Yes where have all the elephants gone.

After five games in the Parthian civil war saga, we felt it was about time we wrapped it up, and played with something else, so we agreed on one final battle to settle things, with the loser going to into exile in Dubai.

So Watagases marched from the East with his bastardized Indo Parthians, and Bobarsaces summoned the renowned (or not) elephant slayers from Armenia, and the slightly less renowned cataphract slayers from Sarmatia. Although the elephants would still be a problem, I was confident that with the right ally they could be contained.

I tried to keep the battlefield fairly open to allow an opportunity to outflank the pachyderms and to avoid being forced into fighting them head on. The terrain of note was a BUA on my left, several gentle hiills spread throughout my deployment area, and small marsh in the center of Waynes deployment area. I deployed the Armenians in a long line from the BUA on the left along the hill nearest it, with the CinC and main cataphract force behind. The right was held by another command with some cataphracts and the bulk of the light horse. The Sarmations would play a wait and see game as a delayed command. The idea was that putting the Armenians in line out front would mean that it'd be hard for Wayne to avoid activating them if they were unreliable, that their light troops could contest both the BUA and the the little marsh, and that wherever the elephants were, there'd be some auxillia nearby to mask them.

My opening set up

Wayne's deployment surprised me a little as I didn't expect him to rest his catapract command's flank quite so closely on the BUA when I was likely to have better terrain troops. The absence of elephants was also a surprise, but without anywhere obvious to hide them, I assumed they were flank marching, and could safely be ignored as Wayne's flank marches only ever arrive when they've been pushed back by one of mine.

Initially I thought I'd try to break Wayne's small Saka ally first, but when that rode out far to my right, and he moved a whole lot of other light horse over to support it, I decided not to bother, and instead to set things up for the cataphract fight by occupying the BUA on the left, and the small central marsh that was to the right of where the main action would be. This meant sending most of the light horse from the CinC's command and the Armenians over to the right between the Saka and the reinforcements that were moving towards them, and sending a column of Armenian auxillia towards the small marsh to support the horse archers. The action in this salient essentially became the battle with both of us sending in more troops.  On the right side of the salient I had horse archers from three commands, but one command had poor pips, and the Armenians had other things to do, so Wayne was able to keep the initiative in the light horse fight, and inflict a large number of casualties.

An Armenian sneaks into the marsh while the battle rages on either side of their column

The salient fully formed. My heavies coming up in support

In the center of the salient I had more success getting one Armenian into the marsh, and forcing Wayne to throw Watagases himself into the fray, and also send in his remaining light horse reserves into the teeth of my advancing cataphracts. Watagases decided to go for glory and rode down an auxillia in the open, totally neglecting the one behind his flank. Needless to say the next bound he found himself flanked by it, attacked in front by another cataphract,  his horse archer flank support stripped off, and more cataphracts from my C in C's command threatening to get behind him. Indeed Bobarsaces attempt to close and finish things mano a mano was only thwarted by a light horse who needed to win by plus four on the dice to live, and did so twice in a row. Nevertheless, when we came to the climactic roll, I only needed even dice to kill Watagases. Unfortunately, he out rolled me decisively, not only not dying, but pushing the attackers back, allowing him to extricate himself from the predicament in the next bound with a smart tactical advance to the rear.

Surely this is the end for Watagases

This left many of my elements facing the hole where he'd previously been, and the rest of Wayne's army behind them. Their disarrayed state led to further losses, and combined with the drubbing I was getting in the light horse battle on the right, led to the loss of the army. Both Wayne's flank march and my Sarmations turned up before the final bell, but too late to make any difference.

While I did have a good chance to kill the opposing C in C, that was mostly down to Wayne.s mistake  rather than my great generalship. My battleplan has several shortcommings, most notably giving the Armenians way to much to do (take the BUA, take the marsh, and take part in the light horse battle), pushing a salient out between two light horse forces was always going to be tricky, and starting the Sarmations off table was a dumb idea, bourne mainly out of recent habit and good luck in the having them arrive in a timely manner. Oh and on the left, I screwed up the attack on the BUA my hanging my flank in the open allowing his cavalry to intervene, and the gap between the BUA and the hill was mainly held with wishful thinking rather than any troop elements.

So congratulations to Watagases for  a remarkable comeback, squaring the series, and as the previous incumbent reclaiming the throne. He's survived three successive defeats in battle, and assassination attempts by egg mayo sandwich, elephant buttocks, and good only fashioned hard flanking. Clearly he is beloved of the Gods, and thus the rightful Great King. I shall repair to Dubai and write my memoirs.