Victory this Christmas will go To The Strongest!

Nothing much new here from me of late as my energies have been focussed on getting prepared for a couple of games over the Christmas-New Year period.  I thought I'd take advantage of a few quiet moments to let you know about the plan for game number one.

I'm running a game of To The Strongest on the 27th.  I plan to run a six-player refight of the Battle of Chalons (aka Catalaunian Fields) 451CE.  I say six-player but in fact I may have eight; youngsters Leo and Arthur will be jointly commanding the Ostrogoths and Kevin Tingle and son will run the Romans. 


I thought I had plenty of toys for the game but when I began sorting them out it became obvious that I'd need a few more to give everyone enough elements to make it interesting tactically.  I want to give each "player" at least two commands each with a minimum of four elements and preferably more.


The armies at Chalons are both multi-ethnic alliances.  The "Roman" side has:


Left Wing:

• a Roman infantry command (with a camp),
• a Roman cavalry command (also with a camp), and
• a mixed infantry command of Franks and Armoricans

Centre:

• an Alan command - lance-armed nobled cavalry and horse archers, and
• an infantry command of Roman auxilia (insurance against possible Alan unreliability)

Right Wing:

• a Visigoth cavalry command, and
• a Visigoth infantry command.

Atilla's Hun-led alliance has:


Right Wing:

• a Gepid infantry command, and
• a Gepid cavalry command

Centre:

• two cavalry commands both with nobles and horse-archers, and
• a large camp protected by a waggon laager and manned by the women and children (Mobs in TTS! terms)

Left Wing:

• an Ostrogoth infantry command, and
• an Ostrogoth cavalry command.

The line ups should be interesting across the board.  The Romans on the left of their line are a strong force but they're up against the Gepids who have a central core off three deep blocks of Warriors.  These should be hard work to wear down.


The centre is largely a cavalry duel and the Huns have the advantage of both quality and quantity.  Aetius may need to divert support from the flanks to keep his Alan allies in with a change.


On the Roman-right-Hun-left there's a more even fight.  The Visigoths have more cavalry but the Ostrogoths have more infantry including a couple of units of Bowmen who can (albeit briefly) blacken the sky with their arrows.


I'm looking forward to this.  It'll be the biggest TTS game I've run so far.  I'm planning a pre-lunch bootcamp to learn the rules and then devoting the whole afternoon to the battle itself.  News as soon as we have a result!