The Ballad of Bradicles
Treachery! Turn 3 and 4
Eeyoricles settled his helmet down low, raised his shield up, huffed a few times and with a roar charged forward keeping his spear leveled at the enemy cavalryman.
Outnumbered 5 to 1 Eeyoricles charges! Spear! Shield! Block! Thrust! Parry! Eeyoricles fought like a hero of old!
Eeyoricles pushes them back! Eeyoricles never saw the blow coming. His last thought was he’d been right. Bradicles had finally managed to kill him.
Diminished but victorious, the Equites trample Eeyoricles and move on TimToo. TimToo considers going into another line of work. Bradicles ordered the slingers to target the Velites to little effect. He pressed the pikemen forward only to see the Velites take them before they could form up. It was sword work for the pikemen instead of their long Sarissas, thus negating their biggest advantage. The Hoplites has been stalled but still held. He glanced over to his left, just in time to see Eeyoricles go down.
I tried to move the pikemen into contact with the Hastati in the center by opening formation to gain movement with the intent of reforming but the Velites interrupted and charged into melee, disrupting the unit and ending their activation. By this time I had three break points and the next move of the Roman cavalry was going to give me a fourth so I conceded. Bradicles opened up the tent flap and rushed up to Eeyoricles. “Brother! You live!”
“Indeed. Are you disappointed?”
“Disappointed? I’m overjoyed! How did you manage that?”
Eeyoricles shrugged, “One of those clumsy horses stepped on my ankle right as his rider was swinging at my helm. I was already going doewn before his sword connected so he must’ve thought he’d killed me. Then the damn horse had the nerve to trample me into the mud so I couldn’t get up again. When the priest came to collect my body I fear I gave him quite a start by telling him I was still alive.”
“Well, that’s one useful thing TimToo did today. How long before you’re fit to fight?”
Eeyoricles shrugged again. “Maybe a season. It’s not broken but I can’t stand.”
Bradicles clapped his brother on the shoulder, “No matter, you will have a tale to tell for ages. The man who fought and bested ten enemies at once!”
“But there were only five”
Bradicles roared with laughter, relieved his brother was alive, “I was counting the horses too!”
Eeyoricles actually smiled at that.
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