Classical Ancients in Central London 2015
Carthaginian vs Roman
Game 3 Carthaginian vs Alexandrian Macedonian
Game 2, and Carthage faced its classic nemesis - the Romans!
The lists for the Carthaginian and Roman from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Central London can be seen here in the L'Art de la Guerre Wiki.
The three-line Roman armies in ADLG need to be taken in "legions", with a full 2:1:1 ratio of Principes, Triarii and all the other gubbins, meaning that the list was fairly hard to muck up at 200 points... would Dave have tried and succeeded though?
Faced with a presumed superiority in Carthaginian cavalry (more a sign how rubbish the Romans are rather than a reflection on the Carthaginians) the boys in red had elected to anchor both flanks on terrain, and use their Numidian ally to skirmish in the open ground in front of their fortified camp and await the onslaught from Hannibal's forces
ADLG hint - Each army has a camp, which counts against the army break point when lost. Normal camps are free and easy to capture, fortified camps are a lot harder to capture, but do cost points and also count as more losses if taken.
The Romans can field an impressive amount of legionaries at 200 points... certainly impressive if you are a North African Citizen spearman with a pointy stick and bad breath from eating too much camel risotto....
The Numidian ally quickly saw that their number was up against the more numerous Carthaginian mounted wing and scooted back behind the Roman lines as the legions gradually wheeled forward to engage the onrushing forces of Hannibal.
With the Numidians out of the way and the Roman left anchored on their camp, this time the command of warband looked set to be the one tasked with enveloping the enemy flanks. The non-impetuous Spanish peeled off the larger formation of impetuous Gauls and started making their way, like Russian mushroom hunters on a weekend at the dacha, for the woods that were pretending in a maginot-esque way to defend the Romans right wing.
ADLG hint - Guess what? Impetuous troops have to keep chugging forwards at pretty close to full speed - anything else costs extra command pips. Nothing if not logical these rules huh...?
The end of the Roman line was defended by the Extraordinarii, but the Celtic people of Hannibals army had a plan, and that plan involved overlapping the line and then putting themselves in a position to turn onto the enemy flank. This could spell disaster for the Romans, but with more complex grammatical construction for past and future tenses given their entirely understandable propensity to speak Latin
The quality of light changed, but the situation did not. Both sides fought on...
But, as always, an exposed flank led to a dramatic breakthrough for the Iberians. As the Gauls engaged them to the front, the Spanish hammered the end of the Extraordinarii line and started to much their way, like a pac-man eating cured ham, towards the actual real legions.
ADLG hint - Hitting a flank is lethal in ADLG... but only mega-lethal if the enemy are already engaged to their front. Hit an enemy on two sides and they will be toast, with no nice jam or marmalade either. Not even Nutella would save them.
Back in the centre and the legions had started to fan out to cover more of the table. This left an amusing looking gap in the middle of their line, similar in principle but far smaller than the gaping hole between the Carthaginian spear command and the Gauls and Iberians. In the hole two sets of skirmishers skirmished in a skirmish-ey way at each other, both hoping not to be killed and to be responsible for inflicting proper chunky losses on their own armies (loss of skirmishers is the same as loss of real units for break points. That makes you get them out of the way when the real battle begins... or as soon as they take a casualty!)
The Romans couldn't help themselves moving forwards to take on the in all probability less competent African spearmen, and the line of red inched forward as the men carefully checked their pilums for straightness and penetrative capability. The Carthaginian infantry looked nervously at the Celtiberians, who were holding the cards in this particular hand. On the far left the Gauls and Spanish had pretty much finished chewing up the flank of the Extraordinarii and were licking their lips in anticipation of some proper legionary action.... but with nothing threatening them to the front, these legionaries might be more inclined and more able to survive the assault.
Hannibal and his mismash of cavalry and LH was now staring down the enemy fortified camp. The LF protecting it were a tricky proposition when in rough terrain, especially when attempting to use LH to extract them and so the best solution Hannibal could come up with was to encourage the Numidians to try and break down the enemy resistance with repeated volleys of javelins.
The Gauls and Spaniards were close to achieving their objective, but the Superior Armoured Extraordinarii had put up a decent fight.
ADLG hint - Being Elite/Superior/Call it what you will allows you to add +1 to any dice roll of 1,2 or 3. Having better armour than your opponent means you add +1 to any losing score. Not wildly complicated, but it works...!
The Extraordinarii were by now living up to their name, and despite some serious markerage had held the Gauls long enough to allow the legions to join in the fight - which they did with some enthusiasm, seeing a flank to attack! Heavy Armoured Elite foot were a rather different proposition for the Gauls and Spaniards, and they now needed to make their flank advantages, and their dice count before they got ground down by the more resilient legions.
Back at the Roman camp, the enemy Numidian foot were proving remarkably resilient to the javelins and arrows of outrageous LH, and were still holding firm... but one thing LF cannot do is to block proper enemy troops from moving past them, which the Carthaginian Liby-Phonecian legacy-of-6th-edition-nomenclature Cavalry promptly did, careening into the end of the already engaged Roman line. This made the African spearmen a LOT happier... meanwhile, more Cavalry snuck round the back and aimed themselves at the camp walls
ADLG hint - yeah, guess what? Light troops exercise no ZOC against real ones. Who would've thought eh?
The Gauls and Spanish were rapidly rethinking their "we've almost won this" perspective on life as yet more proper legionaries turned up. The legionaries were delighted to be facing such squishy opponents, and even more delighted to be actually turning up to play as the troops they really were - a rare occurrence in Dave's armies over the years.
The Africans were proving far more stoic in the face of the legionary assault, apart from the unit which had been obliterated and who's demise now permitted a legion to step forwards into the gap, ready to turn on a flank and set off a cascade of doom on the Carthaginians of course...
ADLG hint - you can only step forward after combat in your own turn. This means you usually cant turn onto a flank immediately after winning a round of combat and destroying your opponents. In theory this means the defender can being up a 2nd line to fill the gap.... if of course they have that much foresight! I have a suspicion that this may be the only sensible use for Medium Cavalry...
All of the Gauls had by now been eliminated, only leaving the more organised Spanish - and with this whole flank breaking down into a series of disorganised combats they were running at any enemy they could see and looking for opportunities to cause more mayhem.
Pictures of Romans from my Ancients Photo Directory
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
With the Carthaginian cavalry having smashed the Roman infantry flank near the camp, the legionary line here was in serious trouble with only LH and a Roman General in the way. Everything in the Carthaginian army was focused on the enemy camp, as troops poured towards it hoping to capture the extra 6VPs that would take the Carthaginians to victory before their own losses, especially with the Gauls, took them to defeat!
But the Roman Velite Elite skirmishers steadfastly refused to give up, and were in fact giving better than they were taking by inflicting cohesion losses on Hannibals Numidians. The Carhaginian cavalry had reached the walls of the camp, but it had been well built and their efforts to roll a 6 to scale the walls and open the gates were proving fruitless...
ADLG Support
There is now an active UK Yahoo Group and an active US ADLG Yahoo group you can visit for more info and to find other players for ADLG in your area. The main forum now also has sections in French, English, Italian and Spanish
The arrival of the Carthaginian elephants saw the Romans Numidian LH evading swiftly off the table, racking up VPs for Carthage but the legions had by now dispatched most of the African spearmen and also the Celtiberians - so both sides were dangerously close to defeat... The Elite Velites were also on the offensive.
The camp walls were coming under sustained horse hoof attack, whilst those inside cackled madly at the Carthaginians lack of ladders and battering rams as part of the usual panoply of their Medium cavalry units
The other 2 units of proper Carthaginan Heavy cavalry however were on the rampage, and their impressive 16cm movement distance was causing mayhem along the Roman line... which was much more exposed to such attacks since its demolition of most of the Carthaginain spearmen who has previously been shielding it from scrutiny..
The Result is a desparately narrow defeat for Carthage at the hands of their arch enemies Rome, as the loss of the warband flank and the chewing of spearmen inflicted by the legions just sneaks ahead of the losses caused by Hannibals turning of the flank. If the baggage had been captured, the game would have been won by Carthage
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Carthaginian Commander
My historical enemy, my nemesis, the evil and manifold legions of that den of iniquity and home of descendants of dogs that is Rome. Here my men fought the red tide to a virtual standstill, face to face, nose to nose, sword to gladius - and the outcome was in the balance until the last moment of the game.
Unfortunately after that last moment, the end result was that defeat was snatched from the very oesophagus of victory by the boring and unimaginative line of red-clad (and blue, to be fair) legionaries and others assocted people with too many 'i's in their names, and for that Carthage will I am sure be made to suffer.
My greater command and control was exercised to its maximum here, and despite our best attempts to lure the Romans out of their defensive situation their well protected flanks just about kept the game in their favour.
Next time I will have learnt to take infantry to capture the camp, but my footless command and the lack of any fast moving elements with the spearmen meant that I had naught with which to take the camp. Perhaps swapping the two flank commands would have been an option, but I am not sure that the cavalry coudl have done much on te other side...? Anyway, time for curry...
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Aaarh! By Odins hairy armpits, what luck you rode this game to stay in the match until e'en past half way! With no mighty Dane-axes to swing, and no Saga dice to roll it is hard for me to understand what witch-craftery you invoked, especially with those large grey beasts of Freya's nightmares supposedly in your thrall.
If I were to list the mistakes you made here, it would be difficult to load this page in even the fastest Scandinavian-style broadband connection, so I will concentrate on the obvious errors and hope that in whatever North African post-death hellhole you are sent to instead of Valhalla that you have time to reflect on a game in which you chose to take on the Legions of Rome frontally with spearmen who were not as good at Impact, and not as good in a sustained melee.
You also threw away your advantage in front of the camp when the simple expedient of including a single unit of infantry in the flanking mostly mounted command would have greatly increased the speed at which you could have pillaged the enemy camp - and what is war for if it is not for pillaging enemy camps?!
The dandruff from the forked beard of Ulaf the Gangrenous could have been shaken onto the table surface and would have provided a better guide as to how to deploy your troops and to avoid such obvious failings - let's hope that in the next game you exhibit as much wisdom as flakes of dead skin scattered by chance rather than trying to rely on your own wisdom.
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
You can also comment, "like" or give feedback on these reports on either the Madaxeman.com Facebook Page or the Madaxeman.com Blogger Site.
Game 3 Carthaginian vs Alexandrian Macedonian
Battle Reports Pageloads to date.View My Stats for My match reports Pages
