Another quick post here.

My son and I have been playtesting some scenarios for an upcoming book on Caesar’s Civil Wars. We planned to run a smaller scenario, but on the way to the shop, we decided we had more than enough troops to do the Pharsalus scenario.

The battle was fairly evenly matched – we added the classic ambush that Caesar accounts for on his left wing. As Caesar drew our Republican cavalry into the trap, it became a critical part of the game. The Republican cavalry outnumbered the Caesarians by more than two to one historically and it was this ambush that helped even the impact on this critical battle

In our game, the Republicans had to attack across the board and nearly pushed the Caesarians off the back edge of the table. In the end, Caesar had held back three units in a third line, and their counterattacks in turn 8 destroyed three units in a single turn. That was the difference.

Amusingly, on Turn 8 Caesar was attached to his Gallic cavalry to add dice to a critical attack on the Republican’s only veteran legionary unit. When it came time to check leader casualty, the dice came up 11 – plus the three he used in the combat, and down went Caesar. Fortunately for history perhaps, he rolled a 4 on the result, so while injured, he wasn’t ended.

Great game all around.