At the 2025 SWS Christmas games day I took along Zama. We haven't figured out a way to play CnC satisfactorily as a remote multi player game (yes, I know you can do it two player), so f2f sessions are the rare occasions we can do it.
I'd been slowly working my way through the standard rules scenarios in chronological order and had got to Cannae, but tbh I'd done Cannae loads of times (although not with CnC) and didn't fancy it again. I've never used all my elephants in one go though, so flicked to the back of the book to Zama, which features lots of elephants.
The basic setup. The others had grabbed all the big tables so we only had two pub tables to set up on and had to drop the five extension hexes, so this is is a 12 x 9 setup instead of 12/13 x 9. No terrain features at least and we didn't particularly miss the end hexes.
Scipios Army was at the height of its powers with innovative formations and tactics, recently reinforced by the Numidians who had changed sides. Hannibal was on the back foot, having weak cavalry and and lots of hastily trained recruits in his army. He did however have lots of (poorly trained) elephants and made these the key to his battle plan.
Tim was Hannibal while John and Jerry took the Romans. This was the culminating battle of the Punic Wars and Carthage's defeat here led to its destruction.
The Carthaginian hordes, mix of 20mm plastics from Hat, Italieri and even Airfix! Hannibal is a Newline personality figure.
Serried ranks of Romans. These guys are all HaT with some metal Newline commanders.
Hannibals right, a lone unit of medium cavalry, some African veterans, some slingers a couple of units of warband. The latter not wearing any clothes, naturally.
Hannibals left, some light infantry javelinmen, a couple of units of light cavalry, some more African medium infantry and two units of Auxilia. There are a lot of Spanish figures in evidence as the Numidians are fighting for the Romans now, so nearly everyone here are various types of Spaniard.
And the centre we have three more Auxilia (some Spanish, some Carthaginian city infantry), a pair of veteran heavy infantry and no less than three units of elephants. As I have six elephant figures, I doubled up the elephants. Auxilia and medium infantry also have double elements whereas the heavy infantry have triple elements.
Hannibal and the other leader (Hasdrubal?) are each with one of the veteran infantry.
The Roman left. Two medium cavalry, two Auxilia plus two medium Legionaries and a heavy Legionary (triple base of Triarii). There is a leader with the cavalry.
Roman right. A couple of Velites, an Auxilia, a medium Legionary and another heavy Legionary. There is also a great mass of Light Cavalry (Numidians) led by King Massinisa. The Romans have massive cavalry superiority, hence Hannibal relying on his elephants.
Roman centre. Two more medium Legions and another heavy plus a couple of Velites. Scipio himself is with the centre Legion.
The action started with some skirmishing and the inevitable cavalry battle as the Numidians charged the Carthaginian left. For some reason this almost always happens in the CnC games, the most mobile units get thrown away early on, whereas more canny players keep their cavalry in reserve to roll up weakened enemy units.
The Carthaginians took the view that the elephants were a case of use it or lose it, so rolled forwards. Also, the last place you want to be is standing behind a 'friendly' elephant...
Over on the Roman right, the Numidians had defeated the Spanish cavalry, but were now weakened and parked next to a lot of angry Spanish infantrymen.
The Romans didn't respond to the elephant phalanx and the the Nellies crashed into contact.
A series of bloody encounters and hilarious rampaging elephants inflicted hits all over the place. irl the poorly trained elephants fell into confusion and rampaged wildly and much the same happened here.
After all that, the few remaining elephants fell back and the Roman line was bloodied but not broken. An awful lot of vulnerable units left there though.... the Romans were well ahead on points now, 4:0, 8 points being needed to win.
The Numidians paid the price for riding into the middle of the Carthaginian army and were annihilated except for one battered unit which fell back to the baseline. Massinissa survived though and retired to join the main Roman line.
The Carthaginians played a sequence of command cards which suddenly saw their mass of Auxilia and heavy infantry marching forwards, linking up with the last elephant. You'd almost think they planned that.
The Romans were distracted by the prospect of some easy points, Scipio went charging off after the retreating elephants.
And the Roman cavalry charged the Carthaginian cavalry. The Carthos were defeated but the somewhat battered Romans now found themselves next to a lot of surprised and rather cross looking Gallic warriors, as well as some heavily armed and armoured Carthaginian infantry.
Scratch the Roman medium cavalry as the Warband routed them and set off in pursuit.
The Carthaginian infantry was now suddenly very close to the Roman centre. Scipio reordered his line but didnt bring up any reserves.
And with a carefully hoarded 'double time' card, the Carthaginians crashed into the Roman line!
As the Roman front line was already weakened, it could only really go one way. Hannibal and Scipio ended up facing off against each other, but Scipios Legion was carrying three hits while Hannibals heavy Carthaginian infantry had none. The score was 6:7 (six-seven! six-seven!) at this point.
And unsurprisingly the Roman centre collapsed, to give a the victory to Hannibal. At least Scipio survived to fight another day.
That was really good fun, and a nail biting finish as I thought the Carthaginians were doomed halfway through. I do think we've been playing too much Dominion though, as CnC Ancients seemed mind bendingly complex in comparison and we had to keep stopping to look things up! I guess it does have a lot of troop types and special rules for many of them. Anyway, it is always a good standby and gives an enjoyable game for reasonable numbers of players and I'd forgotten what good fun it is to play.
