Of Gods and Mortals - Greeks v Spanish

With my kids away for a few weeks I have some more evenings when I'm not ferrying to and forth from swimming club and can instead get some games of soldiers in.
James and I haven't played a game for ages so this was too good an opportunity to pass up. He fancied a game of Of Gods and Mortals and having painted a Greek force only for the attention of the Gaming Heir to wander off I was more than happy to comply.
After exchanging small talk with James' charming daughter (subjects covered included castles, Wales, dolphins and dressing like a pirate) she was eventually persuaded it was bedtime and we could set up and get it on.

I took Hermes, eight naked Spartans, the Minotaur, Medusa, 6 archers and four centaurs.
James was itching to get some Spanish themed models on the table, so he took (and forgive me for not getting their names) a Portuguese Javelin god, three heroes - a beautiful woman, a fighty chap and a standard toting fellow  - and then a unit of armoured infantry, thix thpanish thlingers and a small cavalry unit.

We scattered some lovely scenery about in a pleasing fashion, diced for the location of the fountain of youth and then deployed in the scatered fashion the rules demand.

Then we looked at each other and hesitantly tried to remember the rules...

 Fighty Spanish Hero and some infantry in the rocks

 Thlingers preparing the thling thtones

 Buff Spartans in the buff

 The big Bull lad lurks by a ruin

Hermes swoops in

 Greek archers lurk in the olive grove

We each of us remembered some of it and so the game began a little hesitantly. My centaurs turned out to be drunk. Oh good.

However over on my left Medusa slithered forward, drew back her bow and swiftly dispatched the Spanish Beauty.

Hermes meanwhile shot out of cover and smacked into the Spanish in the rocks. Unfortunately the combat was a draw and he whizzed back to his starting spot.

Turn two and the huge Spanish god lumbered forward and lobbed javelins the size of telegraph poles at the archers, killing three.
Then we remembered the actual rules for killing stuff and put two models back. We weren't sure but decided Medusa probably had actually killed Juanita de las Tetas Grandes.

In my turn Hermes whizzed out and had a pop at the Portuguese Javelinist but to no avail.

Candygram for Mongo, candygram for Mongo

Flush with success Medusa slithered out toward the slingers, but copped a rock to the snakes and fell over. Missing no opportunity the Spanish fighty lad, Juan Punch leaped off his rock and sliced off her head.

I continued my advance whilst the Javelin god slaughtered the last of the archers.

The Spanish infantry, fearing the Minotaur would be too much for slinger to handle broke cover. The Minotaur bellowed a challenge and hurled himself into the fray.

Hermes decided to avenge his snake headed henchwoman but the result was another tie.

The Spanish infantry proved rather tougher than the Mino had imagined and he was cut down, leaving the infantry to close in on the centaurs.
The initial combat was a draw.
However Hermes, seeing no way out decided to take on the Spanish god once more, and despite prayers from the Spartans he lost and was banished from the mortal realm.
Unfortunately this was too much for the drunken centaurs who fled the field, taking me below break point and handing James the game.

That was good fun. I do like the Song Of... engine. It provides a fog of war effect without it being completely random - you can gamble or not - which makes for interesting decisions. The god/hero/mortal tiers and interactions add another interesting dimension to the core mechanics.
James an I were both pretty rusty, but had managed to remember most of it by the end.

Hoping for another game before the holidays are over.

A couple of questions.

What's the advantage of Close Order? All it seems to be is a series of negatives (harder to move, penalty for flank charge) with no bonus we can see. Given the scale of the game there's no need for a close order formation so we couldn't understand what purpose it served.

Secondly what mythical beasts did the Spanish believe existed in this period? What's the Iberian equivalent of Medusa? If anyone has any suggestions leave them in the comments and I'll let James know.