Aurelian at the club

Our last night of club play this year saw 10 guys out. There was both Blood Bowl (below) and Dread Ball (no pic), which looked fun.

Bruce was keen to bloody his Persians so brought some 15mm Aurelian out. He and I took the Romans against Chen and Dave's Persians. The Persians are a tough army to play--lots of light troops, some terrible rabble, and then a few terrifying heavy elements.

Having never played before, Dave's announcement that the Persians would try a double envelopment was greeted with derisive laughter from onlookers. But damned if it didn't almost work!

Here is a mid-game shot with the Roman's closing in the middle (they were under time pressure) and the Persian wings staring to nibble at the flanks. The Romans would get lucky in the middle, damaging the elephants before closing for some decisive combat. The game could easily have gone the other way if the elephant and cataphract fights had gone Persian.

In the end, the Persians ran out of cards. This was my exact experience last week playing British warbands in the same scenario. There just aren't quite enough cards for the defender to run an active defence and run out the objective clock on the Romans.

The defender either needs to play a static delaying action (tough for the Persians given their crap infantry) or do something decisive to cost the Roman cards through cohort loss. That said, it was a closer game that is should have been: Dave and Chen are wily card optimizers.

Up next: Some more 54mm AWI!