The Apothetic vs the Uninterested

Apart from Wayne, who turned up early, there was a general lack of interest in the ongoing Parthian civil war. Having begun in the spring, both sides were determined to finish it in the fall, but in the event were unable to motivate their allies to gather for battle before the following spring, and having reluctantly gathered, three of the four allies present were unreliable. There was also no fighting anywhere on the battlefield, except for a small area on my right flank. Anyway, I hope the good people of Parthia appreciate the statesmanship that allowed victory to be achieved with so little bloodshed.

I fielded the same force as for the previous game, as I saw no point in changing a winning team, and anyway it had been designed with the expectation that Watagases would bring a Hatreme ally. Their big bow block is very awkward for Parthians; LH(F) don't want to go anywhere near it, and while the cataphracts are immune to shooting, charging it would be an act of desperation. Any cataphract that loses its initial combat is going to flee and require 2 pips to turn around, even if it doesn't get rear ended by light horse sitting behind the bow line.

As the defender I was able to place a BUA on Wayne's left flank which would be difficult for him to defend against my Armenian ally. My plan was therefore to storm the BUA with my Armenians, and then set about whatever command was next to it from front and flank. I was happy to see Watagases and most of his cataphracts out towards the other flank, as I figured my horse archer force opposite them was too big for him to ignore, and could play run around the marsh long enough for the battle to be decided elsewhere.

Allies, who needs em ?

Having both allies unreliable put a bit of a damper on the plan, but at least the nasty archers were unreliable too. When Wayne showed no inclination to spend pips talking them round, I realized that if I played my cards right, I could get them to change sides. Accordingly, I avoided taking any aggressive action, and concentrated on getting the Armenians to play. Wayne had obligingly moved his left hand command over right in front of them, and with the reinforcements I'd send from the center I thought I could win there by weight of numbers, and with the inherent fragility of LH(F) it wouldn't take long. As it happened I managed to activate the Armenians at the second attempt, and they steamed forwards. After a couple of bounds of trading losses, Wayne rolled a few too many ones, and not only did I have the four element kill advantage I'd been looking for, his right hand command broke too. With the Hatremes changing sides, Wayne's position was completely lost, and Watagases discretely slipped way with many of his supporters.

I'm confident we'll be able to capture him in the next battle, as a new foot stall would come in handy. I'll also make him correct all the various misspellings of Bobarsaces in his account of the battle.

Wayne's My Hatreme allies

Since the Hatremes are on my side now, I'm going to make them fight in the next battle, and let Wayne figure out how to deal with them.