I was typing up the battle report and something struck me as odd. With my terrible dice throwing I still managed to scrape out a victory of sorts. Tactically the plan was sound but my skirmishers melting away and my cavalry struggling to overcome inferior numbers I thought a Persian victory was on the cards.
And yet my foot held firm and won through quite comfortably - as did the cavalry in the end.
I read through again and realised what I'd done. When Russ first put up his army list he'd included 2BG's of Apple Guards (2 x 4 bases). To counteract that I had to add an additional 48 points to my army - so added in another BG of pike. I then printed out the list to use on the night.
However, Russ then admitted that he'd miscalculated and should only had 4 bases of Apple Guards. I therefore took the pikes off the spreadsheet and printed out the new army.
On the night, Mrs B was coming back from Norwich and was due to arrive at 6:30pm but delays etc. meant she got back at around 7:30pm. I'd been rushing around - picking kids up, cooking dinner etc. and putting my troops into a box for transportation. When doing this I'd put the troops in according to the list I had...you guessed it, the wrong list!!!!
So as soon as Mrs B arrived I shot out the door to get to the club and we got straight into it - scenery, laying out the troops etc. Even when Russ commented on the huge number of spears I didn't even think that there were more spears than should have been. So the Red pikes should not have been on the table.
So I concede the game to Russ. I had 48 more points on the field than I should have - and both pikes had a a major impact on the battle. The 'red' pikes were where the hypaspists should have been (ironically the hypaspists didn't get involved in the battle as there was no room) and they killed the Bactrian cavalry (being numerous they used the overlap to good effect). Similarly the other pikes took on Russ' hoplites and (with my own hoplites) made a big impression.
My only caveat would be that the hypaspists may well have inflicted the same damage on the Bacrtian cavalry - but then Russ' Horse Archers (having polished off the prodomoroi) would have had nothing in front of them and could have instigated a flank charge against the Thessalian cavalry which would certainly have made the battle more interesting!
So the Persians win - and I've got to take a BG of pikes out of the box!