3x3 1st Punic War Battle 4. Asculum

 OK, so I had a bit of a reflective time after Battle 3 in which I basically ended up playing DBA on a 6x6 grid. If I want to fight historical battles using DBA, then I should just play DBA. There were some aspects I liked though, the DBA troop types are well thought out and their interactions in terms of relative combat factors and combat outcomes work well. I just don't need all the unit micromanagement and general pratting about with when unit x can support unit y but can't retreat through unit z unless it is a Wednesday and it is raining.

So, for this one I went back to just two units in a square, I ignored all the fancy bonuses as when I revisited the number crunching and considered tactical overlaps, an extra unit basically gave a +1 (although for pikes it is a +3). Close enough for government work anyway. I did keep the negative modifiers for overlaps, but applied them at a whole square level, so if a unit was outflanked, it was an automatic -1 off their combat factor. I was also more generous with advance after combat and took out the wheeling restrictions. I kept the Army morale thing to avoid tedious slugfests (so start rolling for each SP loss over 50%) and I kept the DBA concept of quick kills, which became two hits on the affected units, one of which had to be an SP loss.

Righto, back to the killing fields of the pre-Christian Mediterranean, this time were are at Asculum in 279BC, where the Romans encountered Pyrrhus and later pretended they had won.

Thankfully Asculum is another featureless battlefield. As usual the OBs and terrain are based on those in Phil Sabins 'Lost Battles'.

The Romans. All looking a bit more professional than the guys at Sentium in the last game. This time they have got 1 x Average Heavy Cavalry, 1 x Levy Light Infantry and 4 x Average Legionaries (Blades in DBA terminology). The Legions fight at +5, ouch! This is a Republican Consular Army so has two consuls in command, Decius and Sulpicus, in this case represented by one General figure.

Pyrrhus has a nice Successor Greek army with 1 x Veteran Heavy Cavalry, 2 x Average Pikes, 2 x Average hoplites (Spears) and 1 x Average Elephant. It will be fun to play with Nellie the Elephant, just made for stomping all over those Legionaries. It just needs to look out for the enemy Velites as they can quick kill Elephants. Pyrrhus is the General.  The Hoplites fight at +4, while the Pikes fight at +3 but get +3 for rear support by another Pike unit. This is one mean army. 

Vaguely historical deployment based on Lost Battles. The Carthaginians liked to put their Elephants out front, but for some reason Pyrrhus has them supporting a hoplite unit at the top. Probably a good idea as the Roman Light Infantry are opposite them. In the centre the Greeks have more hoplites supported by the cavalry and the Pikes are doubled up in the bottom square. The Romans have gone for their drill book deployment, a bunch bunch of Legionaries in the middle, more Legionaries with Velites and Cavalry on the flanks.

Woo, very close on the initative roll. I've kept the opposed dice initiative mechanism after toying with alternate turns. Greeks go first.

With a six, it would be rude not to attack with absolutely everyone. The entire Greek army trundles forward. The sequence of combat will be vital here as the Greeks have a big advantage in the top square (Spears vs Velites) and the bottom square (double ranked Pikes plus General vs Legionaries). Pyrrhus has very wisely parked himself with the Pikes to extend their advantage. I've just realised that would need an extra PIP to get there, which he didn't have. Oh well.

Sadly fortune favours the Republic and the attack fails along the entire line! At the top the Hoplites take a hit and stand, but everyone else retreats, and the supporting units all fail their morale tests and retreat with them. (Roll as if they have taken a hit and they can opt to stand if they throw a 'retreat' result). The opposed dice DBA system sometimes produce wild swings of fortune, but I like that. Much more exciting than rolling endless 'miss' results. 

Faced with this great opportunity, the Romans use their 5 PIPs to advance along the entire front. The top square is already engaged. The plan is to just attack the Elephant square as it is outflanked.

Hmmm. I'm really not sure how to resolve this. Can units even face in different directions? In the end I resolved it as the flanking Legionaries leading the attack and I treated the engaged Velites as an unsupported flank. So Bd +5, +1 for General, no support (facing the wrong way). Sp +4, -1 for being outflanked, +1 for support. So +6 plays +4. 

The Romans won and the Greeks retreated as they already had a hit. The Elephants failed their morale test, but as they had been in support, and not in the lead, they didn't trample all over their pals.

The Romans advanced after combat, as did the Velites. Hmm, I'm really not sure about that. I think that probably everyone in a square should face the same way, and that a unit should only be subject to attack from one square in a turn. Well, at least the Greek line is nice and straight now. Next turn, the Romans rolled a 6 for initiative, 2 for the Greeks. 

Which basically let them shuffle their support units around as there were no continuing combats, so they ended up with an unbroken line of Legionaries in front and everything else in support. Decius (or Sulpicus) went to join the units at the top to extend the Roman advantage there.

At the top the Romans pushed the Greeks off the table (+7 vs +5). Once again the Elephants failed their morale test and ran away. This in turn outflanked the centre and the Romans won here (+5 +1 vs +4 +1 -1) and put a hit on the Hoplites opposing them. The Roman attack on the Pikes in the south was a draw however!

Now the Greeks had to use their 2 PIPs to counterattack, which limited their scope for manouvre. The Elephants led off from the reserve area to try and drive the Romans back in the north.

And the Pikes had a go in the south. The Pikes won a resounding success and pushed the Romans back, the Roman cavalry failed its morale and retreated too.

The Elephant counterattack failed though, despite the Romans having an unsupported flank. Elephant +5, +1 support, Romans +5, +1 support, +1 General, -1 open flank. +5 vs +6 overall, so the loss was  no unexpected. 

With that the Greeks lost as they had an unoccupied table column. Losses had been pretty light on both sides, so it wasn't exactly a Pyrrhic victory. In retrospect the Greeks should have taken a few more hits to hold their ground. Defending on the baseline is a mugs game, but I think I hadn't quite made the transition from the DBA-lite I'd played in the previous game. Overall that worked OK, although I need to sort out the square facing thing. 

I think I'm getting somewhere finally so, onto another battle while I've got things clear in my head. Next instalment in a couple of days.