2nd Punic War Battle (Historicon pt 2)

Friday AM at Historicon 2011 saw us all get up perhaps a bit earlier than we might have liked given the traveling everyone had done the previous day, as we needed to help set up for Eric's Punic Wars battle with his own Archon, 2nd edition rules, by Piquet. I had brought my 25mm Republican Roman and Carthagenian armies for this one, but the scenario, set up, and running the game were all up to Eric. I did paint up 4 units of Velites I had had in the unpainted pile for several years, plus the command figures to complete several units of Roman Heavy infantry that I had painted several years ago, all Old Glory. Otherwise, these troops are almost all Minifigs with a few Ral Partha figures thrown in, mostly painted by me way back circa 1979!

As I was also helping Tim set up for *his* 15mm ACW battle (which will appear in part 3), I was only able to check in on the action sporadically, so the narrative will be fairly sparse... perhaps mercifully!  :-)

It seems the forces of Carthage made good use of an early impetus advantage to try to get their Elephants and Cavalry around the flank of the Roman battleline; a lone unit of Triarius has peeled off to face the ponderous pachyderms, Liby-Phoenician and Carthagenian Noble cavalry, supported by some Libyan and Carthagenian Citizen spearmen.

The Roman battleline has pushed forward trying to bring their superior weapons, armor, and training to bear on the Carthagenian center, but it looks like the other (distant) Roman flank is less than secure as well.

On  that flank, a mass of Gauls plus the Numidian cavalry face off against some Roman allied light cavalry, while Spanish Scutarius hold the Carthagenian center rather weakly; perhaps trying for another Cannae?

Overview of the battle at this point   (GF)

GM Eric relaxes, while Punic commanders Greg K and Andy C look content with how the battle is developing.

Roman commander Dave M works out some details of combat with Gabriel, while Jeff G looks on.

Gallic Cavalry hit a unit of Roman Princeps in the flank. Ouch!   (GF)

The dour Romans shake of the flank attack and turn to face the Gallic cavalry, but a unit of Gallic warband plunges in to join the combat! The Numidian cavalry withdraws, their flank being threatened by the Italian light cavalry - some Balearic slingers can be seen exchanging shots with Roman Velites in the distance as well.

It certainly looks like at least one of the units of Gauls took heavy casualties in combat with the Latins!

Those elephants seem to content to hold their ground while the infantry maneuvers.

The Romans win some combats in the center, but their flanks are becoming ever more vulnerable.

Overview of the table near the end of a hard fought battle, won by the forces of Carthage!   (GF)

Rear rank:  Tim C, Gabriel F, Dave M, Greg K

Front Rank: Peter A, Adam H, Eric B, Michelle F, Andy C

While we're on the subject of Ancient battles and the Punic Wars, here's a shot I took of another guy's Friday game from Historicon played later in the day -  Commands and Colors Ancients played with miniatures - except these are 54mm figures! Those hexes are 12" across. Now that's what I call taking a Boardgame conversion to extremes; looked very impressive, though!

After we all cleaned up the battle and packed the troops away, it was on to the next game, this time from the American Civil War: The Battle of Stones River, run by Tim Couper in 15mm, using Field of Battle 2nd edition... but that is a story for the next instalment!

By the way, I toyed with whether to set up a second blog for non Napoleonic wargaming, but in the end I decided it would be more trouble than it's worth. I did go back and add the label "Napoleonic" to all existing posts dealing with that era (which was almost all until now).

Peter