Today we were back at the club after last week's Border Reiver show, and Tony kindly brought down his Sassanids and Parthians for us to use. He had asked me to work out the lists so I did ones based on the Battle of Dara (530 AD) and the Parthians from the early 2nd century AD, so a bit off, but the armies were reasonably similar to the ones involved in the Sassanid revolt, as far as I know!!!
Phil and I had the Sassanids, and defended against Lawrence and Tony's Parthians.
The battlefield from the Sassanid side.
I commanded the Sassanian left, with the Light Infantry skirmishers and the Cataphracts (My C-in-C was on an elephant!)
I also had the Militia and some Daylami warriors.
Phil had the Elephants, 2 Light Cavalry units and the Asavaran (Clibanarii)
Lawrence - opposite Phil had a lot of Cataphracts behind a forward line of horse archers. Tony had Horse Archers and the Parthian Light Infantry, facing me.
Things started well for me, as my Archers - with a full 6 extra dice from my Hero's 'On my command, unleash hell'...
...destroyed a Parthian Horse Archer unit.
This left Tony with 2 Foot Archer units and some Thureophoroi facing me, his Horse Archers were heading for Phil's wing.
Lawrence had sent his Light Cavalry forward, and Phil had moved one of his round their flank!
My Cataphracts moved forward, less horse archers to face now!
The Parthian Horse Archers and the Asavaran were soon exchanging shots.
Phil's Light Cavalry damaged the Parthian lights...
But after coming under shot from more Parthians ended up off table!
The Asavaran destroyed the damaged Parthian unit!...
...and drove the other unit off table too! Complete chaos!!!
My Cataphracts now came under attack by the Horse Archers, who got a lucky damage on my tough cavalry!!!
On Phil's side, he had withdrawn his Asavaran to avoid facing the Parthians Cataphracts.
In the centre, My Militia charged some Horse Archers who were threatening the flank of the Asavaran.
My Cataphracts charged and caught a Parthian Light Infantry unit, My Light Infantry drove the other unit almost out of the wood.
On Phil's side, Lawrence charged some Light Horse Archers into a unit of Asavaran, and did ok!!!...
...They even drove the Sassanians almost back into the Elephants!
My Light Archers destroyed the last Parthian Light Archer unit.
Oddly, my Militia failed to destroy the Horse Archers, mainly as I had a lot of Supporting units!
Over on Phil's side, the Asavaran broke the Horse Archers, finally!
My Light Infantry were now harassing the Thureophoroi.
My Militia were able to break the Horse Archers at last!
Phil had charged a Parthian Cataphract unit with 2 units of Asavaran, and drove them back, but at the end of the turn, Lawrence was at -1 Reputation and we were +9!
Poor Lawrence never really got his Cataphracts in!
Ah well, at least it helps explain how the Sassanian dynasty took over the Parthian empire so easily!
We will be changing sides and replaying this game in a couple of weeks!
