My third game at this year’s To The Strongest tournament at Britocn was against Sid’s Pergamene army: Galatian cavalry, javelinmen, lots of light infantry and an elephant.

As I’d lost the scouting, I set up in my traditional cavalry on the wings and infantry in the centre formation, and awaited the onslaught.

The one thing I knew was that man-for-man, my units were better than his: my knights should out-match the Galatians, I had more formed infantry, and although I had fewer lights, they did all have longer-ranged missile weapons.

My plan was therefore to beat the Pergamene cavalry with my knights, shoot down all his lights, and get stuck in with my formed infantry as soon as possible. I was nervous of his elephants hitting my horse, but there was only one unit of pachyderms…which I aimed to also shoot down before contact.

I was also determined not to send my horsemen into the gap between the edge of the table and the steep hill on the left: Sid tempted me into doing something similar when we played last year at Britcon, and I almost came a cropper doing so!

The game began with the Pergamene coming forward fast, and Sid had also pushed my Knights on the left back a square with the This Way Effendi strategy, which even took one unit off table.

Sticking to my plan (do not go into the gap between the edge of the table and the steep hill on the left: just don’t, even though Sid’s put some lovely vulnerable light cavalry there…once bitten etc!) I came forward fast as well, luckily getting my missing knights back onto the table without an issue.

The first clash actually took place on the right, where two units of my Knights took on two units of Galatian cavalry along with their associated lights.

After the last game’s shooting debacle, miracle de miracle, my mounted crossbowmen disposed of the enemy light cavalry with missile fire, but although I pushed both units of Galatian cavalry back, and one off the board, I hadn’t killed either, which meant that I tied my knights on the right up for the rest of the game for just a three coin advantage when really I’d needed them to quickly smash their opponents from the field and then sweep into the rest of the Pergamene from the flank.

Meanwhile my other knights on the left had unsuccessfully charged the rest of the Galatian cavalry and my first infantry attack hadn’t been very successful either.

I desperately needed time for my troops to pull back and reform and, luckily I got it: not through any great skill of my own, but with a bit of help from Sid’s cards.

This pause allowed me to both reorganise the Alabardiers and get some more of my infantry up in support, and this time I did have a bit of luck in that I managed to get a second attack in twice and effectively win the centre, although it would be another turn before it happened.

By this time I had been losing coins as well, so it was a relief when my veteran later knights on the left came back into the fray, even if Sid had finally got his elephants into my other cavalry.

Things got a bit hazy at this point, and I was obviously too busy to take photographs. All I know is that the Pergamene gave way first, leaving me with a very narrow 13-11 victory which translated into 133-85 tournament points.

So not a bad first day: one big win and two narrow victories. Two more games to go!