With the Alexandrian Macedonians defeated twice by Peter’s Made-Up Ancient Indian army (designed to experiment with the relatively new Light Infantry - Elephant Screen troop type) it was time to give someone else a go: step forward my trusty Venetians.

I’d like, at this point, to laucnh into an exciting battle report where the initiative, luck and clever use of tactics swung first one way then the other, all culminating in a glorious Venetian victory by the narrowest of margins…but I can’t. The appalling cards that had been the downfall of the Macedonians followed me into this game with entirely predictable results:

Well that’s not entirely fair on Peter: having won the scouting, his skillful deployment meant that I was largely on the back foot from the start, with his army almost wholly threatening my right flank.

I had, however, managed to get my troops into a position to blunt if not fully counter his attack, but was then, as you can see, betrayed by the cards.

Okay, so the mounted ballesteri lights in the first picture might not have done much to the elephant they were trying to assault, but the Knights in the second picture were surely onto a chicken-dinner winner! And don’t talk to me about the Knights versus the chariots in the third picture: what you aren’t seeing is the rear charge that they had also failed to make in the previous turn!

Here’s a helicopter-view shot of early in the battle showing the way Peter had managed to get onto my right flank and effectively fight a third of my army with all of his:

But hopefully you can also see how I have managed to get my troops into a position where I have Knights ready to counter his cavalry and have manouevred to get a two:one advantage on his lead attacking unit (see close up picture, below) all brought to nothing by the cards!

So that was the end of our session: three defeats for me at the hands of the Made-Up Indians with their high numbers of Elephant Screen units.

Even though the Screeners didn’t make that much difference to the results in the end (my losses were down to Peter’s skillful play and the cards) I am still quite glad that they are made-up Indians and not one I expect to face in future!

Just off to tend to a small bonfire in the back garden, and anyone know where’s the best place to get some new sets of cards!