"Rock the Casbah!" - The Wars in Persia, at Roll Call 2025
Sassanid Persian vs Konstantinian Byzantine
Game 1 Sassanid Persian vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 2 Sassanid Persian vs Sassanid Persian
Game 3 Sassanid Persian vs Konstantinian Byzantine
Game 4 Sassanid Persian vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 5 Sassanid Persian vs Fatimid Egyptian
With a rather astonishing 3 consecutive unreliable ally games under my belt, I now felt entirely confident that the third matchup for the Sassanids at Roll call would inevitably be an unmitigated success with the Lakhmid Bedouins playing a decisive role in a stunning victory where my command and control was unparalleled, and the enemy could only sit in stupefaction and watch as the Persians ran rings around them at will.
Unfortunately the draw didn't want to participate in that theory, and the Sassanids were matched up against another Byzantine army, this time the Konstantinians, with a list composition which was pretty much designed to take on an all-cavalry force on as narrow a table as possible, with enough Skoutatoi spearmen to wave several sticks at whilst being shot by the rear rank archers.
During the reign of Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–1055) the Byzantine army was in decline but still retained elements of its traditional strength.
One of the key components of the army was the Skoutatoi, heavy infantry armed with spears and large round or kite-shaped shields (skouta). They formed the backbone of the Byzantine infantry line and were often deployed in the centre of the battle formation, supported by archers and cavalry.
The Skoutatoi were important for maintaining cohesion and discipline in battle, providing a solid defensive front and anchoring the more mobile elements of the army.
However, by the mid-11th century, the quality and training of these troops had begun to suffer due to internal instability, reduced military funding, and increasing reliance on mercenaries and local levies.
The lists for the Sassanid Persian and Konstantinian Byzantine from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Roll Call can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
The terrain selection had very much gone the Byzantines way, with almost everything packed on one side of the table to create a plateau that seemed to be just about wide enough for the Byzantines to fill from edge to edge.
Being confident the Arabs would be reliable, I had dropped them on their traditional place of the left wing, hiding the three Camels in a gulley and only putting out the 5 Light Horsemen.
The small cavalry command was in the centre, with the Elephants and Dailami butting up against the terrain, leaving the packets of cavalry in their command to cover the terrain and prevent any cheeky Byzantines sneaking through it and onto my flank.
What's Going on Here Then?
The terrain has actually fallen quite nicely for my army - a narrow gap for the Death Star to run through and clatter into the Byzantine centre, and a safe place for Arabs which the narrowness of the table will almost compel the Byzantines to advance against them and make them reliable even if they let me down yet again.
My guess is that the Byzantines will not expect quite such a punchy army composition, and be planning to face many more cavalry than I actually have
The Camels having a gulley from which to ambush is another bonus, as this makes the rest of their command (5 LH) who sit in the open appear entirely credible as an allied contingent, but also nowhere near scary enough to think about avoiding should they be unreliable.
Of course, with grim inevitability the Lakhmids decided to rise yet again to the occasion, and exhibit their now statistically freakish consistency and reliability by becoming unreliable for the 4th time in 4 consecutive games
Suddenly my plan to leap forward and use my Camelry and half of the Sassanid Asarvan to overwhelm the Byzantines cavalry flank while throwing Elephants & Dailami at their centre and refusing my right was in tatters - yet again.
(The infantry archer is substituting for a LH with javelin this time around!)
The Byzantines had a plan, it involved width and shooting, and they were keen to implement it as soon as possible. Rolling forward they sought to pressurise the Sassanids all along the line- and that included simply overrunning the supposedly camel-free LH allied command, even if it were currently unreliable!
The sun hung low over the arid plain, casting long shadows as the Byzantine cavalry reined their mounts into position, and set off at some speed towards what looked like a rather hapless set of Arabian skirmishing light cavalry.
5 LF with an included general would be a perfectly respectable allied contingent in most armies, cheap yet impossible to ignore lest it run around your flank and started harassing your rear areas (ooh-er missus!).
But, in this matchup it was easy enough to overwhelm with the overwhelming (see what I did there?) force the Byzantines had to play with on this flank.
Their gold-tipped spears caught the light, their shields bore the imperial eagle, and they cared naught for an uncommitted enemy command which would soon be ground into the sand under their hooves.
But beneath the Byzantine's pride, unease still lingered - however, ignoring all that they just piled forward and in so doing triggered the Arabs back to life.
In the centre the Byzantines were keeping a solid line, relying on shooting alone to slow the advance of the mighty War elephants, gaudily be-towered (is that a word?), armoured, and draped in crimson silks who even now still marched forward with a primal power that made the earth (and any fans of the English language in it's un-mangled form) groan
Ta-dah! The Lakhmid camelry, suddenly committed to the cause of the Sassanid Emperor due to the proximity of a load of Byzantine cavalry intent on slapping anything and everything in their path, emerged triumphant from the dried up wadi and stormed across the desert plain in all of their smelly, horse-scaring glory!
The table had been well and truly turned on the Byzantines, who finding themselves suddenly outgunned and overmatched turned tail and fled backwards in some disarray, pursued and harassed by the Arabian skirmishing horsemen to add insult and javelins to psychological scarring and Kamilaphobia
The battle plan of the Sassanids was now starting to emerge, wraith-like from the shifting desert sands.
A huge gap appeared in the centre of the table as the Sassanid army drifted out to pile pressure on both wings of the Byzantines, leaving the rather pedestrian, erm, "infantry" in the centre with no targets and a lack of fleetness of foot with which to reposition themselves to play a more impactful role in the ensuring battle.
The mighty combination of elephants and Dailami, well screened by a significant investment in Light Infantry, approached the enemy lines like a stormfront — slow, ominous, and (hopefully) unstoppable once unleashed
What's Going on Here Then?
The ambushing Camels have succeeded beyond even my hopes and expectations, skittering away the cavalry facing them and entirely exposing the Byzantine right flank.
With an astonishing amount of slow-moving, mixed-shooting infantry in the Byzantine force, I've elected to refuse the centre and attack on both ends of their line, relying on the fact that the infantry I leave unopposed in their centre may struggle to wheel round in time to have much of an impact on the combats on either wing
The larger than usual number of skirmishing infantry I've brought along in this list will also no doubt earn their keep today, catching arrows aimed at the Dailami and Elephants.
The Skoutatoi archers were doing their best, but the Sassanids were shrugging off every missile, every flighted arrow as they advanced inexorably towards the "Mediocre in combat" mixed units of the Byzantine host.
Pretty banners and a belief in the religious power of Iconographic representations of recently beatified saints of the Orthodox persuasion was all well and good, but now it faced the test of the Sassanid Elephantine Mega Death Star, each beast towering above the battlefield, their armoured hides gleaming like dark iron bastions on the move across the Rafa-bought desert plain.
L'Art de la Guerre hint - In case you don't know, a "Death Star" is ADLG player slang for a formation of two (usually Medium) infantry units on either side of an elephant. The elephant protects the usually-vulnerable Medium infantry from enemy cavalry, and the whole thing lumbers around slowly until it is lined up on a target, after which it usually has a pretty good go at blatting pretty much anything it wants out of existence.
A tremor rippled through the ground as the two lines finally clashed, much to the relief of readers who find excessively flowery metaphors used to string out the tension before the actual key part of the battle takes place rather irritating no doubt.
As the lines met, dust rose in waves and dice rolled like thunder (under the covers - which is, as Elton John might say, I guess that's why they call it the blues?). The war elephants carried upon their backs archers with drawn bows, as their iron-shod tusks gleamed like blades hungering for war.
To be honest though, the first round was pretty decisive, with the Byzantines taking a total of what looks like 8 hits overall, and only dishing out 3 in return.
Given that sort of near-instant almost-unsurvivable level of first round wins, I think you can see why I felt the need to ham it up a bit in the pre-combat narrative?
The triumphant Camelry of the Lakhmid ally were also now enjoying life to the full, as a committed, successful, and no doubt soon to be well remunerated part of the Sassanid Imperial Expansion strategy.
The Byzantine horsemen facing them had been surrounded by the javelin-armed Arab horsemen who had then prevented the Constantinopalese troopers from retreating even further across the table, instead being caught up in a Camel and Light horse sandy sandwich
L'Art de la Guerre hint - If you can get Light Horse past the enemy battle line, you don't necessarily need to be able to then charge into their rear to have a decisive effect.
Starting to the side of an enemy, and then simply moving past, and then behind them so as to "ZoC" their rear (pinning them?, getting then in your zone of control?) will prevent that enemy from evading away from anyone charging them from the front.
And if you have something dangerous to their front that they'd normally want to evade from, forcing them to stand and fight is pretty useful indeed!
Back in the sort of right hand side of the kinda centre, Byzantine banners now vanished in the crush as armoured heads and flailing trunks carved a path through the kite shaped shieldwall.
Where the elephants and Dailami had passed, only ruin remained — twisted Byzantine lamellar armour, shattered spears, and soon no doubt the silence of a defeat to their old enemy, the Persians.
Byzantine-Sassanid Wars
As the elephants and Dailami steamed forward, the sidestepped Byzantine centre finally managed to begin to wheel out and harass the flanks of the onrushing, victory-fuelled Persian right wing.
But it was too little, too late, as across the battlefield ever-mounting losses caused the Byzantine forces to crumble and start to ebb away.
The rout soon became a flood — Byzantines galloping for the hills, shields discarded, order lost. The imperial eagle dipped and vanished in the dust, trampled by the mighty feet of the Sassanid Elephant Corps.
The Result is a chunky win for Persia
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Sassanid Persian Commander
Write it, seal it, chant it across the empire—from the Caspian winds to the Gulf’s whispering tides: the Roman has fallen again, and it is I who broke him!
The legions of the purple-cloaked Emperor came in arrogance, their banners stiff with pride. They placed their Skoutatoi—the iron phalanx of their center—as if their lines were carved in marble. But what is marble before the fire of elephants? What is a line before the fury of the Dailami?
Yes, our charge was through death’s very breath. A hail of arrows darkened the sky—Byzantine shafts as thick as reeds in the Tigris. But my beasts did not flinch. My mountain warriors roared and plunged forward, shattering the Roman center like a clay idol before the altar of Mithra!
And as always, the desert ghosts—our Lakhmid friends—stood hesitant, as if pondering the movement of stars while steel clashed and blood flowed. Why they wavered, I cannot say. Perhaps the crescent moon was not right. Perhaps they feared their horses would get sand in their hooves.
But fate, in her mischief, played a joke on them—when the Byzantines, blind with panic, turned to strike the Arabs where they loitered. Ah! Then the Bedouin blood boiled! Like foxes from a den, they burst from a dried-up wadi and struck the Romans in their exposed flank
And now some, in their small-mindedness, will say: ‘But Great Shah, was it not a simple plan? A charge in front, an ambush on the side?
Simple? A lute is simple in string and wood, but only the master draws music from it. Only I saw the moment, the balance, the breath between collapse and conquest!
It was not the elephants alone, nor the ambush, nor the swords—it was vision. It was command. It was me. My enemies bring shields and spears—I bring fate.
Let the Romans crawl back to their palaces and prayers. Let the Arabs remember who rouses them from slumber. And let this land echo one truth only: when Khosrow Dastan rides, the world bends or breaks!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Most Esteemed Shah Khosrow Dastan, Salt Merchant of Strategy, Emperor of the Blindingly Obvious, Commander of Coincidence
Forgive me, I write this while trying not to choke on the cloud of incense rising from your latest self-praising scroll. I had to beat off a flock of parrots who’d memorized your proclamation word-for-word. Even the camels in my camp are rolling their eyes.
“Let us examine the miracle of your victory, shall we? You marched your elephants in a straight line. The enemy archers — whom I must assume were either drunk, distracted, or recently fired — failed to stop them. Your Dailami followed behind. The enemy's center collapsed. A triumph for the ages! Or perhaps just for a particularly flat afternoon.
This, you claim, was some grand stroke of brilliance. My dear date-stuffed demigod, it was not strategy — it was brute force, blessed by chance and Byzantine indigestion.”
But of course, no tale is complete without our favourite characters: the Lakhmids! Once again, they sat out the opening act like shy brides at a tribal wedding. You, Shah of Selective Amnesia, seem eternally shocked that they do not rush to your banner. Have you considered — and I ask this gently — whether they might actually dislike you?
Or is it that you promised them gold and delivered sand? Dates, but only the pits? You treat their loyalty like a desert mirage: always expected, never reliable, and fading fast when most needed.
“And yet, even in this battle, victory arrived not by your command but by Byzantine accident. They stumbled into the Arabs, who—surprise of surprises—had hidden themselves like sulking camels in a dried-up wadi. You praise this as ambush. I call it sulking with style.
So once again, you win — but not because of brilliance, nor planning, nor even reliable allies. You win because your enemies shot like blind poets and your reluctant allies were accidentally attacked.
That’s not genius, Shah — it’s fortune giving you one last sweet fig before turning to someone more deserving.
But do carry on. Declare your tactics eternal, your methods divine. Just know that from Carthage to the Oxus, we who understand war snort into our wine and whisper: ‘He’s done it again… somehow.’
I remain as yet unimpressed, but always entertained by your nonsensical command, which cannot hold a candle to the genius of myself, Hannibal Barca, Elephant Enthusiast, Slayer of Senseless Swagger, And the General You Pretend to Be in Your Dreams and Hope To be in Your next game
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
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Game 1 Sassanid Persian vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 2 Sassanid Persian vs Sassanid Persian
Game 3 Sassanid Persian vs Konstantinian Byzantine
Game 4 Sassanid Persian vs Maurikian Byzantine
Game 5 Sassanid Persian vs Fatimid Egyptian
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