FoG V1.0 Ancients in ITC Lisbon 2012

Later Carthaginian vs Late Republican Roman

Game 1 Later Carthaginian vs Alexandrian Macedonian

Game 2 Later Carthaginian vs Late Republican Roman

Game 3 Later Carthaginian vs Later Seleucid

Game 4 Later Carthaginian vs Later Republican Roman (Cassius)

Match Reports Index

The lists for the Later Carthaginian and Late Republican Roman from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at ITC_Lisbon can be seen here in the FoG:AM Wiki.

After a relatively relaxed Portuguese lunch featuring the two highly unusual and innovative menu items of Bacalau and Pork Stew, all eaten after a walk in the searing midday heat the second game was on. This time Hannibal was facing his traditional enemy - Rome, and an American-led Rome at that.

The terrain strategy of Hannibal was the same as in the first game - drop as much on table as possible in an attempt to split the Roman forces as they advanced, thus allowing the African Spearmen and Gallic Cavalry maximum possibility to pick off isloated units of Romans and fight them with overlaps. But the dice gods were not kind to the North Africans, and none of the terrain pieces fell in the middle part of the table, and indeed a clutter of forests and steep hills (in grey) were hemming in the Carthaginian deployment area. Yet again Hannibal considered a flank march, but with a steep hill dominating the forward central zone of the Roman army blocking the best place of arrival of any flanking force, and the prospect of facing simply too many legions to trust to the 3 African units alone to deal whilst he waited for the Gauls to arrive, decided to leave all of his men on table

The two armies lined up in the only real gap in the table (well, for the Carthaginians anyway) with a heavily weighted Carthaginian left flank the obvious attarcking thrust. The Romans were simply wall to wall with a mix of interspersed Elite and Average units - not subtle, but undoubtably intimidating. The Carthaginians would have to use all of their guile to fashion an advantage against this seeling wall of Italian steel

The African Spearmen were resolute, but the wall of Romans looked very much like a dark cloud on the horizon - a cloud with more clout and with probably more Elite units than in any other army to ever feature in a battle report on this website. Sheesh!

Hannibal had totally stacked the odds in his favour on the left, immediately putting paid to any notion that the lessons of concentration of force and picking on the weak links in the enemy army that he so often had to remind Madaxeman about after almost every game would also escape the massive Carthaginian General during the heat of battle. The pressure was building on the Roman right already

Anxious at the prospect both of Hannibal mistaking them for enemy troops and giving them a Very Hard Stare, and excited by the possibility of engaging in combat with someone who was not worse than they themselves were, the Carthaginian Numidians had charged at the Roman Numidians on the left of the table, admittedly at the same time as one of the Gallic units had also charged the same target - and the Roman Numidians had of course evaded, rolled short and been caught. The Gauls had rolled short but the Carthaginian Numidians had rolled long and it was they who had caught the evading enemy in the rear. It was a risky combat anyway, but the Carthaginians knew they had lots of proper cavalry also moving up who could join in the combat - and with the advantage of DISR-ing the Romans at impact as they had hit them in the rear, they now too enjoyed a nice advantage. The Romans were starting to see the true measure of Hannibals brilliance manifest itself on the table..

The Carthaginians were spreading out, hoping to draw the Roman Legions out of line so they could be taken on one-on-one... and on the left the Carthaginian Numidians were pinning the Roman LH back against a steep hill as the Carthaginian's Gallic cavalry moved up in support. So far Hannibals plan seemed to be working however, technically speaking, only those bits of the plan that involved maneuvering the Carthaginian troops had been implemented - the bits where the Romans stepped out of line,and the even more important bits where the Carthaginians won in combat were yet to be tested...

The Carthaginian plan depended on the Romans being drawn into a firework display of units so some of the Legions could be taken on and defeated piecemeal by the African Spearmen, and also probably the Elephants. With the Romans advancing tidily and coherently, the only other option was to draw them out of line with taunting from the Carthaginian skirmishers - and the plan was starting to work already, as a Legion charged out of formation to chase off the Carthaginian slingers !

Things were getting to the pointy end of the pre-combat maneuvering phase of the battle, as the Romans were still refusing to take the bait and were unimaginatively staying resolutely in a coherent line. As the Carthaginians stuffed their Gallic horsemen into the weak section of the Roman right flank, Hannibal also moved his elephants up - right behind a unit of Numidians who were holding back the Roman foot by milling around ineffectively in front of them. The Carthaginian elephants needed to form a temporary unwieldy column formation in order to allow the Numidians to evade when they inevitably were charged by the Legions, but with Hannibal's personal intervention the difficult maneuver was achieved with some considerable aplomb.

On the Carthaginian right, only a handful of Roman skirmishers were delaying the advance of the African Spearmen and Imitation Legions - clearly the Superior and Elite Legions were afraid of the Carthaginian advance and the apparent confidence in the abilities of the Africans that underpinned it and were requesting that their velites buy them more time to prepare for the inevitable combat that was marching towards them...

On the left, the Roman Light Horse had been unable to extracate themselves from the position they had found themselves, pinned against the Steep Hill by the advancing Carthaginian Numidians - but the battle was a slow one and whilst the Carthaginian horse had the upper hand, it was a slow process to win this combat This incompetent slogging match had however bought time for the Gallic Cavalry to move up and join in the melee between the two units of LH, and their impact was decisive almost immediately

But the Roman LH were holding on resolutely and refused to break as they might normally be expected to when facing 4 dice at ++ and 2 dice at evens with just 3 dice of their own... and this allowed the Legions to move up and then join in themselves as well. What had looked like a good advantage for the Carthaginians was suddenly somewhat of a mixed bag... a situation undoubtably exacerbated by the lack of match practice on the Carthaginian side..

The Numidians unsurprisingly found it rather difficult to stand up to a charge from a full fat leaded petrol Roman Legion and immediately lost a base and cohesion.... And still the Roman LH refised to break, although by now the Gauls were pushing them down the cohesion latter quite quickly!

Finally the Roman LH fled and were cut down by the pursuing Gauls! This left the Carthaginians own Numidians still pinned to the front of the Legion... but now, in a rule they did remember, the had a chance to break off

Hannibal had assembled a powerful combined arms force on the left comprising Imitation Legions, Gallic Cavalry and African Spearmen all supported by skirmishers. Even the Numidians engaged by the Legion had managed to extracate themselves succesfullly. Working out how to take all of these various threats on was causing the Roman Consul a severe headeach, almost as bad as the alcohol induced one being endured by the Carthaginian commander... Surely now the Romans would be forced to abandon their coherent formation and separate out into multiple independent units that could be picked off piecemeal by the eager Africans and Gauls?

The Carthaginian battle plan was going about as well as could be expected - there were some Romans still in groups, but gaps had opened in their lines as they sought to respond to the amorphous Carthaginian threat... and most of the Carthaginian troops were lined up against enemies they wanted to take on. The decisive phase of combat was fast approaching

The Romans charged at the skirmishing Numidians, forcing them into a flee along the carefully prepared route Hannibal had marshalled his troops to create for them. But they rolled long, meaning the lead elements of Numidians reached the Spanish Scutarii at the rear of the Carthaginian army.... and so instead of dropping back bases to allow themselves to flee past the Elephants instead the Numidians burst through everything in their path, inflicting DISR markers as they went

But there were more Legions charging too - a second Legion had piled into the foremost unit of African Spermen, who were being personally led by Hannibal (not fighting in the front rank mind you - he's not a maniac). The Romans almost inevitably won the initial impact, but Hannibal's presence meant the African's morale held, and they now had the result they wanted - prolonged combat at an advantage againist a fairly isolated Legion.

With one unit of Spearmen in the correct place to start the planned grinding down of the Romans, Hannibal swiftly sidestepped and deftly bolstered the morale of the Elephants in the next turn's JAP phase. The Carthaginian line was now back in a coherent state of morale, and the Romans were showing some signs of dancing to Hannibal's tune

The Romans then initiated the next round of charges against the coherent Carthaginian line. With their far larger number of combat units it was almost inevitable that not all of the Africans would enjoy an advantage of numbers, but at least the Carthaginian elephants were facing off against one Legion, and the Africans in the foreground of this picture were drawing the short straw and facing 8 bases of Legionaries. The Carthaginians had also gotten Generals into all of the key places - the situation was less than idea, however in reality they would have struggled to engineer a better chance for themselves than the current position.

Aaaah - suddenly the challenge facing Hannibal became somewhat larger by almost an order of magnitude, as the 2 elephants he was commanding suffered 4 hits at impact from the Roman Legion, and rolling a poor death roll exploded immediately. An embarassing hole instantly appeared in the middle of the Carthaginian line, which they simply lacked meaningful troops to plug. Now the Romans were free to rampage in either direction, and also the Carthaginians had lost one of their few units capable of realistically taking on the Roman Legions with any prospect of actually beating one of them

The Romans rushed forward in the techical pursuit they were allowed, but their efforts to capture Hannibal ended in disappointment and the Carthaginians inspirational leader was actually transported back towards the unit of Spaniards who conveniently now needed his help and assistance in re-establishing their formation. This was because the Spanish, who had been attempting to provide rear support illegally to the African Spearmen now realised that they would soon be pressed into service as actual fighting troops. It was desparate, but the Carthaginians simply had to try to prevent the Legion from rolling up the flanks of the 2 units of African Spearmen to either side of them - one of whom (on the right) had already dropped to DISR and lost a base in the same impact phase, despite the comforting presence of one of the Carthaginian Generals. This impact phase was proving to be catastrophic for Carthage

In the next part of the same, already disasterous, impact phase things went from bad to worse for the Carthaginians as that same unit of African Spearmen became spooked by the loss of the Elephants and dropped further to FRAGGED - their ability to stand up to 8 bases of Elite and Superior Legions was now surely over?

The Africans did not survive the melee phase, losing another base and a level of cohesion in the process to send them routing backwards - and then they were unceremoniously chopped down by the pursuing two Legions. This was a disaster for Hannibal's men as their carefully engineered position of maximum opportunity was casually swatted aside by the unsubtle but highly effective Roman strategy of attacking along the line with a solid formation of high quality troops.

The Carthaginian line was getting no breaks of good fortune anywhere, as the Legions resisted everything that was thrown at them. The remaining Afrcan unit was losing bases and cohesion against opponents who refused to show any signs of weakness even when overlapped, and the Gallic Cavalry had bounced off their opponents who had managed to retain cohesion despite losing a base in a combat in which they were also overlapped themmselves by Campanians in Roman armour

The Carthaginians were powerless as the dark-green-based Romans flooded forward, their once coherent line of Legionaries splitting into multiple independant maneuver elements which all seemed to have the flanks of Carthaginian units in their sights. It was barely moments since the Elephants had exploded but already the battle seemed unsalvagable even from Hannibals lofty viewpoint

On the Carthaginian right the only remaining unit of Africans committed itself to battle, supported again by a unit of Campanians. The Roman-style infantry were equal at impact with the real Romans they were facing, and yet they immediately dropped cohesion as they charged home. This was a bad start to what was already feeling like an act of futile desparation.

The Romans were using skilled swordsmanship to hack away at the soft underbelly of the Carthaginian army, and next the Spaniards were forced to feel the full force of Roman fury as the Legion which had destroyed the Elephants so comprehensively waded into them as well. Evens at impact but +2 in melee was a pretty good position for the Romans to initiate...

Now more seeking to get at least some points on the board by making sure there were at least some enemy casulaties inflicted when the game ended, the Gallic Cavalry re-initiated their hopeful charge against the already-one-base down Roman legion on the Carthaginian left. This looked like their best chance... and it was a bit of a slim one anyway..

The Africans on the Carthaginian right had failed dismally to maintain cohesion, and now were fast sliding down a slippery slope towards a rather crunchy defeat as their cohesion crumbled under a hammer-reign of Roman swordsmanship. This was all really, really bad...

Unsurprisingly the Spaniards were not standing up especially well in the face of a concerted attack from a highly motivated far better opponent...they too dropped to DISR

Even Hannibal's personal encouragement was not helping the Africans stand up against the remorseless attacks of the Roman legions - the overlap the Africans had worked so hard to engineer, and which they in theory were relying on to give them a vital edge in the combat against the Legion was now going to become the source of their doom as they were about to be charged in the flank by yet another Legion...

On the Carthaginian right the Romans had no need of overlaps, as they cut straight through the Carthaginians best troops in a vicious frontal assault. Two more Carthaginian units were now routing, and defeat was rushing towards Hannibals army with the speed of whatever in the Ancient world moved as fast as a train.

The Spaniards then dropped to Fragged, and with that the game was inevitably over - the result is a crushing defeat for Hannibals' army at the hands of some superb Roman legionaryship.

Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summary from Hannibal

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Click here for the report of the next game in this competition

Game 1 Later Carthaginian vs Alexandrian Macedonian

Game 2 Later Carthaginian vs Late Republican Roman

Game 3 Later Carthaginian vs Later Seleucid

Game 4 Later Carthaginian vs Later Republican Roman (Cassius)

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