Hail Caesar 30/08/11

SteveJ's Romans v. Jim's Carthaginians

This week we tried putting the Romans in small units to better represent their organisation.  The Romans had 2 infantry divisions of 5 legionaries and 2 auxilary bows, all small units and 2 divisions of 1 heavy cavalry 1 auxilary spears (all standard sized). 

The Carthaginians had a large Gallic contingent of 5 warbands with 2 skirmisher units, 3 units of freshly painted citizen spearmen, and 2 divisons of cavalry, one with 2 mediums, the other with 1 heavy, 1 medium & 2 light. 

The Romans deployed in their back left hand corner of the table.  The Carthaginians deployed with cavalry on their left, then spearmen with cavalry in reserve behind and Gauls on the right.  The first pic is taken from the Roman right as the  Carthaginains begin to advance in echelon, right forward.  The Roman cavalry on their left is advancing beyond the far wood. 

The second pic (and all subsequent ones) is taken from behind the Carthaginian left.  The Roman cavalry in the foreground is attacking the Gallic right.  The Gauls are charging at the Roman centre which is advancing to meet them.  A cavalry melee is happening on the far flank and the Carthaginian centre is throwing bad command dice and going nowhere.

The Gallic infantry had a hard time fighting the Romans unsupported.  The cavalry fight on the far flank had a lull as both sides regrouped after the Romans won the first round.

The Gauls broke, but the spearmen finally got moving and attacked the RH Roman infantry division.  The Carthaginan cavalry finally won the cavalry fight on the far flank, but the Romans managed to slip their Auxilia unit past the cavalry onto the spearmen's flank.  The spearmen survived the flank attack though giving ground and the citizens gradually got on top of their oposition.

The Romans on the hill broke and Carthaginians were still in with a chance at this stage.   Both sides only had to lose 1 more division to fail morale.  The spearmen were in reasonable shape, the 2nd cav div was covering their right flank and the 1st cav div had cleared up it's opponents and should have been coming to help.

But the Carthaginian 1st cav dithered and the Roman combined arms  pressure on the 2nd cav was too much.  It broke and with it Carthaginian army morale.

That's 3 Roman wins in a row, but another great game & we both enjoyed it win or lose.  And it looked great.   The use of small units for the Romans worked well - it gave the right feel of tactical flexibility.  We again used command ratings of 8 generally with the Gauls +1 if charging at enemy in sight & -1 otherwise - this works well, it makes doing fancy stuff with them realistically difficult.  We tried having the CIC as an extra general for the Carthaginians, allowing a re-roll for command in the division he was with.  In theory it should have provided scope for overcoming bad command dice if he was put in the right place, but he either wasn't or just threw more bad dice anyway.  The other house rule we used was to make sweeping advance compulsory for Gauls who charged.