Here is what I can remember of the weekend's festivities.

My apologies to Ray as the events of Friday are a bit hazy, curtesy of being plied with booze during the afternoon (and why not, when they decide to sell 3 pints of lager for the price of two!).

Although things are not too clear, I'll attempt to write up my weekends escapades-

My army was as follow-

Sub-Gen 1 (Trajanus) Reg Cv(O),  2 x Reg Bw(I), 2 x Reg Bw(O), 2 x Reg Ax(S) plus 2 x Reg Ps(O) supports, 1 x Ax(O), 4 x Reg Cv(O), 3 x Reg Lh(O), 1 x Reg Lh(F) and 2 x Irreg Lh(F)

ME 24.5, Disheartened 6.6, Broken 8.5, Shattered 12.5

C-in- C (Constantius II Inert) Reg Bd(O), 7 x Reg Bd(O) plus 4 x Reg Ps(O) supports, 4 x Reg Ax(S) plus 4 x Reg Ps(O) supports, 4 x Reg Ps(S), 12 x Irreg Wb(O)

ME 30, Disheartened 8.0, Broken 10.5, Shattered 15.5

Sub-Gen 2 (Ursicinus) Reg Cv(O), 4 x Reg Bw(O), 2 x Reg Ax(S) plus 2 x Reg Ps(O) supports, 1 x Ax(O), 6 x Reg Kn(X), 3 x Reg Lh(O), 1 x Reg Lh(F) and 2 x Irreg Lh(F)

ME 32.5, Disheartened 8.5, Broken 11.0, Shattered 16.5

Baggage train 6 x Bge(F)

ME 3, Disheartened 1.0, Broken 2.0, Shattered 2.0

Game 1 Late Roman vs Sasanids (Constantius II vs Sharpur II)

I cannot remember who was the invader (I think I was but I honestly cannot remember), but the battle was during spring. I placed rough terrain to try and limit movement on the flanks, which worked quite well in that it also limited Ray's deployment. I used a `historical' deployment with  Trajanus command on the left of Constantius II command that was in the center with Ursicinus command to the right of him. I think Ray had 4 commands plus a baggage command. One of the commands was his Chionite (Hun) allied command comprising of Lh(S)and this was facing my left mounted command. He had three groups of Cv(S), a group of El(O) Ray's entire army was Irregular, and oddly both the same date, 360AD.. We both moved towards each other, with Ray's right hand command trying to work its way around my left hand command, and me doing something similar with my Lh on my right side. Ray was very unlucky to have in one bound my left hand Bw killing a Cv(S), and then in the combat phase in the same bound I believe he lost another 3 Cv(s) from the same command, breaking it. The very next bound Ray destroyed 5 elements from Trajanus' command, breaking it. A battle royale broke out in the center and to my right and rather unexpectedly I killed several elements from a weakened command, breaking that, leading to Ray's entire army then being broken. A very good game played in equally good spirits (both in mood and liquid form!) A 20-5 victory to me.

Game 2 Late Roman vs French Ordinance.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

This game saw victory going to Constantius' head.

Richard had placed a wide river that went from his rear edge to my left edge. I was the invader again, and the dice determined it was my choice to attack an hour before dawn, or at sun rise.

I chose to do the night attack, big mistake!

Richard deployed his entire army behind the river, which was difficult terrain for foot and rough terrain for mounted. I deployed first as I doubled the die roll. I deployed in the same formation as I had against Ray. I had two choices, either to stay where I was and wait until dawn and see what Richard did, or go on the offensive and attempt to attack across the river. I chose the latter. I think we made a mistake about whether there was a moon or not as Richard rolled a 1 and I rolled a 2 for deployment dice, indicating there was a moon which would have set after the third bound, I think we got a bit confused and took his score away from mine, leaving it as a 1, indicating no moon. Never mind, it did really not have that much of an effect. Therefore, max movement rate was limited to the visibility distance of 80p.

Anyway, I slowly made my way forward to the river and dawn broke as I was nearing his Art(S)firing distance. Richard began to pick off my Ps(S) screen and also managed to recoil several Wb element blocks before I finally got to get into the river to engage his forces. I managed to destroy the 2 Art(S) that where at that point, breaking that command. However, my Wb made no impression on the Swiss Pk(S) also defending there, and he also moved some Kn(S) elements to plug the gap. My left command managed to cross the river but were beaten off and became disheartened, I elected to then retire that command out of harms way. A bout of insanity led me to throwing my Kn(X) into the river to attack a Richards WWg's defending the river bank! The battle see-sawed for awhile, a Bd element destroyed a Kn(S) after a Wb element flanked it, but my Kn(X) made no impression on the WWg. My center command became close to disheartened having loss 7 Wb elements plus all of the Ps(S) and an As(S)/Ps(O) combo. This was the point where Richard unleashed the Kn(S) upon my right command and they recoiled my Kn(S) back through the river onto my side of it. I lost more elements there and the command finally broke that bound, at the same time as the center command became disheartened, having lost 8.5 ME, the two ME for being within the distance of a broken command broke that command, game over. I lost 3-22.

Game 3 Late Roman vs Seljuk Turk (Or Constantius goes totally loon!)

The next game was against Steve's Lh/Cv army. I will only say that I deployed with Trajanus command on the right and Ursicinus on the left this time. Steve managed to work his way around both flanks, broke my right command, disheartened my left, then broke my baggage, which broke the army as part of my left command was within the distance where they took the 2 ME for being near a broken command, as well as losing the 3 ME the baggage command had boosted it by. A conversation about the effect of a broken baggage command elicited a number of conflicting opinions, again showing me that no one knows quite how baggage works, and what happens when a baggage command breaks. A 0-25 loss.

Game 4 Late Roman vs Neo-Assyrian. (Constantius on the defensive)

My terrain dice gods were on my side as I managed to place two rough hills and a scrubby flat on my side of the table and guess where I deployed 99% of my army, yep you got it!

I let Bill come to me, and I know it was the cowards way out, but two big losses had cooled my ardour. Plus I had no great desire to fight Kn(S)! This was a good game non the less, a goodly number of fights broke out and I think the 15-10 to Bill was a fair result considering. I will always remember Bill's bemused looks at the antics of two of my irreg Lh who rode around and around a patch of scrubby flat all game! 10-15 losing draw.

Game 5 late Roman vs Sui Chinese (Constantius redeems himself)

Now, I fancied my chances against this type of army. My Wb are effective Bw/Bw(X) killers and Jan knew this. I deployed as per I did against Steve, and headed towards Jan's forces. Jan pulled all his Bw(X) towards his left and his Kn(X) also concentrated on that wing as well, his Cv(S)+(O) and Lh on his right attempted to worm their way around my flank. I managed to effectively counter the attack on my left, sending one of my Reg Lh(F) to sack his Bge(I) (hurrah!).  In the center My Wb with Ax(S) support wheeled towards the Bw(X) whilst turned my Bd that were behind them into column and sent them to my right. They arrived at a fortuitous moment as my attack on the right was being stalled by Jan's Bw(X) and Kn(X) combo. Much to Jan's surprise I did a combined Wb/Ax/Bd attack on his Kn(X), with Constantius leading the attack!!! Contantius' element killed a Kn(X), another was killed by another combo and two bounds later one of my Bd hit his Sub-Gen in charge of the Bw(X) command, with another element to overlap it. I required a 6-1 to kill the element, guess what, yep, I did it! This really threw Jan as this meant a large chunk of his army was now broken. In a subsequent bound my right hand mounted command became disheartened this is where I did something daft again. That command need just 0.5 ME to break. Instead of throwing a Bd/Ps(O) combo against one of his broken Bw(X) combo's facing one of my last Bw(O), I chose to shoot it out instead. It was the last bound and Jan threw high, I threw low, the Bw died and my right hand mounted command broke. The game ended with me gaining a 15-10 victory. Again, the thorny issue of what happens when a Bge command is broken arose, and again we got various interpretations. (Jan got his account a bit wrong as it was definatly his Sub-gen I killed and not his C-in-C as he was leading the forces trying to worm around my left flank)

Game 6 Late Roman vs Kushite Egyptian

Another very interesting game, I was the defender and managed to get several rough hills and some scrub on my side of the table as well as on Keith's side, slightly restricting his deployment, which was also helped by Keith placing a waterway down the right side of my table (by the way Keith, you left this terrain feature on the table when you left and I will return it to you when we next meet). I deployed as per against Ray, and waited for Keith to trundle upto me. Unfortunately, Keith's Bw chopped the bow on my left wing to pieces and my Lh did not fare so well against his Cv. My own Cv elected just to remain out of harms way. A real ding-dong battle broke out in the center and right side, with the pair of us losing elements of Kn. The game ended with my two mounted commands being disheartened, and the left hand one needed just 0.5 ME to break it (we remembered that one of my Lh(O) was spent rather than broken, meaning instead of my having lost 9ME, it had in fact only lost 8ME plus one spent at the end of the game. I believe one of Keith's commands was also disheartened and the game ended with me getting a 10-15 losing draw.

A very good weekend in spendid company.