Rome v Carthage: Second Punic War

I've just finished an exciting encounter between a Republican Roman army vs a
Carthaginian(non-Hannibal)army.

The game looked good for starters. Both sides lined up in the deployments and
compositions suggested by Neil in the AMW Rulebook. The Romans looked compact
and menacing, the Carthaginians far more diverse, flexible and maneoverable.

An interseting tactical confrontation was in the offing. It didn't disappoint.

I decided to be a bit more methodical in applying the rules in the prescribed
order and not make the mistakes which have featured in previous games where the
rush of battle has carried me away a few times or I've made snap decisions and
judgements. I also played my solo rules with the command and control dimension
to the letter to see how this would pan out. It actually produced a few
unexpected events which enriched the experience without dominating the game with
random chance factors.

The game started with the Carthaginians obtaining the intitative and in many
ways they maintained the tactical pressure on the Romans all the way through the
game. The Romans in response were not quite as aggressive as they should have
been - the rules kicking in restricting them to more defensive moves in a couple
of turns. This helped the Carthaginians to get into better flanking positions
and use all that extra mobility. The elephant unit was also pretty frightening
in the way it smashed through the Roman lines and even routed the second line
Triarii unit before being eliminated by a flank assault which paid off for the
Romans but only just. By then their General lay dead and in the next move they
were reduced to two units. The Carthagininans had only three so it was as close
as that in the end.

Observations:
1. The African phalanx rule worked really well. They are very effective until
they lose a base. After that they just need to hang on and pray for some help.
2. The Roman close support rule also worked really well, however, the effect was
limited by my house rule of push backs where if you double hits on opponents you
push them back a base depth. This sometimes carried the unit beyond the 4cm
support range. Either I keep this and have this as a realistic impact of the
battlefield chaos that would preside or I allow supporting units to follow up in
sympathy. I think I'd go for the latter to reflect the drill and formation.
3. Just to re-iterate - elephants are really frightening when they are not going
beserk. Particularly effective in smashing up heavy battle lines - 8 hit dice
and no saves! What I needed was some more lights to harrass them before they
could engage the Roman heavies - nothing much in the tactical locker for that
with only one velites unit.

For two very diverse armies the game was pretty well balanced and could have
gone either way. The Romans were solid and resilient to punishment, the
Carthaginians were mobile, flexible and imaginitative in their types of troop
combinations and assault possibilities. I could see how a Cannae type game could
convincingly be simulated with these rules with a weak warband centre luring in
the Romans and the African infantry pincer like hitting the flanks and
benefiting from cohesion, the cavalry sweeping round and closing the lid on the
trap.

Great game.

Long live Carthage!