Ascot FoG Game 5 - vs Gallic

On the blue, blue grass of Gaul, the Carthaginians faced their last test - another historical matchup against the Gauls

The Gallic army was as listed here and contained a rather messy mix of MF and HF and a surprisingly large amount of cavalry (which had always been rubbish in previous rulesets, so was a surprise to see here today)

One thing the Gauls definately lacked was a serious amount of skirmishers, and my Spaniards and North Africans powered forward to try and sweep they limited skirmish screen off a hill, and so to take a commanding position on the flank of the main lines of the tribesmen. Quite what they were going to do after that was a mystery, but it seemed a good idea at the time. Oh - actually it was to clear the way for all my medium foot to sweep in there too...

Suspecting the spearmen would not be so competent, Hannibals lieutenant threw forwards his elephants to try and bottle up the Gallic light chariots

 The big man himself meanwhile was busy commanding almost everything in the army in one huge blob. The armoured medium foot javelinmen were rather nervous, as were the Numidians in the face of potentially superior enemy forces. 

And over on the left our own Gauls had already done the "just in time turn 180 degrees" move so they could spend the next few turns running away from a vastly superior force of Gallic cavalry in that IGOUGO (and we both move the same distance) style. 

Flipping back to the left again, my massed forces had scared off the gallic light chariots with a concerted salvo of javelins and an even more concerted charge by almost everything I had - but a burst of speed allowed my light infantry to catch their evade - which foolishly they elected to so! 

This caused the disgruntled chariots to suffer a drop to a green and yellow square level of cohesion, and make their exit - allowing my Spanish caetrati to catch the gallic skirmishers in their pursuit! 

Cheered considerably by this, the Numidians took the opportunity to remind the remaining Gallic cavalry unit that it was surrounded, and they were allowed to shoot!

The elephants had continued their charge forward - and the Gallic line was quaking. Well, if elite armoured impact foot swordsmen can ever be said to quake...

The pachyderms charged in, and as usual found themselves surprisingly ineffective against troops you'd sort of expect them to skittle out.

As the chariots fled the elephants pursued aimlessly - they now would never be able to turn around and get back into the battle line to help their colleagues who were struggling manfully against the Soldurii 

But things were now looking bad for the Gallic cavalry as the Numidians almost supernatural light-horseesque ability to move away at will allowed the rest of the flanking force the opportunity to help surround them.

The battlefield - and several parts of my army - were by now rather fragmented. The soldurii were still resisting my elephants, the smellies who had broken the light chariots showed no sign of being interested in returning to the field, and various units from both sides were marching frantically to try and either get into combat or to avoid being caught in combat 

Eventually the soldurii's elite + general status allowed them to break the Carthaginian elephants, who decided to flee the field just as determinedly as their colleagues were refusing to return to it. By now some additional units had actually managed to get close to the enemy and charge in, and the Soldurii were now, with 1/3 casualties, turning to fight off a unit of spearmen. 

But over on my left it was payback time, as the light chariots, having been rescued by a general before leaving the table, came back to punish my light infantry !

As the desperation of the last turn approached, even Hannibal himself dived into combat - but to no avail. With time running out and the battlefield too fragmented to allow any local advantage to be followed up by either side time was called. A narrow victory for the Carthaginians. 

Post Game Analysis

A slightly unsatisfactory end to the competition, with a game that was too spread out to allow two fairly pedestrian - and crucially undrilled - armies to really take advantage of the times when they each struck important blows against each other, as yet again the undrilled troops were unable or reluctant to turn around and rejoin the line of scrimmage. The Elite soldurii proved why there are very few Elite troops in the lists - especially when led by a general they proved largely unbeatable and unkillable.  Towards the end the sound of Benny Hill music could almost be heard as units chased each other around the vast empty spaces of the table as the end game dragged on and IGOUGO meant only the edge of the table arriving before the final whilstle could cause either side to be caught  

Post Game Analysis from Hannibal

Frankly I'm glad that's all over for another few months. Being associated with you and your crap play is not going to do my pension any good at all. You should know that Elite troops are , well "elite" - the clue is in the name really. Yet again you decided to take on the enemies best troops and failed to hit his weak points - doh!!   

At least you won - marginally - this time. Next time however, learn your lesson. Don't take an army with so many average troops, and so many different types. You simply aren't good enough to use them!! Next time I'll play on my own - without your intervention!

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