Well after the minor setback at Hatra, rumors emerged that Watagases was again raising an army to invade Parthia, so we gathered our army, summoned our allies and waited... and waited.... and waited.... and waited. In all the battle was delayed three times by tied aggression rolls, but eventually it emerged that Watagases had made his way across to the Indian border and was attacking from there with support from the local nobles. We moved swiftly to meet him. (I was the attacker).
Now it seems Watagases is the dog that will not die, and I wanted to kill or capture him and bring this saga to an end. Since he generally hangs out on the fringes of the battle, it seemed the only way to stop him legging it when things went pear shaped, would be to surround him with a flank march. To help this plan succeed, I selected a delayed battle stratagem to increase the chance of the flank march arriving, and an exaggerated army size stratagem to make the forces initially deployed look beefier, and to force Wayne to be more careful about attacking them.
When the terrain went down, there was a large marsh and scrubby area dividing the battlefield pretty much in two, and it wasn't at all clear which side Watagases would be skulking on. To maximize the chance of having something to clobber him with, I thus not only flank marched on the left, but also delayed my Sarmation ally, so that they could enter on whichever side of the marsh Watagases was.
Now up until this point Wayne hadn't informed me that he was using the Indo Parthian version of the list, so seeing two elements of elephants go down was a bit of a surprise, and threw a considerable spanner into the works of my plan. Since I'd picked an all mounted army, I had nothing at all to counter elephants with, so the only viable tactic seemed to be to run away from them, and try winning the battle elsewhere. I deployed pretty much as I'd planned, but with the intention of immediately running my C in C and his accompanying cataphracts off to the right away from the elephants. I placed a single real cataphract and two fake ones further to my left, in the hope that they might be enough of a target to attract the elephants, and stop them chasing my C in C.
Now most people complain that their flank marches never arrive: I have the opposite problem that mine always seem to arrive too early, thus negating the fear uncertainty and doubt that they're supposed to cause. This battle was no exception, with both my flank march and delayed command turning up on the first attempt. With Wayne apparently having no reserves behind his elephants, there seemed a good chance that a flying column of flank marching light horse could get into their rear before they stomped all over my cataphracts, so I abandoned the plan to run away with them so that they could apply some frontal pressure while the flank march attacked from behind.
On the next turn, I was a little dismayed to discover the ambush behind the hill obstructing the advance of my flank march, as it meant my C in C and cataphracts would have to face the elephants alone. With things looking grim, a ray of hope appeared when Wayne used his C in Cs pip to advance his elephants forward, then inexplicably didn't use his remaining pip to provide a flank guard for them. From my seated position I couldn't be absolutely sure that my element was behind his flank, but I sure as hell wasn't going to give the game away by jumping up and looking. So I just sat there and tried to look bored. As it turned out I was able to turn the elephant so that Watagases would be trampled if it lost, which I thought would be fitting end to the saga, and poetic justice. With two overlaps and no recoil, the factors were two each. Yes!!!, I thought when my dice stopped showing a six, there is a God. A few moments when Wayne's roll also came up a six, I realized that not only is there a God, but he's a bastard and hates me.
After this, the battle was a bit of an uphill struggle. On the right the Sarmatians charged into the mass of Parthian cataphracts, but were ultimately disappointing and quickly broken. In theory counting the Kn(X) as I should make them effective, but in practice the compulsory follow up gives the advantage to the cataphracts. Some honor was salvaged when my flank march broke their opponents, and the Saka ally general (Cv(S)) strayed a little too close to a cataphract and got himself quick killed, but it wasn't enough to break Wayne's army, and his elephants quickly crunched enough of my army to defeat it. Luckily Bobarsaces himself had managed to maneuver himself into a position near the table edge where he was able to hand the crown to a nearby courtier, and quietly slip away.
And as for the allegations of being an "all round bad guy" we absolutely deny any rumors that our armor has elasticated sides.
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