Rome vs Rome!! Last battle of the campaign season.

 Howdy all. Well here is our last Tactica game for this campaign season at Mikes house. And what a doosy it was!
For this game we had two legions face off from the Roman civil war. Late Republican vs Late Republican. The forces were balanced and identical. So this would be the perfect chess match with the Tactica rules.

The gamers were, Mike, Wendell, Ken, Bill and myself. Mike, Wendell and Frank were on one side and Bill and I were on the other.

Each side secretly planned their initial setup. In Tactica this is one of the most critical parts of the game as nearly everything stems from this initial arrangement of the troops. To every one's surprise, each side mirrored the other for the most part with a few differences that would turn out to make all the difference in this game.

Here are some pictures of our initial set up.

 It is difficult to see here (or near impossible) but there is another cavalry unit in the left corner off screen. That unit plus the cavalry seen on the far left side are supported by light infantry.

This light infantry will play a crucial roll in the game.

This series of pictures show the initial two turns which involved a rapid and massive cavalry action on  our left flank. By the way Bill and I have the army on the right side of the picture while Mike, Wendell and Ken are on the left a

 Our infantry moved up to support the cavalry on our left while we held back our right flank hoping to force them to attack while being pelted by our balistas as seen below.

 And here you can see that the enemy had no other choice than to launch their cavalry at us.

 Below we see the massive cavalry battle between Ken and myself. Ken's troops are in the upper part of the battle. You can see that their infantry was able to support their cavalry before our could assist because our cavalry had raced too far ahead overconfident in a rapid decimation of Ken's forces.

 Here you can see the lines of each Legion advancing on each other to the right of the cavalry action.

 And another shot further to the right.

 And here is our far right flank with Wendell's cavalry advancing towards us under a constant rain of missiles.

 Please excuse the laps of time but the pictures now race ahead a couple of frantic and desperate turns where all of my cavalry was destroyed by the brilliant and brave Ken! Above and below you can see that this allows Ken to sweep around my flank.

 Further to the right the Legions clash together!

 And all the way to our far right flank where Bill's light cavalry has turned the enemies left flank while his infantry engages the last of Wendell's cavalry.

 More success for the enemy!!! They have decimated my entire left flank. Below you can see that three full cohorts, a unit of heavy cavalry and two units of light infantry are free to move about unopposed. Off camera they have a unit of light cavalry too!

 But meanwhile on our right, Bill has been able to remove their cavalry and sweep behind their lines with some light infantry and light cavalry while engaging the cohorts to his front.

Here we can see the Bill's cohort has turned the enemies left flank.

 While here they have done the same to our left flank. The tension is unbearable as both side frantically roll each combat down the line.

Alas the pictures of the fight have run out but not the action. The last two turns are nail biters as crucial moral saves are made by each side. But with a God like effort Mike saves the day  for his team!!! In a series of dice rolls the like of which has never been seen, Mike inflicts enough casualties to destroy our center and sends too many Romans to meet their ancestors. Game over, we loose but it was so close!

We all had a wonderful time at Mikes as always. Who can not enjoy playing with his wonderful collection which brings us to the part where I display some of his troops through my meager efforts to take pictures.
Please enjoy.

 Hey what do you know? I painted the table.

Please excuse the last couple of pictures as they were taken after I fell on my sword.
Thanks for looking and all comments are welcome.
Game well my friends!!