3x3 1st Punic War Battle 2. Battle of Tunis.

 The second major land battle in the 1st Punic War, the Battle of Tunis in 310 BC. Once again Carthage and Syracuse face off.  As I was a bit unhappy with the relative behaviour of the different troop types in the last game, I thought I'd just use the DBA combat factors and CRT for this one. All units had two hits, and any sort of loss result meant one roll on the damage table, and a DBA 'kill' was two rolls of which only one could be taken as a retreat. I also decided to ignore missile combat as that isn't how light troops work in DBA.

Tunis, 310 BC. Carthage to the left with two hills on their baseline. The battlefield is otherwise clear (based on the scenario in Lost Battles).

Carthage has a somewhat better army than before. 1 x Average Chariot, 1 x Veteran Heavy Infantry, 2 x Average Heavy Infantry, 1 x Levy Heavy Infantry and 1 x Levy Light Infantry., plus General Hanno. In DBA terms the infantry are best treated as Spears, which certainly seems to be what the figures are carrying. The basic combat factors are Spears +4, Cavalry/Chariots +3, Lights +2, Spears get +1 for rear support. 

Syracuse has got 1 x Veteran Hoplite, 2 x Average Hoplites, 2 x Average Heavy Infantry and 1 x Veteran Light Infantry, plus General Agathodes. As there is no hoplite/heavy infantry classes in DBA I made them all Spears as well

This was roughly the historical Cartho deployment based on Lost Battles. The Chariots were actually a screen out front. So in the centre are the chariots supported by some Spears, but not in rear base contact. The top square has got the Lights with a Spear in rear base contact. This should probably be the other way around to get the Spear supported by Psiloi bonus vs cavalry. The Carthos favoured their right so the General and veteran hoplites are there, doubled ranked with another Spear unit for a +1 Spear support bonus. With the hills this is quite a strong position.

Syracuse is basically one massive phalanx. Centre and south with double ranked spears in rear base contact. At the top the Peltasts are supported by one Spear. I wasn't really sure what to do with the light troops in this as they can't 'shoot' - they are mainly there to provide support for the hoplites.

The Carthos basically refused to move, despite rolling endless 6 on their PIP throws. The only thing they did was pull the chariots back to the rear line (+3 Chariots vs +5 Spears isn't a good matchup). Not sure what you do if one side refuses to attack, but why would they come off their hill? Eventually Syracuse rolled a 6 and the entire Phalanx rolled forwards.

OK, tactics. Along with the troop type matchups and support bonus, I was allowing the DBA modifiers for overlaps. For each unsupported flank you get a -1, an 'unsupported' flank being either one occupied by the enemy, or by a friendly unit out of alignment. So the trick is it manage the order of combats to open up the flank support options.

The weakest element of the Cartho line was the centre. One average Spear (+4), vs one supported Spear (+5). Syracuse won and the Cartho infantry fell back. As they weren't in rear base contact, this left the Chariots. Still in the square but not in contact and not aligned with the front ranks of the two adjacent squares, so an overlap bonus to the to and bottom attacks.

In the north, it was 50:50 (the overlap bonus cancelled the hill penalty). The Syracuse peltasts were pushed back. Lights can interpenetrate heavies in DBA, so that left the Hoplites in place.

In the south it was also a crap shoot (supported spears with overlap vs supported spears on a hill plus both generals). Here fortune favoured Syracuse and the leading Cartho unit took a hit. That is the disadvantage of defending on the baseline, retreat and suddenly the enemy are sitting on a victory square on a hill as in this case both lines of Spears would have to retreat.

In the centre the weakened Chariots were eliminated by the supported Spears (rolled a kill, so two hits and the chariots had to take both hits as SP losses). 

In their turn all the Carthos could do was bring one of their Spear units out of the reserve box to fill the gap in the centre.  Next turn Syracuse got the initiative and rolled in to attack again. The Peltasts now took up a close support position in the north.

This time the hill in the south held out and the leading Syracuse unit took a hit. In the north the enemy Lights were obliterated by the Spears (they had already taken 1SP loss). So that meant in the centre the supported spear had one overlap against a single enemy spear for +5 vs +3. Double hit and they failed to save either so the centre was now clear.

Carthage got the initiative (6 PIPs!) but the wheeling restrictions meant all they could do was swing their second line unit on the southern hill around 90 degrees. I shall have a think about that. Faced with a huge gap the Syracusian hoplites simply marched in and faced north and south. 

The Carthaginian counterattack failed and Syracuse pushed one of the Cartho units off the southern hill. Victory to Syracuse again! although it was a close run thing.

That was a load of fun and felt much better than the previous game, and was resolved fairly quickly (20 minutes?). There are still a couple of woolly bits, I need to think about how inter and intra square movement works. The main problem with only having one unit fight on a given side of a square is that it doesn't give light troops much to do in a preponderately heavy troop environment or absent rough terrain, whereas irl they could perform harrassing and screening actions. It is a function of troop density as effectively we are playing with six elements on a three element frontage.

I liked the DBA combat factor matchups, and coupled with the PW unit quality and CRT with units limited to two steps, it produced some genuine tactical decisions. The two steps was somewhat analogous to the 'fresh' and 'spent' statuses in Lost Battles as units which had taken 1 hit were very fragile.

I wasn't sure what to do if the initative dice were drawn, I either resolved it with a dice throw or if one side had lost a General, chose the side with one remaining. I quite liked the turn flip flop, although coupled with the initiative going to the highest PIP, it could be a bit devastating for the unlucky side. I may just go with alternating turns and a PIP roll.

I think I have a cunning plan, so on to the next battle....