Scenario 3 Holding Action (1)

Two months without a post? That’s more like the kind of pace I expected from this blog. The usual real world excuses plus, in keeping with my refusal to do anything until it has long ceased to be trendy (see this blog), I managed to have Covid. Not a severe case, but enough to give my mojo a severe kicking. However, with a little help from a long weekend, I managed Scenario 3 and my first Ancients game of the project.

With my Byzantine army still awaiting its trip to Sri Lanka for a coat of paint, if I was going to get a game of Ancients in it would have to be an all Sassanian affair. Fortunately, Sassanian history provides plenty of examples of civil conflict. I'll admit that my knowledge of the Sassanian empire had, until recently, a very narrow military focus, but I've been rectifying that with this excellent book.

Yes, I know the author (or his editors) use fewer s's than me, but I'm sticking with Kaveh Farrokh (or his editors).

So my Byzantines are for the early 6th century CE, or at least they will be when they're painted, and conveniently around this time the Sassanian Sahansah Hormizd IV, who favoured the landed gentry (dehgans) over the nobility (savaran) was being overthrown in favour of his son, Khusro II. So this scenario pitches a delaying force of the savaran trying to hold out against Hormzid’s army until nightfall.