A Tale of Two Forts: Control

The third of our big battles for the campaign saw us play out the Control scenario. This involves dividing the table up into two foot squares with points awarded per square to the side with the most unit strength in the square. This battle also saw the involvement of a new general, young Sam who I persuaded to help me out on the Herd side.

The Salamanders opted for a heavy left flank whilst attempting to refuse the right and centre whilst the Herd hoped to turn the Salamander right and break the centre whilst holding off the right.

The opening moves saw the Herd push forwards on their left and centre whilst the Salamanders held back with the positions being reversed on the Herd right flank. The Salamander shooting proved failed to cause many casualties on the Herd side.

One thing I have noticed is that the Salamander shooting hasn't been as decisive as I had initially feared, they never seem to have reached enough weight of fire in a sector to take units off the table.

The opening combats saw the Herd take off a couple of units on the Salamander right and threaten to turn the flank.

On the other flank the Herd played for time and managed to bottle the Salamander heavy hitters up behind their chaff.

In the centre the Herd continued to advance and set themselves up for charges whilst the Salamanders held firm.

On the Herd right they managed to get a couple of charges in that if successful would have spelt disaster for the Salamanders but unfortunately they failed to rout both the units they charged.

The centre saw the Herd counter charge and destroy two units having survived the charge they had to take due to the hills.

On the left the Giant Eagles had fallen to a double six nerve roll (must get some fast flying Inspiring for the flying flank) but the Brutox and Chimera had made up for the loss with some excellent melee work.

Now at this point I needed to get cracking on lunch so I didn't get any more picture so I hope that Stu over at Cirencester Wargames got some.
The last two turns saw the Herd wiped out on their right flank but the had held up enough that the Salamanders could only reach one of the centre squares (worth 2 VP's) which cancelled out the one held by the Herd after they destroyed the Salamander Prime Herd. However the Salamanders held two other squares to one held by the Herd so they ran out 4-3 victors, all in all a very close game that could have gone either way at the end.
One point of note is that the allied Regiments finally made an impact with the Basileans Finnish off the Spirit Walker Horde and the Nightstalkers managing to get into combat with a powerful unit (at last!) and routing them.

That means the overall campaign situation is 2 - 1 for the Herd, so the Salamanders need to win again in order to stop the Herd taking an unassailable 3 - 1 game lead.