A pretty game of "Aurelian"

Hey all!

Well, got in a game of "Aurelian" today, which was good fun!

The battle was Romans (my side) against Persians.  It was a six man game; we adjusted by just using one deck per side, but then adding a second set of "generic" cards to each hand.

The first few shots are before we deployed for the game, and we just had all the troops set up in their respective groups of same units... so they look big and bold, but each stand was actually a unit, once we started playing!

It was a tricky game... I've now played Romans vs Persians a few times, and to be honest, I find it VERY frustrating.  With the Romans you have lots of great infantry, but trying to get to grips with the best archers in the game while keeping your flanks free of enemy cavalry is just not something I've figured out yet.  It doesn't help that I've gone up against two of the stronger and more wily cavalry specialists in the area:(

This game saw the Romans basically set up in a long line, with one flank anchored on some rough ground and held with archers and elite infantry, and the other anchored with cavalry.  The Persians responded with cavalry at both ends and a TON of infantry (excellent archers, cheap infantry, and elephants) in the center.  The Persians, rather predictably, used their cavalry to pick at a flank (damn horse archers are hard to deal with:( ) and ran their archers and elephants up the middle!  We eventually charged down at them, but it was, I think, too late to achieve victory.

Anyway... enough talk; here are some photos!

Some Roman auxiliaries.

The Roman veteran legions are looking for some enemies!

Some massed Persian archers.

Some light archers, fighting for the Romans.

War elephants!

One of the leaders of the Persian infantry.

The Romans are ready!

Last shot of them all together, before the fight...

The game!  Romans are deploying to their left flank to hold it, and then planning to use cavalry to hold the far flank.

Roman veteran legions begin moving to the left flank.  The Romans have a rule that requires them to initially deploy their elites nearer the center of the field, as the Romans actually did.  The Persians have no such qualms!

The Persian war elephants are backed by tons of crappy infantry...

And flanked by a LOAD of quality archers!

The view from behind the Roman lines.

The elephants move up, under relatively ineffective fire from the Roman archers.

They continue forward...

And up the slope!  One elephants is badly hurt and panics, running off, but the others keep grinding the Romans down...

Meanwhile, in the center, the Roman heavy cavalry attacks the Persian archers, who shoot a number of valiant Romans out of their saddles!

The center is a mess!

Several units of archers are smashed under the hooves of the Roman heavy cavalry, but some of the Romans are actually beaten back!

Finally the Romans come down of the hill, but it might be too little, too late.

I had to leave, so missed the end, but it looked bad for the Romans:(