Pilum at Canusium

Played an Ancients game today with Mark Ritchie, whose Tactical Combat rules are now available on WargamesVault. (I'm vaguely thinking of using or modifying it for VBCW, as it's a ruleset our local group have become very comfortable with.) The rules we used today were instead the hex-based Pilum/Firelock, which we used to play a medieval Polish game last year.

This battle was Canusium, fought betwen Hannibal and Marcellus in southern Italy in 209 BCE. It was just the two of us - most other regular members are in Orlando at the Recon convention this weekend. (I intended to go, but one of my cats has developed a refusal to eat anything but fresh food, so I can't leave her alone.) I took the Carthaginians, partly to see if I could be successful with elephants for once.

Scenario and forces.

The field of battle.

The Roman forces. Leaders are the ones with purple-spotted tags
at front - there are lots of them, the advantage of the legions.

Setup. Romans along the line of the river, Carthaginians
on the flanks.

My left. The tilted base in the center indicates hill carpet-tiles
under the felt. Slingers in the woods.

My right, with elephants.

My infantry slams into his cavalry. Not good - cavalry double
their dice rolls against foot troops. As a reminder, pipe-cleaners
denote hit-point loss, and yellow caps denote failed morale checks.
Two fails or 6-8 HP eliminate a base.

My heffalumps hit the Roman left. Unfortunately, they have very
good morale and it takes time to knock them out unless they roll
boxcars on morale. This actually happened twice, but that's not
all that useful when they had 20+ bases!

A special unit - flaming pigs to terrify the elephants. A
tactic I hadn't heard of.

Slowly stomping the flank (and the occasional pig) flat.

Closeup on Roman war machines and commander.

Closeup on the town of Canusium.

My left is battering itself into insensibility. At lower left a
unit is attempting to rally off its yellow cap - indicated by a
white cap. Hannibal has not got stuck in, because he only
has a leadership radius of two hexes, and is trying to keep
the slingers on-side.

My right is also winding down.

Ultimately, three of the elephants were driven into a rampage. An incredible roll by the pig-handler managed to kill one before it crushed him. With the pachyderms thundering off into the distance, I lost 19 points to 13  (1 per lost base, with occasional additions for commanders). But I did have the distinction that for the first time since Mark has run this scenario (including yesterday in Orlando) all four Carthaginian commanders survived.

The rules, particularly the Combat Results Table, are remarkably simple, and this was a fun, fairly quick game. I'd be happy to play it again. Though, as usual, I have no grasp of tactics... Till next time.