Go Meek Into The Desert 260AD

This is our second go at this scenario from the Hail Caesar book.  Last February Steve & Renfrey's Romans beat Jim & Mike's Persians.  This time Mike took the Romans & Steve the Persians, with Jim umpiring.

The Romans deployed as required by the scenario.  3 infantry divisions on the table, one cavalry division to arrive in the far left hand corner when the dice gods decree.  Regretably we had no palm trees - perhaps they have some hardy conifers in eastern desert.  The Persians deployment, from the far end was: light cavalry, elephants, infantry & heavy cavalry.  The Persians advanced all their force as fast as possible, though command issues lead to the infantry & elephants advanced fastest.

The Roman cavalry was slow to arrive & this left the left end of the infantry line exposed.  The infantry pinned the front while the elephants turned the flank.

The Roman infantry was attacked from two sides.

The Roman infantry in the centre was being rolled up, but help was at hand - the cavalry finally turned up.  Near the tower, the cataphracts finally charged home.

The Roman cavalry quickly rode down the Persian light horse on the far flank but only 1 unit obeyed orders to move right.  In the centre the left hand Roman division was broken, but the shaken survivors still in combats refused to break, keeping the Persian infantry bogged down.  On the near flank, the Romans had withdrawn losing a unit or two to the cataphracts, but keeping 2 divisions in the fight. 

For a while it had been looking like a Persian victory, but the stubbornness of the 1st infantry division turned the battle.  They broke, but they had held out long enough for the elephants to run out of steam and break & for the Roman cavalry to help finish off the Persian foot.  Suddenly the Persians had lost 3 of 4 divisions and failed the army break test.  While the Roman foot was badly knocked about, they had only lost 1 division.   So the Romans won again.