Rome v. Carthage

Peter's Romans
v.
Jim's Carthaginians

Another playtest of the ancient rules Peter & I have been working on.

Both sides deployed with a strong right and weak left.  The Carthaginians put elephants & Gauls on the left, spearmen in centre & all their cavalry on their right. (The green patch is rough ground which affects cavalry & spearmen much more than others).  The Romans deployed infnatry on their right & cavalry echeloned back on their left.

Carthage advanced on the left and in echelon on the right.  The Romans advanced their infantry & held their horse back with tiari to fill the gap.

The elephants & Gauls were quickly defeated by the Roman foot, but they inflicted enough casualties & provided enough entertainment to satisfy their commander.

The Carthagian cavalry took a while to get to their opposition, but soon cleaned them up while their supporting infantry took out the triari flank guard.

The battle now became a revolving door as both sides battled the command system to reorganise their lines at right angles - in both cases overlapped on their left.  The middle of the lines became an arm wrestle as both flanks got chewed - reaching the point where both sides would fail morale with just one more rout.  The Carthaginian cavalry could have won the day in their attack around the flank, but the Romans turned a shaken second line unit around to face.  It beat off two charges to buy time for the Roman flank attack to win the day.

While we found a few items that need more work, it was an interesting & close battle which we both enjoyed.  The pics are all taken from behind the Carthaginian right.