Sulla in Oxford

Yesterday saw a very enjoyable trip up to Oxford to see Nick, an old friend and war-gamer from Hong Kong.  I took with me printed cards for Strength and Honour armies to refight the Second Battle of Chaeronea.  It was the first time Nick had played these rules and he seems to have taken them rather seriously.  Seeing that omens were taken before battle he claimed to have sacrificed the neighbour's cat to obtain good fortune.  He certainly had an excellent roll of the dice for Sulla's command points before battle began and the end result was catastrophic for my Pontic army!

We lined up with the Pontic phalanx facing the Roman legions on one side of the field, a mass of other troops on the other.  Legions and phalanx were both chary of coming to grips - and even when they tried to commit saw an extraordinary run of 1s.  

The phalanx eyes the Legions and the Legions return the gaze, neither showing much inclination to move forwards.

Fighting begins on the Pontic left, but their scythed chariots fail to make a useful contribution

A rare success for the Pontic phalanx, a raw unit getting a good result in a clash with a raw legion.  However, the Legion passed its discipline test and quickly returned to the fray.

Pontic cavalry fail to charge.  The archers on the left have already been disordered by an advancing legion while Sulla's Greek allied infantry are about to rout the Pontic scythed chariots.

Sulla calls 'Homunculus Est!' and discovers that the Pontic army had drawn very bad setback cards (21 points worth, plus 7 from disaster cards for routed units), so had probably passed its morale break point of 20 a couple of turns before.  Sulla's men had lost only 1 point from 3 setbacks!

While the main formations hardly came to blows, with almost all attempts to manoeuvre ending in failed tests, and while many delays were caused by my failure to compile a good quick reference sheet, entailing scrolling through the pdf ruleset to find the required information, we none-the-less had a very enjoyable time.  The rules themselves - when found - are clear and make sense, so although the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune went heavily against me, the pleasure of being able to renew an old friendship across the field of battle was unalloyed.