaling my horsemen before they could charge the Afghans on the unfamiliar flat terrain. The Khurasanian Ghulams swooped on my left to make a right wheel of my centre problematic.

The brave but inept Byzantines moved toward their doom. The spear were halted by my move but the Khurasanians were preparing their crack troops to attack- and that meant the elephant. Have I told you that I dislike elephants?

The Byzantine skirmishers gave my horse just enough time to get back into the centre of the field without being crushed. Shooting the spearmen first and then charging gave the spearmen something to think about. If only I’d brought more horsemen! After hitting the spear, the Byzantine horse hit a column of Daylami.

Now the respective centres clashed and initially it didn’t go too badly. The Byzantine foot even held against the proto-Tiger tank! Dismounted Gothic spearmen collapsed on both sides of my line however.

It was sword strokes the whole length of the table and we were both near collapse. Don (below) started launching random dice attacks on my miniature army whilst I encouraged a local drug addict to put him off by banging on the side door! All things are fair……..

The battle swang to and fro but the Don clinched the fight with his pacaderm killing machine and a dead general!

Fighting in two directions is not habit forming in L’art de la Guerre and my legions couldn’t be trusted to fight in one direction today. Congratulations to the genius commander and two silver phials to the rather uncouth carpark denizen!

We are all fired up to start our Fall of Rome campaign on Saturday at Firestorm so keep viewing. Some very special barbarian baggage is also being finished especially for the campaign. Try and guess the link below?