Hail Caesar: Rome v. Pontics

Jim's Romans v. Byron's Ponts

Both armies 500 points in 4 divisions. Romans made a map of their deployment, Ponts deployed, then Romans to the map.  Army break test: Fail if 3 divs broken.  Losing camp counts as a div broken.  Romans also lose if both infantry divs are broken.

Roman OOB: 2 divs of 3 legionaries, 1 med bow, 1 skirmisher, 2 divs of 1 med cav, 1 light cav, 1 med spear, 1 med bow.  3 light balistae attached to one inf. (LHS in pics).

Pontic OOB: 1) 2 cats, 2 horse archer.  2) 4 warbands 2 skirms.  3) 4 warbands, 1 double handed thracian, 2 skirms. 4) 2 heavy cav, 2 light cav.

The Romans deployed conventionally, infantry in the centre, cavalry on the wings.  The Ponts also deployed that way, but bunched up to their right leaving the Roman right with no opponents.

The Ponts advanced in echelon right leading.  The Romans tried the revolving door, pulling back their left and swinging their right forward & left.

At first things all right for the Romans.  Their left flank mixed division was better handled than the Pontic cavalry and the Ponic horse archers were quickly destroyed.  The first clash of warbands v. legionaries also went the Roman's way.
  

One Pontic cat unit rode down the spearmen, but the other one was overcome by a combined attack by light & medium cavalry and the division broke.

In the centre things suddenly turned bad for Rome.  The second wave of warbands smashed through, breaking the LH infantry division.  One warband charged on to pillage the camp, leaving the Romans one broken division away from defeat.

On their right, the 2nd legion pinned down the enemy cavalry while the Roman cavalry got up around the flank (although the right flank infantry showed no signs of urgency and lagged way out of the fight).

The end game went as follows - working from the far end:
The victorious Roman cavalry was still being rallied.
The victorious warbands wheeled left and charged towards the 2nd legion.
The 2nd legion charged the Pont cavalry as cavalry charged them from the flank.  Already shaken by javelin fire, the Pontic light cav broke allowing legionaries to hit the heavies in flank.  The Pontic cavalry broke quickly enough for the legionaries to reform to face the approaching warbands.
To cap it off for Rome, a unit of auxilary bowmen worked around the rear of the cavalry and stormed the Pontic camp causing the Ponts to fail army morale.