Battle Report
I drew up half of my phalangitai in a shallow line, placing the slingers in front of them in a loose formation. I deployed the rest of the phalangitai in a refused left flank, and placed my heavy cavalry in reserve on the right.
The Saka advanced within missile range and began exchanging fire with my slingers. They immediately split into two contingents, with their heavy cavalry and half of their horse archers circling around to my right, and the other two horse archers circling around to my left.
The slingers concentrated their missile fire on the smaller contingent of horse archers, and wiped out one of their units fairly swiftly. I detached one of the phalangitai on my refused flank to walk towards the remaining unit, chasing them away from the main battle. I knew from my first campaign (as the Pahlava) that horse archers could do a lot of damage firing into the rear of armoured units, so I didn't want those horse archers hanging around. Since the phalangitai remained in phalanx formation and kept facing towards the horse archers, they suffered almost no casualties.
Since the Saka main force was getting uncomfortably close, I instructed the slingers to fire on their heavy cavalry. It took about 4 or 5 volleys for even one of them to fall! Not only that, but the Saka riders had wiped out a large number of my slingers with their arrow fire, and the Saka main contingent had completely turned my flank. Although I had rotated individual units in their place, they weren't drawn up in any sort of useful battle line. So I was getting a bit panicky.
As the missile duel continued and the Saka prepared to charge, I carefully moved units into positions in a new battle line. I did this by running one unit at a time, so that if the Saka charged before I was ready I'd have formed up units to oppose them with.
Perhaps I was over cautious. I drew up a thin unit of phalangitai in another refused left, standing behind the eastern slingers. In the middle I bunched up my remaining two units of phalangitai. On the far right, the heavy cavalry were once again drawn up in line abreast.
The Saka heavy cavalry charged. The slingers had reduced one unit from 100 to 64, and left the other untouched. Given how tough I expected these guys to be in combat, I was worried that they had suffered less than 25% casualties during the protracted missile duel.
On my right flank, I charged an outnumbered unit of hetairoi straight into their 100 strong unit, whilst charging the other unit away and to the right. There they reformed and charged into the flank of the Saka heavy cavalry, killing something like 15 of them in the first charge. I withdrew the first unit, which had suffered no casualties, reformed it and charged it straight back into the embattled Saka.
On the left flank, the 64 Saka heavy cavalry slaughtered a bunch of slingers, then flanked my phalangitai as I clumsily manouevered them to intervene. Not sure that I was really made to command a Hellenic army, I switched off the phalanx and guard formations and ordered the centre of my line to mob the Saka. The phalangitai on my far left ran forward to screen the horse archers away from this melee, while the slingers were ordered to fire into the combat, no matter the cost.
Back on the right flank, the process of repeated charging and withdrawing ran into trouble when the Saka heavy cavalry focused on one of my units and pursued it whenever it withdrew. I started to suffer casualties.
Meanwhile on the left flank, the Saka heavy cavalry withdrew from the conflict with the phalangitai, mowed down a bunch of slingers, and then charged back into the fray. The arrow fire from the riders had also taken its toll on the slingers, and a couple of my units broke and ran.
So, trouble.
I switched one of my heavy cavalry units to guard mode and turned it into an anvil, holding the Saka cavalry in place so my other cavalry unit could repeatedly strike it. Under this assault, despite its vaunted gold chevrons and upgrades, it was swiftly worn down. The constant slinger fire (now coming from the rear) was also taking its toll, as the phalangites pinned the Saka. With only a handful of men left, the Saka heavy cavalry broke and ran.
At this point the Saka riders charged in, glittering lance points bouncing around in front of them. There were a lot of them, but they died. Light lancers really weren't made to engage with heavily armoured anything, let alone the phalangitai that had just slaughtered their nobles.
The main battle was done. Elsewhere, the other riders had charged their pursuing phalangitai and been chopped to pieces.
Final result: 600 dead Saka, 400 dead slingers and a smattering of casualties amongst my armoured Greek troops.
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