Oh my Gods. What a fight. 1000 points of Persians with Indian and Saka allies vs. 1000 points of Romans with Classical Greek allies. They were fighting for Hindush but the fate of Indianapolis itself was at stake. Persians won the initiative and selected agricultural.

Opening moves viewed from behind the Allied right.




On the right is Persian medium foot archers with Immortals in supprt and bowman skirmishing in front. In the center is medium foot indian archers with elephants anchoring their flanks.On the far left is 3 large units of Saka horse archers with one unit of Saka armoured cavalry.



The Greeks are on the right of the Indianapolis line with a phalanx of citizen spearmen. The veteran IV legion is in the center and on the far flank, impressed indian allied foot and Cretan archers hold the enclosed field. Beyond them are elphants and roman cavalry. The other half of the roman cavalry is on the extreme right flank supporting the Greeks.

More to follow. It will be a summary rather than a full blow by blow.

We'll call the end with the Greeks and the Saka cavalry the northern flank.

This developed into an ugly fight with lots of scrapping, even though the light cavalry would normally prefer to fight at range.

At first, for the Saka, everything was going fine with plenty of room. They rode up and unloaded a terrific volley against the Greek light horse.



Charging home then, you'll note that the only residue of the light horse now is the disruption marker on the heavy foot that they ran through before dispersing. Contacting the peltasts then, the Saka were surprised to see the Greek light infantry hold their ground. On the extreme left, we see the Roman cavalry gearing up to try a charge of their own. The Saka would evade.



A small disaster begins to unfold in the center of the northern flank as the light horse finds itself unable to disengage with the non-steady light foot but nor can they damage them. The heavy foot eventually get involved.



Below we see a few turns later that the central Saka light horse are finally sent fleeing toward the rear. Fragmented peltasts are in hot pursuit and approaching more light horse which would evade from them.. The Roman cavalry begins to be boxed in.



We'll come back to the Northern flank later...

The Southern Flank.

The Allied plan was to tie the Greeks up with light horse and concentrate the bulk of their army against the Roman heavy foot, expecting that it would march out to meet them in the center and so get ahead of the Greeks.



Initial advances were going quite well from the Persian perspective. The Cretans and velites had run out ahead of their supports to offer up nice targets for Persian foot. It should be noted that every unit on the table for the Allies wielded bows with the exception of the elephants.



The shot below represents the last moment where the Allied plan was felt to still be achievable. Missile fire has commenced to unsettle the Indianapolis Elephants.



What could go wrong? The elphants are now fragmented. The Roman cavalry charges.



The Persian cavalry, thinking themselves bowmen, opt to evade and are caught by a hair. Not only are they disrupted in the ensuing impact but the commander of the southern flank is slain. His body is then trampled by pursuing Romans when the unit breaks from the melee. It is a small consolation that the Indianapolis elephants trumpeted off into the distance. In the background, Dickus Minimus can be seen galloping to try to discourage the elphants from leaving the battle.



At this point, the Southern flank is reduced in importance. The Persians push in toward the center while the Roman cavalry takes a good long while turning itself about and getting back into the fight.

The Center:

The Indians seek to wait for the Romans to come on to them and then they and Persians and Saka will roll up their flanks cleanly. The opium crop was wonderful that Summer.



Inthe center you can see an attempt by Persians to drive off Velites has gone horribly wrong. They have squarely impacted veteran legionaires. Orders from the allied line were to not support the rogue medium foot but instead to get yourself 3" clear.

Meanwhile some Saka cavalry is managing to draw off a unit of velites, whether it wants to or not.



The pursuit of the Persians begins merrily enough....



..and then it runs into Indian elephants. Surely they will slow down in the face of these monsters.



...those are gragmented markers on the Indian troops. The immortals are patiently wheeling into position on the Roman flank. As far as they are concerned, everything is going very well. Immortality encourages optimism. Indian chariots are fretting about their lack of maneuverability. Fleeing persian infantry have bottled them up.



CRUNCH! WHAMMO! OOF! As the Indian line breaks and the heavy chariots are hit in the flanks, the immortals rollin to the side of the fourth legion.



The remainder of the legion can be seen approaching the remaining half of the Indian line but expectations of any different result are few, especially since there are hoplites coming in also.



The legion is holding on but casualties begin to mount. Can the triarii get forward fast enough? Where is that ROman cavalry that is free on the flank? It seems so distant still.

The Persians are advancing in force against the enclosed field.



Below is a shot of a veteran legion fleeing from Immortals and hevay chariots, just before it is removed due to taking more than 60% casualties.



Before one begins to believe that things might be going well for the Allies, this shows the current state of the Indian army. The chariots are fragmented. Not shown are two similarly fragmented elephants back at the allied campsite.



In the upper corner, the Roman elephants have arrived to try saving the allied medium foot in the fields. Dickus Minimus has taken to riding one. He's gone native for certain. The Immortals by now have impacted the Triarii and we see a titanic struggle of the very best of each army.

The last shot we have. My brain had asploded by this time.

We see the mess that is the Northern flank with fragmented Saka light horse pursuing broken hoplites through their lines. Look at that mess of light and hoplites jumbled together after more light horse had broken off from them.



The Saka armoured horse would go on to charge and break the hoplites that they faced while other hoplites would send that long column of horse archers broken toward their own rear. The northern flank devolves into desparate groups of men fighting to maintain cohesion in the face of chaos.

On the southern flank, the roman cavalry would eventually run down some Persian bowmen and cause them to rout past the Triarii/Immortal fight.

The Immortals, despite losing a few of their brethern, would go on to fragment the Triarii.

The final breaking point was when the Roman elephant refuses to organize itself enough to pull off a charge into the flank of the persina foot. Free to attack the enclosed field, and finally getting some great luck, the Persians managed to break the allied foot quickly, the shame of which subsequently broke the elephants.

After bolstering attempts were made by each side, both armies had simultaneously broken. The Persian/Saka/Indian side had lost 16 toward their break point of 15 and the Indianapolis force had lost 18 toward their 16 break point.

The armies, as exhausted as the players, slunk off without a decision.

*******

It was a fun fight. 1000 points is not excesively large and was quite manageable for 4 players. The veteran legion is a tough nut but we did crack it even after some very bad luck.