The Romans finally take Cisalpine Gaul

But not without a fight!

Work has been even busier than usual, so I haven't had the time recently to catch up on our campaign events.  I'm now about to make up for that:

Photo 1 above is a shot of the relative deployments.  A Roman consular army (on the right of the photo) has invaded the Po Valley region and found the locals in eager mood in a rolling valley area between two steep hills.  The Roman set-up is pretty much standard.  Gordon presented with a relatively weak centre and right, with deep columns of foot on the left, which can just about make out at the top left of the photo.  His idea was to hold the legions as long as possible in the centre and right while attacking en masse with the columns.

The second photo shows the Roman advancing where the tribesmen were weakest.  Alan ran this half of the Roman army, while I ran the two legions and horse on the right.  As he advanced, I stayed still.

The reason for my caution can be seen above.

And there were even more of them to my front right!

I tried to retire the troops at my extreme right to force the opposition to take as long as possible to get to me.  The Italian allied foot (blue shields) have obeyed orders, but the stubborn Roman Equites stayed put.

  Alan's advance continued.  Above you can see the situation on his left flank with the cavalry of both sides facing off and Italian foot ready to attack uphill with legionary help.

Alan continued to press forward where he had central superiority as well.

And on they came at my right...

Stand-off at our far left, although Roman shooting was beginning to damage the opposition, especially their unit of heavy cavalry on the lower of the two hills.

Mixed fortunes above...

...as my lot continued to hang back as far as possible.  Those Equites still refused to retire.

Rather than be shot to bits, the locals charged off their hills into the waiting arms of Alan's cavalry.

And the columns crashed into my Hastati.  I staggered my defence, so that the rightmost legion hung back furthest of all.

I needed Alan to win in the centre while I held out as long as possible on the right against superior numbers.

And still my Equites failed to obey orders!

Alan's cavalry was successful, and his infantry assault began to push the enemy off their hill.

And his legions cleared the centre.

That's all I had time to take because once the columns went in I was right up against it.  My entire half of the army crumpled.  The Italian foot, the bothersome Equites and one Legion were all wiped out.  My other legion was down to its Triarii before Alan managed to get some of his troops into one of the columns to save the situation.  We were further helped by the death of the enemy general who, after crushing my legionaries, was in turn destroyed by Alan's reinforcing troops.

To be honest, I deserved to lose, but Alan's men saved the day.