Three great games of To The Strongest this Sunday, all Sassanid Persians versus 100YW English. I took the Sassanids for Game One, Kavan for Game Two, and then it was back to me playing the Sassanids in Game Three.

The results? I think it fair to say that the Sassanids did very well indeed, winning all three games! Those of you who are paying attention will have worked out that that meant that the day was two-one to me.

The first game was a glorious victory for both me and the Sassanids, but one largely caused by Kavan’s terrible cards! I used standard tactics: horse archers on the wings keeping his men there occupied whilst the heavy horse and elephants punched their way through the middle.

The second game was a similar affair, but this time it was me on the receiving end. I knew what was coming, so managed to deal with the initial horse archer advance on my right wing with mass longbow fire. In the centre, I had massed my heavies opposite his, but lost two of my three generals in the first round of combat. This effectively stuffed me command-wise, and I got overlapped on the left by those gosh-darned light horsemen as I just couldn’t get the units I needed to activate into action regularly enough. As my left began to crumble, Kavan punched a hole in my centre which he then flooded with the rest of his heavies: the coup de grace coming as he took my camp.

With both of us now very familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of both friendly and enemy troops, the third game was a neck-and-neck affair which either of us could have won. Each side had one camp each, and both fell: mine to mounted men-at-arms that three units of horse archers just couldn’t stop in time; his to another heavy cavalry punch through the middle. I won in the end, but it was a very close run thing.

All in all, an excellent afternoon’s gaming.