Being a sad individual, I was stuck indoors last Saturday night looking after the kids, so I thought I would take the opportunity once they had gone to bed, to re-acquaint myself with Impetus and with the Sassanid Empire. Since their first outing against other opposition, several years ago, my Sassanids have been waiting for their ‘proper’ opponents – Late Romans – to see the light of day. As you will see from the unfinished bases on the archers lurking at the back of the Comitatenses these remain a work in progress.

As this was an ad hoc affair I didn’t bother with any terrain. Could be all sorts of rationale for this – meeting engagement, both sides thought marsh, hills, rough terrain would hamper their plan etc etc, but in reality I was just too lazy to dig around in the attic and find relevant bits of stuff at that time of night.

So, also deciding that as it wasn’t a competition game I could abandon the camps the rules normally required, I wrote out a couple of lists and off I went (this was a solo event of course – where am I going to find another wargamer at that notice on a Saturday night?).

I’d recently been re-reading notes from the Impetus forum on why Sassanid CM should not bother fighting melees and should shoot. In fact, most people seem to think ALL Sassanids should be LC, but I for some reason known only to myself had previously opted for a CM (medium cavalry) based army. So CM it was, shooting was the game.

SASSANID

CS Average 12 points

Gen Expert 3   30 points                                                                                                         42

                                    M         VBU   I           D         VD      PTS

CP Pushtigbhan          8          7          3          B         3          35        Comp Bow C              77

CM Savaran                10        5          1          B         3          29        Comp Bow B              106

“                                                                                                                                              135

“                                                                                                                                              164

“                                                                                                                                              193

“                                                                                                                                              222

“                                                                                                                                              251

CL Nomads                12        3          0          B         1          22        Comp Bow B              273

“                                                                                                                                              295

Finally facing them, though not quite finished were the Late Romans:

LATE ROMANS (EASTERN)

CS Good 20 points

Gen Expert 3 30 points                                                                                                           50

                                    M         VBU   I           D         VD      PTS

CP Cataphracts           10        6          3          B         3          30                                            80

“                                                                                                                                              110

CL Illyricani                12        3          1          B         1          21        Javelin                         131

“                                                                                                                                              152

CLEquites Sagitarii     12        3          0          B         1          22        Comp Bow B              174

FP Comitatenses         5          5          1          B         3          21        Long Spear                  195

T          Sagitarii           6          3          0         B         1          10        Short Bow A               205

FP Comitatenses         5          5          1          B         3          21        Long Spear                  226

T          Sagitarii           6          3          0         B         1          10        Short Bow A               236

FP Comitatenses         5          5          1          B         3          21        Long Spear                  257

T          Sagitarii           6          3          0         B         1          10        Short Bow A               267

FP Comitatenses         5          5          1          B         3          21        Long Spear                  288

T          Sagitarii           6          3          0         B         1          10        Short Bow A               298

I’ve always liked the Sassanids as a wargame army but I’ve never been any good or had any luck with them. No change here. Based properly or not the Romans threw a double 6 for their first Initiative roll and the General got promoted to Genius level for the rest of the battle.

The Romans went forward with their light cavalry on the wings – rather rashly but as it turned out successfully. The infantry and heavy cavalry sat there and applauded.

As you can see here with the Sassanid lights having trouble. Not sure what the die is doing by the Roman Heavy Cav, unless the Savaran have got a lucky hit on cavalry at long range – I thought they were effectively out of range at this point.

While the LC danced around and shot at each other the Savaran and one Pushtigbhan advanced as quickly (not that quickly as it turned out) as they could and tried to shoot the Romans.

The Roman left flank managed to luckily remove the Sassanid LC archers opposite them but one of the javelin armed Illyrians got as pounding.

The Roman left flank LC, victorious but bruised

In the meantime all that advice about shooting Romans to pieces seemed to be starting to pay off

So much so that the Roman, as yet untouched, Illyrians were wiped out in a turn, despite attempting to evade.

Not sure why the Sassanid bow armed LC on their left have 2 x 2hit markers – it should be a Disrupted marker and 2 hits (they only started at VBU 3 anyway). The Roman line is getting disordered at an alarming rate.

In move 3 the Roman Heavy Cavalry finally decided to do something and charged. To their surprise CM can now evade and the Sassanids Savaran did so, but at least it stopped the shooting for a bit.

At least what was left of the Roman archers got their act together and started hitting a few of the Sassanid cavalry.

In a couple of moves the Roman Heavy Cavalry managed to destroy one set of Sassanid CM and drive another off while the javelin armed LC got around the flank of the Savaran and started causing some mayhem. The Savaran shot the Roman infantry to pieces but because it was causing casualties on the rear units it left the Spear armed Comitatenses untouched. The Savaran had to get really close to do this and left themselves open to a counter by the infantry. They tried to evade but a series of bad dice throws on discipline tests meant they sat there open mouthed at the Roman audacity. In their weakened state, having taken some stick from the Short Bows A of the Romans while they were there, the Savaran got a pounding. This wasn’t helped by the Sassanid General getting captured as the Pushtigbhan failed a Cohesion test with a 6 in Melee. Nobody seemed to care much to be honest, they knew he was rubbish, but it didn’t help.

The Roman Javelin armed cavalry are causing the Sassanid right some grief and the Sassanid centre has just evaporated.

The evening ended suddenly as the Sassanid army dramatically went over its break point in a moment. The Roman archers had all been destroyed but the Comitatenses saved the day while the Roman Heavy Cavalry sat around on the right flank looking pleased with itself for having destroyed one Savaran unit and made another evade to the edge of the table.

I was pretty rusty with the rules but they came back quickly enough, including amendments like CM being able to evade if they pass a discipline test.

There will be more, and I can now report that everyone’s base is properly textured. I think the Sassanid infantry will have to make an appearance soon as the Romans are obviously pushing deeper into Iranian territory having won this one.