For those of you unable to attend due to family/work and other feeble excuses (OK Thomo, being in another country is an acceptable excuse - just!), you missed an excellent day's gaming.

While Rob and Co refought the American Civil War, Richard and I staged an epic 5th century Roman civil war, representing any one of the various rival claimants to the throne who fought each other in the final years of the Empire. We each fielded 2000 points each of Late Romans and assorted barbarian allies, around 500 28mm figures in all, on a 8x6 table.

The battlefield was divided by a river and cluttered with small woods, fields and a marsh, in fact the only open space suitable for massed cavalry was in the centre to either side of the ford.

For the early part of the battle the two Roman forces merely skirmished with one another. On my left flank I through some foot and mounted skirmishers across the river and quickly routed Richard's own skirmish screen. In the centre my cavalry held back while Richard's cavalry slowly advanced, keeping his infantry support close at hand.

On my right it was a different story altogether. My Frankish allies and Richard's tribal British raced through a hail of missiles to quickly close to hand-to-hand. Both sides suffered high casualties but the Franks were eventually victorious, despite the death of their champion. I think a major factor was the behaviour of the respective leaders. The British commanders remained on the far side of the river, while the Frankish leaders kept close to the fighting. This meant as a worn unit retired from the melee the leaders were on hand to quickly rally them and send them back into battle. It also made it easier to prevent panic when the Champion was killed.

For the first couple of hours, other than a few shooting casualties, the vast majority of those killed were barbarian allies, a very Roman tactic on both sides.

On the left flank my skirmishers were an effective irritation, slowing his advance and inflicting noticeable casualties before they were finally killed of forced to flee, almost at the end of the battle.

In the centre the cavalry finally clashed, again both sides taking heavy casualties. Eventually Richard threw his Roman junior general into the melee to try to achieve a breakthrough, but he was cut down. He had been the only one of Richard's leaders to cross the river and this was again a deciding factor. Without their general to stiffen their morale the Roman infantry panicked and retired, leaving the remains of their cavalry isolated on my side of the river.

With my cavalry and untouched Roman infantry advancing and the Franks threatening his flank, Richard decided to call it a day and ordered a general withdrawal of all his uncommitted troops. Once again a new Roman Emperor had been decided on the field of battle.

It was a close fought game and could have gone either way at several points. We both had appalling morale dice, the difference was that I kept my leaders close to the battleline where they could offset the bad scores. In the final analysis I think that was the deciding factor.

We both were using artillery and, other than one turn when I threw a double one, they were fairly ineffective. In fact my bolt shooters did not kill anything for their first three shots! It makes me think that Karl had just been extremely unlucky in our first game.

Graham