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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 336611" data-attributes="member: 1645">Chapter XI -- The Battle of Pharsalus (continued)...he [Labienus] led his German and Gallic cavalry around the perimeter of the fighting and charged toward the exposed flank and rear of the 10th Legion....Trumpets sounded, and the reserve cohorts of the fourth line suddenly jumped to their feet and dashed forward behind their standards, slamming into the unsuspecting cavalrymen before they even saw them.Again, the movie practically writes itself -- and this does read like a movie script, doesn't it?  Troops wait in hiding for the special signal, trumpets blare, and they crush the flanking cavalry!The men of the reserve cohorts had been given explicit instructions not to throw their javelins but to use them instead like spears, thrusting them overarm up into the faces of the cavalrymen.Doesn't Caesar know that using a javelin in melee incurs a -4 proficiency penalty? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />According to Plutarch, Caesar said, when issuing the order for the tactic, "Those fine young dancers won't endure the steel shining in their eyes.  They'll fly to save their handsome faces."And so said the Orc general to his troops before the charge of the High Elf cavalry.Now Caesar's shock troops mingled with the surprised Germans and Gauls at close quarters, pumping their javelins as instructed, taking out eyes, causing horrific facial injuries and fatalities with every stroke.Gruesome!The congested cavalry had come to a dead stop, compressed between the rear ranks of the 10th and the reserve cohorts.  There were so many of them there was nowhere for the riders to go; they merely provided sitting targets for the men of the reserve cohorts as they swarmed among them.As many as a thousand of Labienus's best cavalrymen were killed in this counterstroke.A thousand cavalry killed in that one maneuver!  The rest fled.</blockquote>

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