010 Castulo (211 BC)

As my regular Napoleonics opponent, evert, is on holiday, I assuaged my withdrawal with a return match of this scenario against Deon.

I made much the same mistake as Deon in the earlier game by having Masinissa's Light cavalry charge into the Roman right flank. (Well, I had an "Order Light troops" card and didn't want to waste it!) The cavalry took a hammering from the Roman Medium infantry and retreated in some disarray.

Having finally remembered that all Light troops have missile weapons (we're both a bit rusty with Ancients), I moved up my Auxilia and slingers in the centre to start peppering the Roman lines.

Deon was consolidating the Roman centre and removed one of my Auxilia with his Medium infantry. And then a Warrior unit, making the score 0:2 to him.

Then Mago's force burst through the woods on the left to hit the Roman left flank and take out a Light infantry. {"Inspired Left Leadership" was the card and 1:2 is the score.}

Scipio sent Medium cavalry and Infantry to try to break through in the centre, taking out another Carthaginian Auxilia, but losing one of the Medium infantry. {2:3}

However, this move left Scipio on the front line and what was left of Masinissa's cavalry attacked {"Mounted Charge"} in a desperate effort to get him. The attack eliminated one Roman Medium infantry, but saw three Carthaginian cavalry bite the dust! {3:6, but a bit of luck would have finished the battle right there.}

The Romans re-grouped to protect Scipio and took out a Carthaginian Warrior and an Auxilia from Mago's force. {3:8 and all over.}

Deon kept things together very well there and I wasn't able to press Mago's attack on the left. On the bright side, the score from our first game was 8:1 to me as the Romans (though the stats say this is a relatively even scenario), so that's an aggregate score of 11:9 in my favour.

I recently took a break from the Napoleonic wars for an Ancients battle with my occasional opponent, Deon. We ended up playing this scenario with Deon taking the Carthaginians and me the Romans. I now see that Evert and I played this scenario a couple of years ago and I was the Romans then, too.

The Romans advanced on the right, the Carthaginians in the centre (for simplicity I'll use left and right as shown above, rather than from each army's perspective). First blood went to Carthage as a Roman Medium infantry fell. {And the score is 0:1.}

However, this opened a nice gap in the Roman centre through which the Heavy infantry could march, getting between Scipio and the enemy {while benefitting from the bonus of being adjacent to a Leader}.

The Carthaginian attackers fell back in the centre, pursued by Roman Auxilia and Light infantry, whose missiles finished off a Carthaginian Auxilia. {1:1}

Masinissa led two of his Light cavalry into the attack on the right, but were repelled by the Roman Medium infantry. They tried again, with some Warriors in support, only for one cavalry unit and the Warriors to be eliminated, Masinissa having to flee. {3:1}

On the left, advancing Carthaginian Auxilia, from Mago's force, were attacked by Roman Medium cavalry, but the horsemen came off worse. Fresh Roman cavalry had another go, forcing the remaining Auxilia to hide in the woods.

Back to the right where Masinissa returned to the fray with more Warriors, only to be thumped by the Medium infantry they attacked. Masinissa had to run away again. {4:1}

The Roman Medium cavalry on the right then charged into Masinissa's Light cavalry and killed two of them when they had to retreat.

Masinissa led his last cavalry in a final charge against the Roman Medium infantry with predictable results: dead horsemen and a clean pair of heels from their leader. {7:1}

And the Roman Medium cavalry left the battlefield to cement a Roman victory, despite the arrival of Hasdrubal and his Heavy infantry in the centre. {8:1 is the one-sided scoreline.}

We were both very rusty at Ancients and missed all sorts of opportunities. For example: at the beginning I completely forgot that ALL Light units have missile weapons and was bemoaning my lack of archers! And I think we've proved that hitting three Medium infantry units with 1-2 Light cavalry is a good way of losing the cavalry. I think the scoreline was unfair on Deon, though. At some point we will have a return match and see if I can do any better with the Carthaginians.

Both my opponent, Evert, and I were a little rusty, but soon got back into the swing of things. Evert fancied the Carthaginians, so I took the Romans. A series of Leadership cards let me move Scipio and the troops from the right half of the Roman force gradually forward, engaging the enemy infantry.
My cavalry charge cards proved less effective and I lost two of the three units (one to a very lucky Auxilia that happened to be next to a leader, Mago, when it battled back).
Evert added Masimissa's light cavalry into the fight on my right, which went back and forth, swapping units, though I kept Scipio protected. His surviving light cavalry drifted into the centre to skirmish with the Romans that hadn't advanced. However, Hasdrubal and his troops were still stuck at the back of the board.
I finally used a left flank card, enabling me to lose my last cavalry and an Auxilia. At least they took out Mago's heavy infantry first. With the score at 7 all, I finally got my heavy infantry into the action, killing a (damaged) light cavalry as it tried to evade this attack.
On this showing, I rather like this scenario, but I do want to play it as the Carthaginians.

Our gaming group's tournament results:

Ten battles:
6 wins for Carthage
4 wins for Rome

Flip sides with Judd. He wins as Rome 8-7 snatching victory from me at the last minute. Really good game though.

Carthage defeats Rome 8-5. Rome killed a Carthagian leader and was still in the game, but at a crucial moment, played his medium cavarly at the wrong time allowing the defeat.

I think there is a couple os such examples also on other profiles.

Hi TomKnight3. I see some text around your avatar image. Is it just me or you have a problem in the configuration of your profile?

In the second game of the first pair in the tournament, player #2 won as the Roman 8-5 against Carthage. Rome pushed hard on the Carthage left pushing them back. Carthage's center was unorganized. The Carthage right got moving but was too late to do any real damage. So, for the first pair's battles, Player #2 is up 4 banners moves on to the other players in a good position. Meanwhile, player #1 is now down 4 banners.

We started a tournament base on this scenario. In the first game, Carthage won 8-7 in a close game. Carthange was helped by 2 mounted charges. The Romans moved close to the center and right exits. Roman was hampered by drawing no line commands in the entire game. The Roman left was crushed just before the Roman right could strike the Carthagians. A close game and a fun one.

Rome shifted to right and made a mad dash to exit the board. Carthage had trouble putting togther a strong defense to stop them. The Roman general had several casualty checks, but survived. A rally card helped him to gain strenth. Rome won 8 to 5 without exiting troops off the board.

Rome was able to push through the center winning 8-5. It was really close at the end, with Rome getting two troops off the board. Carthage had one general leave the field. All the Carthagian light calvary were killed in the attempt to stop the Roman troops from exiting. Even two mounted charges could not stopp them. Scipio survied several kill checks.

Carthage won in a tight fight 8/7. Hasdurbal went to the Roman side of the board taking two banners to end the game. Two Roman units were about to leave the field and gain banners, but they failed to exit in time. An amazing game, full of tension and nail-biting.

Carthage won when Hasdrubal went man to man with Scipio. It was 7 to 4 when Hasdrubal crushed Scipio's Medium Infantry making it 8/4. No Romans left the board for the banner bonus. A rematch is scheduled.

A win for Carthage. The Roman center rolled forward, annihilating and pushing back the Carthaginians in the way while pulling back the weakened units and keeping Scipio safe. The Romans had a clear road in front of them, when the Carthaginian cavalry swept around the flanks to pick off enough weakened Roman units for the win.

Solo Play

Very interesting scenario. The Carthaginians are effectively trying to stall the Roman army and also seek out and kill Scipio. The battle started well for the Romans who had several cards that allowed them to rapidly advance to towards the Carthaginian side of the battle. This was going very well as they repulsed Mago's and Masinissa's attacks. There was some damage, but Scipio held his forces together and protected the army. The slow advance would be stopped, however, once Hasdrubal pushed his contingent into conflict. His heavy infantry sliced through the Roman line almost eliminating Scipio himself. Their final banner came when they eliminated a full strength heavy unit.

Carthage 8 - Rome 5

Rome was holding their own for most of this battle. Nearly destroying the entire Carthaginian left early in the battle. They tried to push their forces forwards again, but Carthage managed to push back any units threatening to exit the field. Mago was completely useless during the battle. His entire group managed to only inflict two blocks worth of damage. The bulk of kills again came from Hasdrubal's expertly led heavy infantry who again cut the Roman line apart. However, it required a desperate gamble of flinging his unit into the power Roman line to pull off the victory.

Carthage 8 - Rome 7