Sertorius sprung his ambush and is bloodying the nose of Pompey but at a high cost.

Each force is so evenly matched that cohorts are judiciously seeking best odds where possible. Trying to match up against Recruit level opposition or lower rated TQs, or obtaining the odd size mismatch.

Otherwise the entire attack comes down to who moved and the die roll. It is conceivable that an entire line can be rendered useless with 4 or 5 poor rolls.  The range of results in Caesarian combat Legion on Legion is not great enough to warrant taking risks. It all looks pretty grim for both sides, but Sertorius is racking up RPs inflicted upon his enemy faster than Pompey can inflict RPs.

Current state of the battle field:

Yes! a truly disordered rabble. Units all over the place. Command and control is in chaos. Herennius The Cavalry Leader for Sartroius casts about for someone to attack whilst Afranius attempts to hold the XII together as more units rout.  Petrius leader of the IV routs away one Cohort and suffers a setback in another attack.

Petrius, Afranius and Herennius all participate in attacks. Petrius and Afranius cause some significant losses for Sertorius. Petrius causes a rout, a major withdraw and cohesion damage whilst Afranius hangs tough with the XII, actually attacking back at the now nervous Galatian cohorts. Herennius has a spread of rolls and does some limited damage.

The Medium Infantry (Cohorts ) of Herennius are fighting a tough action against the Pompeian forces who are trying to re connect with the XII Legion.

Pompey decides that if he is to win now is the time. The XIV activates next and routs 2 cohorts of the III, Sertorius’s Cavalry attack as only fierce spaniards can! routing more units from the now surrounded XII. The III Legion attack and kills one of Pompeys cohorts from the V Legion. On the far left flank bloody fighting ensues and two Sertorian cohorts rout. Being Veteran they retreat and re group. each side warily eyeing the other.

The compound effects of two consecutive  attacks followed by a cavalry charge have all but decimated the Right wing for Pompey.

Rout Point Check 31/50 Sertorius/Pompey

The next 5 attacks from this activation see 2 retreats and 2 1’s which mean that Sertorius own forces have to check for rout. Fortunately none fail.  Sertorius moves any cohort with 4 or more cohesion hits to the rear, forming second weak line.

The Galatian force attack again and then seize momentum, the focus? The now ruined XII. As routed Veteran cohorts are attacked again they crumble.

RP check 33/62.

After momentum, 33/87

Afranius attacks. Hoping to take some with him, his forces attack. 39/101.

The rout point cut off for the Pompeian forces is 140. Very high relative to the Sertorians 99. But it is a just a 5% delta on the rout ratio of total strength due to the size of Pompeys army.

Pompey has nearly 70 odd TQ point more than Sertorius.

Sertorius at the moment has a commanding 61 RP point lead. The question is can Pompey recover and kill 60 points before he loses 40 more?

At this point  the RP tally has gone from 62 to 101 in a handful of activation for Pompey. Whilst Sertorius has managed to only incur 8 Rout points in the same time period. Given the 39/101 delta I doubt that Pompey can pull this together and pull off a win. We will call this one for Sertorius. A clear victory and historical result to boot.

This result was a surprise to me. Sertorius was out gunned, and had the potential to be outflanked. I thoughts that even despite the ambush that Pompey would have been able to adjust and compensate.  The trick here was I think, that Sertorius’s forces focused on crushing the one Legion, by pounding again and again  they took several units out of play.

Pompey could not retreat them out of harms way.  Whereas the Sertorian side had the ability to rotate and compress its lines as losses were inflicted.  In the picture below you can see several cohorts hanging back.  They all have 3-5 cohesion hits.

Next up a time warp forward to a Cesarean battle against those vicious Barbarians.

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