My third outing at this year’s world’s was against Dillon’s Pergamene: a core of infantry and cavalry supported by lots (minimum eight units) of light infantry.

My plan was simple. Hold his cavalry and lights in place on each wing (legionaries to do the job on the left, my cavalry to do the job on the right) whilst advancing forward strongly to crush the inferior Pergamene infantry in the centre.

The action began on the right wing with the Pergamene cavalry coming forward to engage my equites. I chanced a charge with my contariorum lancers and immediately became disordered (which just goes to show that if you have a plan you should stick with it for at least the first turn!) but otherwise the threat of my veteran horse did the trick and seemed to hold up the enemy advance.

Elsewhere on the field, the other Pergamene cavalry command had hung back (Dillon drawing an Ace for his first group move), so I took the opportunity to move my main line forward, English at Agincourt style, to put him under a bit of pressure.

The Pergamene line on the left and centre came forward and the first main clash took place.

This went very much to my advantage, with the legionaries on the far left disposing of an enemy squadron of horse and the veteran legionaries in the centre routing one of the Pergamene army’s three formed infantry units. Four coins up was good, even if one cohort of legionaries had become disordered.

Now contact had been made, it was time to start using the Roman mincing machine to cut through the enemy line. Here’s a tryptych of pictures that show this phase of the game, left to right:

The Pergamene right flank then collapsed spectacularly, with the only units left to them there being a few light infantry that I had to continually send off the board.

Although everything was going well on the left, the action there had tied up a lot of my troops (four of my five heavy infantry units). This meant that the centre was being held by the veteran legionaries (well known for collapsing at the first sight of blood!) and the right by my horse (outnumbered and outclasssed).

The centre proved annoyingly sticky: two veteran legionaries versus one enemy infatry unit supported by a couple of light unts should have been a foregone conclusion…but wasn’t.

And the right was now looking distinctly dodgy:

Fortunately, the initiative then fell to me and, using a little bit of luck, I was able to finish off the Pergamene by firstly taking one of their camps with a rather sweet “10” drawn for a move…