Turn 7.....and the rest of the turns in this same Thread. Why have I been creating a new thread for each turn? :)

[Wellsonian]

Turn 7. The marshalling of forces continues. I will be watching closely the enemy cav, and because of the uninspiring turn of events with my right side skirmish, he has some freedom to maneuver. If he gets just out of support range with his left cav force, I'll pounce with Cataphracts and Elephant. Otherwise I will keep moving left slowly, providing some cover to my right flank as I form my battle line.

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 8.

To my surprise, Badger launched his left wing cav and two medium infantry to scatter my right flank skirmishers. It saved his fragmented slingers, but is there something I can exploit there? He now has a separated group of units. I will stick to my plan unless he comes closer. But my Elephant better get behind the lines.....I think his light cav spotted it.
As far as his right wing of cav, they are staying on the hill looking menacing. Since my Cataphracts may be engaged elsewhere, the other two cav units racing to that area will need help. Probably a Cohort of heavy and medium infantry. That high ground may be important, because Badger is withdrawing three heavy infantry units up onto the hills. They all just pivoted 90 degrees. I'll need to get at least four cohorts up on my side of that hill, and to do that, his Cav must go.
If I can just seize Little Round Top!

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 9.

I have committed my right wing of Cav (with Elephant) to his Cav effort, which continued to push. With Cataphracts and the big guy, I like my chances......unless his light cav can disrupt the elephant. The Cav commander jumped on board to help steady them (I'm not sure if he gives any extra bonus by being in the unit vs just in command range, but just in case).
On my left flank, I have formed a group to try and neutralize the Cav "on the hill." All but the medium infantry are Superior, so I am hoping they can survive the awful Cohesion check when they charge. My Cav and the medium infantry will be looking for the flank charge. He is probably waiting for me to get near the slope at which point he will have quite a POA advantage coming downhill, especially his X-Men with the general. I may shift a general to bolster whatever unit is going up against that.........of course, I do manage to get most of my General's killed in these games. I wonder why? The point is, I just need to tie them up enough to get on the flanks. Whoever is left will form up and march on his fight flank hill position at even terrain advantage.
My main battle line is forming up, but because of these clearing efforts, my advantage has dwindled. However, as long as Badger stays nice and safe in his defensive posture, I can take as much time as I need before launching the attack, perhaps even coordinating for once. That is the advantage of the offensive, and I must admit my casualties from missiles have not YET been catastrophic. Now if Badger orders an all out attack? Well let's just get this over! It will get messy quick and could go either way. We still have almost 2/3's of the time left. The Medium Wing has a contingency plan, but ONLY if the cav battle next to them goes well.

 

[Gnarly]

Why have I been creating a new thread for each turn? ​

I had been wondering that too!

 

[Wellsonian]

Turn 10.

Not a lot happened. Badger has placed his hardcore Legions to the front, and hid his undesirables in the back on his main line. His Cav on my left is moving further left, and his Cav on the right stayed mostly still. My Main Force is going to very sneakily slant right when the attack comes in true Echelon Right style, with a couple cohorts guarding my left flank. If I can overwhelm his left flank, it will force him to try and overwhelm my left flank and come off the hill. It would also free up a large portion of the Medium Wing to deal with the isolated backwards moving medium infantry. I completely screwed up the Medium Wing maneuver last turn....all it takes is the wrong move early, without calculating where you want the other units in the group to be able to get to when they move. Movement order is so important. Badger might just attack me out of disgust.

On more jovial news.....Can my light Cav get at least a charge on the Heavy Artillery?

 

[Wellsonian]

Turn 11.

Basically it is crunch time. We will know a lot after Badger sends me the next turn.

 

[Wellsonian]

Turn 12.

Well, we still don't know anything . I had expected him to charge all along the line with his impact foot. Since he didn't, I did and had some wonderful percentages.......and got absolutely nothing. These things happen, and now since we are mainly Roman vs Roman, the Main Line could fight forever. But it always comes down to the flanks anyway. Screenshot #1 shows the main battle line and #2 shows the overall situation.
On my left flank, I've started moving my anti-cav force towards the main line. If he regroups his cav and sweeps wide around my flank, that force will rearguard. Hopefully by the time his cav gets in play, things in the center might be played out.
The cav fight on the right is a weird one. One Cataphract unit and the elephant can probably chase down his Armored Nobles. His other AN's are STILL chasing my broken skirmishers, which is fine by me. My General led Cataphract is moving back toward the medium infantry fight. That should draw his retreating General led X-men into a fight. Should be very even, except for the Cataphract's being fully armored. He will probably attrit me a bit with his skirmishers to even the odds a bit.
Well, a lot of this depends on the dice now!

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 13

In a surprise to me, the X-men Cav unit with General turned left and went to help his beleaguered command, moving toward the elephant and Cataphract. Maybe I can work with that. It means I will lose those units but, in the exact opposite leadership approach, my General and his Cataphracts went the "Mission First" rout, and immediately galloped toward the main fight. He will either help the isolated medium infantry fight, or if not needed, continue on to the flank of the main fight and get to the rear.
In the Main fight, I have POA advantages on all combats but two, where I am even. This means I will suffer double drops all over the place . Because of the advantage I have no desire to chase his right flank cav. He may be trying to pin my Heavy and Light Cohort, plus two Cav units, but I'm pinning his entire Cav wing and 2 mediums. I'll wait until he comes down.
I do have a worry about the far right. How will my Thracians with HW fair against the Imitation Legionnaires? If I can survive impact, I like my chances, since the HW negates the armor advantage. If that goes badly, AND the medium fight farther right also goes badly......well I only have one Cataphract unit. If either / or goes badly, then I think the cav can come to the rescue.

As a note, Badger has lured me into more traps then I can count. I am sure there is a master plan that I am walking right into!

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 14.

I was rather verbose on my screenshots, so I'll skip a recap here because I am short on time tonight. By the way, I meant "annoying" on that first slide.

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 15

An interesting turn to be sure. The "isolated medium" fight went well, with my disrupted medium foot holding fast against his steady MF charge, and then broke the other fragmented MF. This disrupted the other enemy unit. So now they are square up (both disrupted) with my Cataphracts menacing the flank. They will go in next turn UNLESS Badger's sure to come charge against my right flank Thracians disrupts them.
The Main battle line saw me break the command unit in the middle of the pack, and since they are well below 50% they won't come back, even with the General (broken units with Generals test for rally every turn, while regular units do it sporadically). There were 5 enemy cohesion tests because of that, and they ALL held fast (sigh). Even the disrupted heavy artillery for cryin' out loud. . I then proceeded to draw every other combat.

A lot happened on the left flank, and I annotated the screenshot (number 3). Badger has a lot of options this turn, and I am just trying to buy enough time to finish the main fight. We will see what witchcraft he will bring. Every game he pulls something I never saw coming, and it might just be this turn.

On the far right/rear the other cav fight saw my cav hold against the Xmen charge allowing the Elephant to break the enemy cav and pursue out of danger. The remaining Cataphract is going to get crushed, as the second enemy Armored Noble unit has finally come back from its very lengthy anti-slinger crusade.

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 16

The left flank continues to get weaker, his center somehow holds but should show major cracks on his turn. I mean, if that disrupted artillery holds again against Vet Romans led by a General, not only might it cost me the battle, I won't even be able to feel bad about it. What can you do? I raced my cav by his cav. Either he turns and locks me in, or goes towards the main fight. I will respond accordingly.
My Elephant is hightailing it to the main fight. I'm hoping he draws the other cav to him. Either way, he is only faking. I'm not running into all those foot lights. He will turn around and try and hunt the last Armored Noble unit.
Not a lot of maneuver opportunities on my side. Embrace the grind!

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 17? Although it says 18. I haven't looked in a while so I was probably off. Anyways...next turn.

The grind continues, and finally those hard charging Artillerymen are out of the way. Next turn my General led vets can flank and hopefully finish off his last infantry General. This is imperative, because one of those units are gong to have turn and help the two fresh Cohorts on my left face what is coming from their left, enemy cav. The other infantry unit will dispatch the imitation Cohort, who hopefully will come off the hill in an attempt to save his commander. I anticipate enemy cav will be free and roaming after Badgers turn unless I get the magical "amazingly, despite...." cohesion roll with my medium infantry on the left.
On my right side of the main fight, I just need the Thracians to get one more hold so I can maneuver my Cataphracts on the flank of the enemy facing them. If not, the Cataphracts will have to make a non flank charge. Maybe. The Elephant will start to veer left toward the enemy nobles he is chasing, to avoid the swarm of foot light infantry hovering around the isolated medium fight.

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 19

It is coming down to the weird phase. Where will his pursuing cav go? How long will they pursue? How quickly can the mop up of the main line fight happen? Stay tuned. Screenshots annotated.

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 20

My Cataphracts definitely earned their fancy armor. Crashing into the rear of imitation legionaries and breaking them, they then went on to break two other units and force a third to bolt on a cohesion test. Then they rolled into the flank of the cav unit threating my rear. Well done boys. The other action you can see on the screenshot.
My task now (mostly) is to reorganize and fight off his cav. This will by necessity a defensive operation. I can't chase the Cavalry.

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 21

Pretty soon, he will be out of reach and I will be firmly on the defensive. He got yet another full unit rally in the woods, so now I will most likely have to tackle his vet Legion on the hill, if there is time. I sketched my plan on the screenshot.
My Elephant will assist the Cataphracts who currently hold a 57-1 % advantage against the armored nobles. When they pursue, I hope they do it for only one turn, or they will get swarmed by Badger's cav in the hinterland.

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 22

Coming down to it now. The screenshot pretty much describes the situation. A lot hinges on my Elephant surviving a flank charge from the General led Xmen. Accordingly, my C-of-C mounted his command Elephant, Colossus.

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 23

Badger has decided to take the sure two points for a draw. Since this is the Digital League, I can understand for sure. But I would have liked a chance to get the last 3% I need. Maybe Badger will get complacent and leave a light in danger? Doubt it!

 

[Wellsonian]

TURN 24

We have fought to an exhausting, brutal, and bloody draw. Well played by Badger73, who forced me to come up with a new plan almost every turn. I had a great time on this DAR, and it taught me I can be better if I don't try and play so fast. But, then again, I am who I am!