Scenario 3: Control the River (2nd go)

 The battle forms part of a larger Campaign (see Projects and Procrastination blog for details), and represents a border clash between two states. Army Red (North) always moves first in this Scenario. The game was played using original Portable Wargame Ancients rules. Exhaustion Point (EP) was set at 21SP for both sides.

The objective is to control (have a unit placed on) both crossing points by Turn 15 or when both sdes reach EP. The battlefield has an impassable wooded grid square to the North of the river and a small hill to the South. The river can only be crossed using the bridges (the right hand bridge is improvised as I couldn't find another home made one that would fit the grid square!) Armies were randomly generated; Red has 4 heavy infantry, 1 heavy archer, 1 heavy cavalry and a Commander; Green has 3 heavy infantry, 2 heavy archers, 1 heavy cavalry and a commander.

The opening moves saw Red split is force fairly equally between the two objectives; Green weighted his defence slightly towards the RH/improvised bridge.

Red initially controlled both crossings, having the advantage of always moving first and slightly less distance to travel favoured the attackers. Both sides took hits from archer fire during the early phase of the battle.

Unsurprisingly the game was static until, at turn 7, Red pushed forward to engage the pesky archers that has been slowly reducing one of his infantry units.

It looked very much like Red would achieve the objective, but his cavalry, that had held the RH bridge from the start, finally broke and as both sides reached EP the objectives were split between the two sides. The two exhausted forces withdrew, both claiming victory!