The Forest Road - Turn VI

Am I really doing well?

On the face of it, the last turn was pivotal, ending the danger of my men being swept away by the Dacian cavalry.

But to win the battle, I must have at least three Roman units inside the red-lined area at the top of the map at the end of the 12th turn.

This is the sixth turn, so there are seven turns to be played, and in theory all of my units could reach the 'endzone', but in practice most - all? - of the slow-moving infantry are unlikely to make it.

That means my three most-likely units are the commander and the two bands of cavalry, so losing any of them to, say, an unlucky roll of the dice, could have catastrophic consequences.

Food for thought.

Anyway, the start-of-turn-event die lands as a 3 - Dacian war horns, for the third time. In other words, the AI's cavalry units get a free move. Thankfully, only two of them are left, but the forward cavalrymen advance diagonally left into trees, from where they are adjacent to my forward cavalry, but cannot charge-attack as that is not possible from trees. The other Dacian horsemen advance a hex.

In the movement-phase proper, I advance all my archers, so each unit can, if necessary. shoot at the leading Dacian cavalry.

The Dacian archers remain standing in reserve.

My leading cavalry sweep down off East Hill and contact the leading Dacian cavalrymen, but cannot charge-attack as the latter are in trees.

The rear Dacian cavalry advance diagonally to their left, but then veer back to their right, putting them beside their comrades in the trees.

The Praetorians advance a hex, as do the Dacian swordsmen.

I move my commander three hexes to the left, putting him in command range of the rearward legion. But first I roll three dice for the out-of-command legion, getting 6, 5, 4. I do not want them to move in any of those directions on the compass, and so leave the unit where it is. With the other legion, I take a bit of a risk and advance it directly forward, out of the wood.

The falxmen do not move, but the warriors next to them advance diagonally left to make contact with the legionaries who have just moved into the open. The other warriors advance diagonally to their right.

Another interesting attack-phase is in the offing