To Firestorm Games yesterday once again to fight a historical match-up using “To the Strongesr!” Douglas Baldwin and John Gallacher commanded the Late Romans while Keith Parkes and I led the Sassanid Persians. We played with 28mm figures and 140 points each. We laid out the terrain using the system set out in the Rules. We then outscouted the Romans meaning the Romans deployed their first command before us while we moved first. We posted Asavaran cavalry on each flank with our other two strike commands in the centre, Cataphracts backed by more Asavaran on the left with Elephants, with light infantry archers covering their front, to the right.

We started poorly, the Roman foot archers shooting one of our Asavaran on the left flank in their first turn. On our right I pushed my two units of Asavaran forward to face the Equites Illyricani and the Hun light horse. I soon worsted them destroying both and then sought to smash their supporting cavalry. With the assistance of my elephants we chased them from the field, standing to face our pachyderms not being to their taste!

The Roman cavalry then returned with their General in tow and we surrendered the four medals we had gained when they fled. However we swamped the horsemen who were then destroyed. The four medals were surrendered then permanently leaving them with only four left.

A Legion had been destroyed by charging Asavaran led by Peroz their heroic General who managed another attack during that turn when, needing “ten”, by indeed drawing ten!
At that stage we had lost only three (of admittedly only eleven) medals but then we cascaded a loss of medals to the Romans. A horse archer units was destroyed, then Shapur II, the King of Kings himself, was hit again and perished. Then more Asavaran died, then a Catafract unit and finally more Asavaran and we had lost.

The Romans still had those four medals left. As Lincoln said of Burnside at Fredericksburg in December 1862, we “snatched defeat from the jaws of victory!”
The battle swung one way and then the other, showing again all the virtues of the “To the Strongest!” It was a finely balanced game as many historical contests prove to be. They are by far the best battles to refight. We have managed a fair number now but many more remain to be done.

Article by Michael Lane

Sensei and legal representative of Cardiff Dice Studz