Roll Call 2004

The Carthaginians made it to the full 12 months of singles play (in the UK) with a wheeling out at Roll Call. Vague optimism after their good showing in Reading in a similarly limited period, was somewhat tempered by the need to leave early on Sunday evening in order to catch a plane to Italy. 

My list was pretty much this:

Taking 4 commands and a regular army to this competition seemed pretty bonkers, so it appealed to me greatly, and fitting in 3 elephants as well, even better!

Game 1 

Wayne Dare and his Patricio-Thracians 

With what was soon to become a traditional Carthaginian attack along a river, I launched an assault against a Thracian army that appeared to be chosen to be 1/ big and 2/ a bit like Patrician Romans. 

I deployed with the warband next to the River, then spears, then cavalry and the Numidian extending the line to the open edge of the table. I was faced by 3 screens of LH, with a huge block of thracian foot facing the Warband, and two smaller blocks of auxilia waiting to be redeployed in classic patsy stylie behind the other 2 screens of LH. 

With this huge army, and its huge break points I decided the only opportunity was to attack like a loonie against the LH (F) command, and try and initiate a lottery of LH (O) vs LH (F) before they could extract themselves. This looked on the cards, but the patr-hacians swiftly attempted to stiffen the end of their line with some auxilia, who would be fairly close to being an immovable terrain obstacle for the Numidians were they to fully deploy out. 

Thinking unclearly, I decided that the first combat of the game should occur almost as soon as possible, and should involve my Numidian general on some very low factors charging in against the Roman, sorry, Thracian auxilia as I had the chance to get a 2/1, 2/2 and 3/2 run of combats, with some of the Thracians double ranked.

Luckily this worked a treat, and Mr Numidia BC265 (seen here on the right) managed to ride down his opponents like he was a Kn (S) general not a LH (O) one, and with an other success to one of his colleagues we were 4 elements to the good and staring at a dodgy flank before the dust had settled!

Meanwhile to add to the folly of the Numidian attack, the warband were doing (for only the 3rd time in recorded history) a innovative tactic known as a "maneuver" , forming a column and redeploying to eventually come up against another block of even more Thra-trician auxilia who were stuffing themselves into a gap presently filled by 2 nervous cavalry. 

Astonishingly this tactic worked, and the warband were somehow able to insert themselves into the auxilia/LH/Cv melee that was rapidly developing in the center. Finally the flank command collapsed under the weight of bloodthirsty Numidians, but Wayne was still confident in the ability of his center to hold on. 

Unfortunately he had not reckoned on Auxilia only fighting in one rank against warband, and on the proximity of my spear wall to his base edge. As the auxilia became increasingly isolated and surrounded by warband and LH, the spearmen engaged and fled Ps (I) off table - 10-0 to the Carthos just before time was called !

Game 2 vs Parthians

Another "I can't believe its not Patricians" army - this time Kn (X) attempting to maneuver behind a LH screen.

The river was on the right this time, leaving space for a big Parthian hill behind which there was clearly room for 4 compulsory yet not deployed elements of Ps (S) plus another 12 points of troops ("hmmm - divisible by 4 eh...So Dr Watson, whatever can it be?").

My deployment was the mirror of the last game to accommodate the river (why change a winning formula, who cares if the enemy is totally different?) and just to make a change I rushed forwards to try and engage the LH before the heavy stuff could come up to relieve them. 

With the Numidians initially unreliable my advance was vaguely slowed down, but cleverly I decided to attack anyway rather than wait for them to support my flanks (eh, what??) and initiated another lottery with Lh (O) vs LH (F). 

Elephant - "this looks good..."

Warband - "tell me about it another time please, I'm rather busy"

The end result of this mad rush was that soon the warband command was reshuffling elephants and the Part-rithians were re-deploying Kn (X) like very slowly moving chess pieces, both trying to scare the other into not attacking, as the Ps (S) who were supposed to be shielding the warband pushed onwards towards the base edge.  A mad melee developed as the Patri-thian  CinCs command were caught by Ps (S0 and warband perilously near the base edge, with a line of Ax (I) deployed there being the only thing to stop LH fleeing off table.

Surprise! 12 points of well painted LH are stopped from crossing the river by the less well painted but 2 factors better Carthaginian sub general, who has long since left his Wb to their own devices..

When an over-brave and overlapped Ps (S) sneaking along the river bank managed to flee away a LH sent to run him over, he was left with the enticing prospect of turning the flank of a block of Kn (X) to kill the CinC - and as is compulsory in the rules, he won - CinC's command down!

After this it got very messy, with Kn (X) being attacked by warband and Sp (I), and things dying left right and center. The warband command went down (I think) but finally the Part-roman-hians were also eroded beyond the point of no return, and turned and fled. 9-1 (I think?).

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