Today, we had part 2 of our Sassanid revolt series, we changed sides, so Phil and I had the Parthian empire, while Lawrence and Tony used the Sassanians. Tony diced for the Sassanids and got to be the attacker.
The Parthians set up, with me on the right and Phil on the left.
I had 5 units of Horse Archers and 2 of Cataphracts.
Phil on the left took the light infantry, 3 units of Horse Archers and 2 of Cataphracts.
Opposite Phil, Tony put his Elephants in the front line again, leaving his militia, skirmishers and Daylami on the right.
They had a long line of Asavaran heavy cavalry and a unit of Cataphracts.
Lawrence led the Asavaran and the light cavalry.
Tony advanced aggressively with his foot archers
One unit was quickly dealt with by Phil's Horse archers!
Lawrence advanced with his Asavaran, hoping to beat my light horse archers before dealing with the Cataphracts.
On the left, Phil was moving to wipe out the remaining Sassanid light infantry.
I had to slow the line of Asavaran so charged in with a Cataphract unit, I had to sacrifice a damaged horse archer unit to ensure I only had to fight 1 Asavaran unit with my Cataphracts. The Asavaran broke on contact...
...but, no surprise, my light horse broke too!!!
Phil's massed archer wing wiped out another bow skirmisher unit.
The remaining Asavaran swarmed through my line, but I managed to pin 2 units with my Horse Archers, an Asavaran unit charged the flank of my Cataphracts!
Phil's Cataphracts charged the Sassanid Immortals, driving them back into their own elephants!
My Cataphracts held! and damage was equal on both sides!
Phil was trying to apply flank pressure on the Elephants and let his infantry deal with the Sassanid militia.
The Sassanid Immortals were still being driven back, but Tony had managed to reverse his Elephants out of the way!
My Cataphracts were losing to the Asavaran, both needed one more Stamina loss to break!
The 2 Horse Archer units were still holding the Asavaran, how long could they keep this up?
On my right I only had one Horse Archer unit left against the 2 Sassanid units.
I was lucky, in the last turn of melee, my flanked Cataphracts destroyed the Asavaran!
The 2 Sassanian Horse Archer units saw off my last flank unit (sigh!)
My second Cataphract unit was more or less on his own, Asavaran on one side, Light Cavalry on the other!
My Last Horse Archers decided to make a fight of it before they got overwhelmed.
Phil detached 2 damaged Horse Archer units to help me.
His Skirmishers were whittling away the massed Militia.
One of my Horse Archer units was destroyed, but damaged the Asavaran.
My damaged Cataphract unit finally got turned round to face the Sassanid Horse Archer units, the other was stuck and surrounded!
Phil's Horse Archers were delayed getting in behind the Sassanid line.
His Cataphracts charged the flank of the Elephants, (having destroyed the Immortals) -and the Thureophoroi charged a Militia unit!
But at the end of the turn...
The Sassanids had -2 Reputation and the Parthians +4
A tough victory for the Arsacid empire!
