Somewhere near Utica...

Somewhere near Utica, a Pompeian army under Cato (left), with local Numidian allies under Juba (some shown in foreground), faces a smaller but more confident Caesarian force (right).

Below, elephants trot past the city gates.  It's a short but a glorious life, in the elephant corp!  I got to use all my elephant casualty markers by 9 PM.

Above, the very numerous and colourful Numidian city militia and hordes of light horse, wisely hung back to let the Romans sort it our between themselves.  Below, Cato confers with a subordinate.  The newly-raised Pompeian legions turned out to be surprisingly effective force...

Above a Pompeian cohort of inferior troops, charged by superior Caesarian foes, and having failed to counter charge,  pulls off something of a coup by dint of expert dice rolling!  Several wins by the aggressive (and phenomenally lucky) Cato drove a deep wedge into the Caesarian lines.

Eventually they broke through (above) and subsequently turned, ready to roll up the Caesarian line (below).  Although there were still a lot of Caesarians on the table, we felt that they would now need to retire from the field.

The game, played with a couple of local opponents, Nigel and Jay, proved to be a very enjoyable and relaxed play-test of my rules.  I've taken away a bunch of new ideas and will tweak the rules, for another run through, hopefully next week.