I take no legionaries because his biggest threat are the cataphracts.
I also don't want him to get initiative in case he has gone for a build with lots of MF. I therefore take an inspired leader. Usually with smaller armies like this I take two, maybe only one, troop commander.
I win and can chose the map.
BP - Seleucid:31 Pontic:29.
Situation after one move each:
Scythed charriots are spotted! Has seldom used them myself and, as with charriots in general, unsure of what they can achive.
No fancy tactics here. I want to close with the enemy line asap and leave behind only as few troops as possible to protect my flanks...not the camp, I've already given that up.
Start and end of 2nd turn:
Mess up a litle bit with placement around his two skirmishers, plus they fight like lions! Plan was that they should have routed at the end of this turn at the latest. Still, my three superior pikes are in the right half of the battleline. Two of them should have an easy first task of taking care of the lone impetuous legionarie.
Bah! Both skirmishers are still there and the legionarie makes even on the first impact and win the second big time...
Nothing much happens on impact during the Pontic turn other than skull starts to appear on my pike units...
Finally I get rid of his skirmishers. One evaded though, since I made the stupid mistake of thinking it was attached to at least one of my two adjacent BGs. Instead my pike hit the charriot and promptly went fragmented.
All his three MF to the left are disrupted which could mean good things ahead if not my fragged unit together with the second charriot mess things up.
My camp is looted after I'm done with the turn.
Standings:
Seleucid - 12/31
Pontic - 13/29
Very good turn for me. Pike routs but doesn't affect adjacent BGs and the charriot fails.
Above all, the three Pontic MF chain rout in a spectacular way!
Just one more turn and it's over.
Seleucid is the stronger army and should not have much problem winning but at the point when my pike fragmented and the standings were even I was a little concerned.
Fortunatly it's usually not possible for average impact foot to stand up to pikes in the long run. But the chain rout of the Pontic mediums was what really could make me relax.
