Hail Caesar: Rome v. Mithradates

Steve & Mike commanded Mike's new Marian Roman army against Jim & Barrie's Pontic army.

The Romans are on the left.  Cavalry on the near flank, then Spanish, then 2 legions.  Mithradates has cavalry on each flank and 2 phalanx divisions in the centre.  Jim faces Steve on the near flank, Barrie faces Mike on the far flank.

The Pontic plan was to send the right flank cavalry around the wood into the Roman left rear while pinning them frontally by the phalanx.  This was immediately compromised  by poor command dice on the far flank even though Mithradates was there to help.  Then the Pontic plan really fell in a heap when the RH phalanx's pinning attacked turned into an instant disaster due to simply awfull dice.  On the near flank Jim's dice were no better than Barrie's.  His heavy cavlry was pushed back by Steve's mediums & his attempt to get at the Spanish couldn't get moving.

After a disasterous start the Pontic cavalry were at least now hanging on.  Jim's phalanx finally got to grips with the Spanish, but again the dice gods gave the medium infantry an advantage over the heavy and then the easy victory over the RH phalanx allowed the Romans to support them with legionaries. 

The Pontic left is still hanging on though both divisions on wood.  On the far flank the Romans have had time to reorganise to face Barrie's cavalry.  Barrie had no choice but to charge anyway.

While Barrie's cavalry had one successful charge, it did not break the Roman left.  The remains of Jim's infantry division was surrounded and broken to give the Romans a decisive victory.

The Pontic plan did run a risk of the main body being beaten before the flanking cavalry could arrive, but one doesn't expect a phalanx division to be rolled in 2 turns - so it wasn't a bad bet.  While Hail Caesar is notorious for wild swings of fortune, never have we seen a battle where one side has had such a continuous run of bad dice as the Pontic side had in this one.     But all along the front for the whole battle the Ponts consistently threw bad command dice, bad to hit dice, bad saves, then bad Break Tests.  Even on the rare occasions when the Ponts managed to win a combat the Romans threw well in the Break Test on all but 1 occasion.  On the other hand the Ponts failed almost every Break Test they took.   The Pontic players feel the dice gods owe them big time for the next battle.