Another Go At Mursa

Jamie and managed to fit in one more game before he headed back to York for the new University year.  It was a replay of the Mursa scenario that I ran at Berkeley recently.

Jamie led the forces of the eastern emperor Constantius, furthest from the camera in the picture below.  He had the advantage of me in cavalry, particularly in the form of a six-element command of Goth foederati on his left flank (extreme top right of the pic below).

I, on the other hand, as Magnentius, had a stronger infantry command on my left and began the game trying to push them forward with a view to cutting through to Jamie's camp.

Sadly, I drew an ace early on leaving one of my legionary units isolated on my extreme left well in advance of the min line.  That's it in the picture below, the red unit on the extreme left of the field. However, my German auxiliaries (centre of the table) were able to make considerable ground.

Jamie pushed forward his cavalry and began working on pushing me off the hill on my extreme right flank.

Goth horsemen approach the base of the hill. 

Eastern cataphracts advance

Magnentius's Auxilia Palatina advance alongside Gaulish auxiliaries.

Once again Fortune spits in my eye. On game turn two I draw a 10 counter to advance my second Legionary cohort to support the first, which is still exposed on the left.  This allows me to move but makes it most unlikely that I'll be able to activate a second time later in the move.  Magnentius is with the unit, though, and I decide to use his ability to redraw the counter and get something lower."  It is lower.  I draw a one and that command's turn is over.  Grrr!

Fierce fighting develops as Constantius's central cavalry command takes on Magnentius's German infantry.

Constantius's infantry form a thin line to defend their camp.

The armies are now engaged all across the field. Diagonally "cocked" units have become disordered as a result of the fighting.

The two lines of Legionaries square off. (Square off, you see?
To The Strongest!  Square Grid?  Oh please yourself!) 

On my right, Jamie's small unit of cataphracts (yellow cloaks) charge into the flank of the Roman heavy cavalry commanded by my attached general Marcellinus.  Marcellinus's unit was disordered and in the pic below you can see that I've withdrawn it (bottom left).

I then charged the flank of the cataphracts with the other heavy cavalry unit in Marcellinus's command.  The cataphracts are a small unit and can therefore take only one hit to destroy.  Despite their excellent save value (5+ as they were veterans) the flank charge was too much to resist and the Western cavalry swept over them.

The first successful attack on the infantry flank saw Magnentius's second cohort (now caught up with the first) disordered by their Constantian opposite numbers...

To the right of my legionaries, my Gaullish auxiliaries started to make progress.

The cavalry melee continued but one unit of Germans (extreme far left in the pic below) made it through a gap in the Constantian line...

And breached the defences of enemy camp.

This wasn't enough to break Constantius's army but with time running out we decided to call it a marginal win for Magnentius.

So that's one win for each side in our refights of Mursa.  I now need to find another suitable Late Roman action to have a go at.