We managed another mid-week game of To the Strongest with me and “Broken Dice” taking the Seleucid force while the Pyric force commanded by Nigel and Paul.
The Seleucids deployed with a cavalry heavy left wing and our right flank contained a lot of hills and woods. And relied on the skirmishing capabilities of their light troops to protect the flanks of the phalanx. The Pyric deployment roughly mirrored ours with their heaviest cavalry on their right wing.
Now on my flank I was trying to get my skirmishing troops into cover but failed on some early manoeuvres. This led to Paul advancing his light cavalry through the woods to deny me the opportunity.
Along the rest of the battlefield the skirmishing started while on our left flank there were some early cavalry engagements.
The phalanxes soon engaged with the usual back and forth, but the Seleucids had taken early loses and we needed to inflict damage on the Pyric forces as soon as possible to level things up.
On the right flank the Pyric flank command had seized the cover and I was struggling to make any headway with my skirmishing forces while the Pyric light horse were annoying my pike.
On our left “Broken Dices” elephant was worried as it faced off against a pike block having taken a casualty and become disordered.
It had every right to be as it took another casualty and routed. The only consolation that its “rampage” did no real damage.
On m flank I had a hoplite unit that needed to rally, I decided to do this first drew an “ace” so not only did I not rally but that ended the activation for that command.
The Pyric phalanx on our right now drove off the two units of cavalry, things were now getting complicated, and our army was close to collapse with only 6 of our “victory medals” left before we broke.
Then we were down to “3 victory medals” as another of our cavalry units quit the field.
We then had some success as we managed to break a unit of pike to give us some breathing space.
Just after that we managed to rout a unit of elephants which made things even closer.
Now across the field things had really gotten complicated with pike blocks and cavalry facing in all sorts of directions as both sides tried to go for the “kill”. First opportunity fell to the Pyric when one of their pike units hit my twice disordered hoplite unit. If I failed the save we would lose the game but luckily I managed to save with an 8 😥. On our next turn we were able to inflict enough casualties to strip the last victory medals off the Pyric forces to win.
So once again another close and enjoyable game with not a ruler or protractor in sight 🤣😃.
The Uncivil Servant 