Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Rome v. Carthage 28mm

Rome:  Jim & Mitch
Carthage: Mark & SteveJ
Umpire: Mike.
Rules: House rules M2M.

The Romans are on the near side of the table.
The Carthaginians have rapidly advanced their cavalry on the near flank, held their centre back & advanced their elephants in front of their cavalry on the far flank 
The Roman centre has advanced while their outnumbered cavalry is being held back on both flanks. Their plan is to smash the Punic centre while their outnimbered cavalry fight delaying actions on both flanks. 
The Roman left has been largely shattered on the first charge. Triari have been deployed to cover the infantry's flank as it continues forward.  On the far flank the triari have been attacked by elephants.
Mike's newly painted elphants are a fearsome sight.

On the near flank the Triati stand alone against masses of Punic cavaly who so far have been prevented from exploiting their advatage by bad command dice.
In the Carthaginian spearmen have stood firm with Scutari on each side.  The Roman line was overlapped on both sides & manoples of the second line have been stretched out to prevent flanking by the Scutari.
On the far flank the Triari & Roman cavalry have dealt with half the elphants, but at high cost.   The Scatari on this side of the Spearmen have counterattcked the legion's flank, but the Romans re-reployed some 2nd rank maniples to the right to hold them off.
On the near flank the Punic cavalry is  still taking its time reforming while peppering the triari with javelins.
In the centre things have gone bad for the Romans. Half the Scutari on this side of the spearmen have broken thru their line & the first line had been broken by the spearmen in the centre.  Only on the far side have the Romans done well, breaking the Scutari there.
The Roman 2nd line attacked the Punic spearmen & broke half of them, but its' too late.  The victorious Punic cavalry has finally got it's act together & arrived in the legions' rear.  It's game over for Rome.

The Roman plan nearly worked, but was stymied by the Citizen spearmen.  If they had broken, the Roman second line would have been free to counter the victorious Scutari & then hold off the Punic cavalry. 

  


5 comments:

fireymonkeyboy said...

Fantastic looking game - the elephants are particularly nice.

Jim Gandy said...

While we have resurected the 15mm for ACW, you can't beat 28mm ancients for spectacle.

anymous said...

I think the citizen spear falling back after the roman first line was beaten won the game as it bought time for the carthagian heavy cavalry to return in the rear of the romans

Jim Gandy said...

Indeed. The writer fell into the usual wargamer syndrome of balaming defeat on bad luck rather than cunning play by his opponent.

James Fisher said...

Great looking game. Sounds like it was a fine tussle too.
Those nellies do look grand and they even seem to have performed quite well. The Carthaginians must have been mighty frustrated that their victorious cavalry took so long to exploit the advantage.
Regards, James