4 Madaxeman.com Reports from the ITC in Lisbon

[madaxeman]

After a rather long break from the pre-gunpowder world, Madaxeman.com is pleased to bring you 4 new reports from the 2012 ITC in Lisbon, in which Hannibal himself takes command of a Carthaginian army and takes on Alexander the Great, two lots of R*m*ns, and some Seleukids

The reports can be found here via this link

They include all of the traditional rubbish, some new bits from Twitter and a short video analysis of the Alexandrian army strengths and weaknesses too.

As Hannibal was actually commanding the Carthaginian army, I have drafted in some almost-as-tough-as-Hannibal hard men to give the post match analysis and attempt to critique the perfection which was Hannibal's battle plan - so look out for Chuck Norris, Jack Bauer, Clint Eastwood and Jason Statham

[johno]

Really good, Tim - enjoyed reading these reports immensely. Thanks for making the effort

johno

[Delbruck]

Tim,

Is your Carthaginian list on the Wiki?

[madaxeman]

now added...

[mbsparta]

Dear Mad,

Another entertaining report.

Hannibal's Carthaginian FoG army also faces an up-hill struggle against Mid-Republican Romans, even without any Superior types. I actually have found that the Cannae tactic of Gallic/Spanish center with African flanking supports can cause the Roman a real problem. Spanish MF should be HF in Hannibal's Italian campagins. That would help shore things up a bit.

Superior Gallic cavalry are tough BGs but I agree Numidian LH are a little under performing. Against in-period Romans though they have no real opponent. That is unless Scipio steals yours.

As for a 28mm Hannibal, while he was without question "bigger than life" I doubt he was that big. I played a guy with a Seleucid army one time. 28mm, beautifully painted and based. Not just nicely painted ... beautifully painted. And right before we start the game he brings out this giant plastic battery powered toy elephant. He places it on the table and turns the abomination on. Bad enough that he ran the thing before the game. He left it on the table the whole game. Everytime he won a combat he turned it on. If I had been armed, I would have bagged my first elephant that day.

Thanks again for the fun reading. Looking forward to the next reports.

Mike B

[madaxeman]

Both the Romans I faced had Superior Armoured Skilled Swordsmen legions, (some were even Elite) so I doubt even HF Gauls would have caused them any problems at all - every time my HF Campanians got into combat they were shredded almost instantly and they are basically armoured Gauls. If I were to try again I'd probably take less foot (drop the Campanians and perhaps also the Spanish - although there is maybe an argument that 2 units of Spanish would have been lots better than one) and max out on Cv and skirmishers as using anthing other than the Africans against enemy line of battle troops was a bit of a waste of time.

I've used an action-man / GI Joe sized Roman Emperor at one competition, who was a model of Kenneth Williams in the film Carry on Cleo - pressing a button on his base generated one of 20 random quotes from the film. Now, that was irritating ..even to me...