Hail Caesar - another Breakthrough

The scenario dice again decreed a FOW Breakthrough scenario.  This time Nick & Tom's Carthaginians defended against Rich & Byron's Gauls, Jim umpiring. 

The match up might be a bit un-historic, but it was a matter of using all the 28mm available.  To modify the FOW mission to Hail Caesar we used the Cartho camp as the only objective and allowed the defenders to reposition some terrain (to replicate the FOW advantage of being dug in at the start).  The rules for fighting for the camp were: Defender +1 morale.  Attacker no charge bonus.  Both count as open order so -1 attack. Cavalry & spearmen disordered.

The Carthos deployed their 2 citizen spearmen on 2 ridges facing the Gaul's deployment area with their elephants between.  Their 4th divison, Numidian cavalry & infantry was in rear ready to protect the camp.

The Gauls deployed their large warband division on their left with their slingers in the centre of it facing the elephants, their chariots were on their left, cavalry behind and fanatic warbands on flank march.

The Gauls advanced their left while their cavalry milled about aimlessly in the rear.  But the Carthos didn't wait for them, they charged off the hill on the right while moving their elephants and 2nd spear divisions to the right.  The Numidian infantry set up a defence in the camp with their cavalry in support.

Tom's spearmen attack was indecisive and they fell back onto their hill as a swarm of chariots skirmished with them. The Gallic infantry were too shaken to follow up.

On the other side of the table, the 2 fanatical warbands and their supporting skirmishers came on promptly and charged the camp.  The Numidian infantry held on grimly in the camp and defeated one warband while their cavalry engaged the other.

Nick's spearmen advanced on the Gallic right as Tom's elephants charged the chariots.  As they were in open order the chariots tried to evade, but one unit was caught and destroyed.  A chariot unit counterattacked the elephants while the others tried unsucessfully to defeat the spearmen by skirmish fire.  Nick's attack beat the warbands to his front and cut off the advance of the Gallic cavalry.

The battle ended when the Numidian cavalry broke the warbands on the flank leaving no Gauls in that quarter of the table.  But on the other flank it was only matter of time before the Gauls broke anyway.  Their cavalry and chariots were pinned down by spearmen and their infantry were on the verge of breaking with elephants loose on their flank.


The scenarios seems pretty well balanced.  In this case, the Gauls failed to take any advantage from deploying second and the Carthos did a good active defence strategy, so a fair result.