Slitherine

Rome vs Carthage - 600 (ish) points each.

Witness the miracle of 1 Roman cavalry BG defeating 3BG's of Numidian Light Horse and Gallic Cavalry, a vineyard saving Rome's backside, triarii killing elephants and a hastati vs African Spearmen stabfest. Also includes scutarii wasting Italian allies amongst the grapes.

Full report at http://philbancients.blogspot.com/searc ... %20reports

Nice report. Just a few comments:
The LH were 2:1 with the Cv but with LH being half dice it was still an even fight.
Why did the Cv on Cv fight result in a 2nd impact phase? They should have stayed locked in combat surely?
And Hannibal was fighting in the front rank, right? Then his +2 would only apply to the unit he is with and he was unavailable to bolster the others.

Nice to see Roman deployment in checkerboard formation. What is your experience with that?
Especially in your last AAR, it seems that the carthaginians managed to get overlaps because of this. In general one tries to get his main line in one piece to the enemy. Why then leaving gaps which result in overlaps for the enemy?
And last but not least: The second line needs one turn more to get to the enemy, is this desireable with an HF army which always tends not to get to the enemy in time?
I never deployed my Romans not at 10" when I wanted to fight.

I have to admit that I play mainly tournaments with time limits. Unfortunately I don't have the buddies with the appropriate armies and enough time to play often or until army rout. For that I envy you.

as a newb always enjoy a good AAR, thanks again!!

Steve

Mehrunes wrote:Nice to see Roman deployment in checkerboard formation. What is your experience with that?
Especially in your last AAR, it seems that the carthaginians managed to get overlaps because of this. In general one tries to get his main line in one piece to the enemy. Why then leaving gaps which result in overlaps for the enemy?
And last but not least: The second line needs one turn more to get to the enemy, is this desireable with an HF army which always tends not to get to the enemy in time?
I never deployed my Romans not at 10" when I wanted to fight.

I have to admit that I play mainly tournaments with time limits. Unfortunately I don't have the buddies with the appropriate armies and enough time to play often or until army rout. For that I envy you.

The Carthos overlapped on one side and the Romans on the other - but only because the elephants held up the Gauls. It was just the situation when the armies clashed.

The checkerboard works well - it seems easier to move units around but they have to impact at some stage - in a way, it means that the opposition meets the centre at a disadvantage (as they are usually lower quality troops) and so cannot bring numbers to bear. But it normally means being outnumbered on the flanks. Its a race to see if the centre can punch through - as in this battle - quicker than the flanks break up.

The Romans used the checkerboard to allow skirmishers to retire through (I understand) and for movement but once the fighting started I think they wwent into line (pretty much as I did)

Could be wrong though

JadedMantis wrote:Nice report. Just a few comments:
The LH were 2:1 with the Cv but with LH being half dice it was still an even fight.
Why did the Cv on Cv fight result in a 2nd impact phase? They should have stayed locked in combat surely?
And Hannibal was fighting in the front rank, right? Then his +2 would only apply to the unit he is with and he was unavailable to bolster the others.

As we're still learning the rules, this could be wrong but apparently cavalry 'break off' - i.e. retire than come together again (hence 2 impacts). Also with the half dice (we played it as full dice so bad news for Russ)

Hannibal was in the front rank - thanks for the heads up as we played it that his influence was still 12". I'll have to break the bad news to Russ!

broeders wrote:

JadedMantis wrote:Nice report. Just a few comments:
The LH were 2:1 with the Cv but with LH being half dice it was still an even fight.
Why did the Cv on Cv fight result in a 2nd impact phase? They should have stayed locked in combat surely?
And Hannibal was fighting in the front rank, right? Then his +2 would only apply to the unit he is with and he was unavailable to bolster the others.

As we're still learning the rules, this could be wrong but apparently cavalry 'break off' - i.e. retire than come together again (hence 2 impacts). Also with the half dice (we played it as full dice so bad news for Russ)

Hannibal was in the front rank - thanks for the heads up as we played it that his influence was still 12". I'll have to break the bad news to Russ!

Cv only break off if at least half their close combat opponents are steady foot troops.