Bagradas

We have been to Bagradas on various occasions before using both Strategos and CnCA, but I was tired and it was all a bit of a rush getting sorted this week, so Bagradas it was once again... For those who don't recall the events of the 1st Punic War 2250 years ago, Bagradas featured a successively victorious Republican Roman army under Regulus coming up against (yet another) Carthaginian force, but this time trained and  commanded by the veteran Greek general Xanthippus, paid by an ever more desperate Carthage. As usual we played this on hexon terrain using my 20mm Ancient figures.

John took the forces of Rome and Tim the Carthos.This scenario is one of the more bloody ones, requiring seven victory banners (destroyed units) for victory. The relative scores will be indicated in the captions.

View from the Roman rigt/Carthaginian left. Not much terrain here.

Everyones favourite Carthaginian war elephants, supported by Libyan infantry.

Carthaginian right, cavalry (Hasdrubal), light troops, heavies and warband. Xanthippus can be glimpsed leading the heavy infantry behind the warband.

Carthaginian left, cavalry (Hamilcar) and light troops.

Roman left, cavalry, auxilia, legionaries screened by Velites. Triarii in the rear.

Roman right looking much the same as the left. The photo of the centre was too blurred to use.

The action opened with light troops scurrying forward.

The entire Roman line rolled forward on a 'line command'. Scary stuff!

The Carthaginians threw forward their cavalry to support the skirmishers

And destroyed a unit of Velites. 0:1

The elephants rolled forward in the centre.

The Romans pushed out Velites supported by princeps and Regulus himself to see them off. One elephant went down in a hail of javelins. 1:1

The elephants bypassed the Velites and crashed into the Roman line, pushing back the terrified legionaries and overunning a unit of Triarii. 1:2

The desperate Romans surrounded the elephants and took one down, but the other rampaged, stomping on the Roman units around it. 2:2

Carthaginian cavalry charged the Roman left, overunning a unit fof Velites. 2:3 

The surviving elephant overran the two weakened legionary units, 2:5

Massed auxilia and velites took the final elephant down. 3:5

A slight lull ensued as the Romans reorganised and the Carthos double timed their heavy infantry forward

The clash of infantry in the centre cost the Romans another unit. 3:6

Regulus made one final effort, but it was not to be and the seventh Roman unit died in the counterattack.

So, a resounding victory for Carthage and probably the most devasating elephant attack we have ever seen in CnCA. In this scenario they usually spend most of their time stomping on their own men, so Tim was quite right to get the forward as fast as possible. John did a god job of reorganising his shattered army, but it was not possible to overcome the  the damage the elephants had done as they had destroyed three of his most effective units.