Hail Caesar 14/12/11

Steve's Seleucids v. Jim & Mike's Carthaginians

Both armies were 450 points, but not quite in compliance with all the rules in the lists.  After the Carthos had a council of war and decided on their deployment, Steve put his troops down, then the Carthos put theirs down as they had decided in their council of war.   Victory conditions were lose if 1) any 3 divisions broken,  2) heavy inf div + 1 other broken, or, 3) lost the camp.  The pics are taken from the Cartho right.

The Seleucids deployed their heavy infantry division (3 phalanxes & 2 medium inf) around the camp, a division of 2 elephants and lots of light inf in front and cavalry divs on each flank (2 light & 1 cat on their left, 2 light & 1 cat on their left).

The Carthos put their Cartho inf div (2 spears, 2 bows, 2 elephants in front of the camo with theri Gallic division (4 warbands) in front, Punic cav (2 med, 2 light, all small) on their left & their Spanish div (2 Scutarii, 2 Caetrari, 2 light & 1 med cav) on their right.

The Carthos surged forward.  The Seleucids held their heavies back around the camp behind their ligth screen and advanced with their cavalry flanks.  

On the Cartho left the Spanish took on the cavalry.  They beat the cataphracts by pinning frontally and hitting them in flank with infantry.  The light cavalry with Parthian shot were harder to beat, but were eventually overwhelmed.

On the other flank the Punic cavary destroyed the light cavalry with javelins .  They tried to do the same to the cats, but the cats eventually got some good command dice closed in and smashed them.

In the centre, the Gauls paid for lack of light infantry when they got pinned down by hot shooting when both the Spanish & Punic light infantry wouldn't move up to help. 

Left of centre, the Carthos tried to send their elephants to help out their left flank cav, but they were intercepted by the Seleucid elephants.  The combination of cats & pigs was too strong and the Cartho infantry division was reduced to just the 2 spear units.

The Gauls finally charged down the skirmish line, but in doing so got too close to the phalanx.  After being weakened by the skirmish fight the division was soon broken.

Finally, the phalanx was on the move, charging forward to enagage the Rh spear unit, already shaken and pushed back by the elephants.  In a rush of hot dice followed by Seleucid cold ones, 2 phalanxes were broken before the thrid hit the spearmen in flank.  It still looked all over for Carthage, but the spearmen stubbornly gave ground, but refused to break while the Spanish light cavalry rode down the last fo the skirmishers and rode towards the Seleucid camp left undefended by the advance of their centre.  For a moment, the Carthos had a glimmer of hope, but the spearmen finally ran out of luck  before the cavalry could take the camp.

Once again we had a rattling good battle - and quite different to any we'd had before - this time it was all about light troops.  The Cartho plan was to avoid the phalanx and destroy the weaker Seleucid divisions, but they couldn't quite pull it off - Steve's elephants & skirmishers saved the day for him.  The capriciousness of some the Hail Caesar systems can be frustrating at times, but they sure give you exciting and interesting battles.