Zama with Command and Colours

 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. 

3x3 1st Punic War Battle 5. Bagradas

 The last of my five experimental 3x3 Portable Wargame battles. Hot on the heels of Asculum, I thought I may as well do another engagement as that version of the PW 3x3 Ancients seemed to work quite well. I think I've got my head around how the facing in squares should work, and the ramifications of allowing units to advance after combat. So, off we go to the last battle in the 1st Punic War chapter of Lost Battles - Bagradas in 255BC. 

It was another featureless plain according to Polybius, but no-one knows quite where it was, just somewhere near Tunis which the Romans had recently captured. Bagradas is a river near the city.

The Carthaginians under the mercenary general Xanthippus. The Carthos had 1 x Average Heavy Cavalry, 1 x Average Light Horse, 3 x Average Heavy Infantry (Spears) and 1 x Average Elephant. Lets see how well Nellie does in this battle. As usual, the OB bathtubbed down from the 20+ elements in Lost Battles. 

The Romans under Regulus were a real bunch of hard nuts: 1 x Average Heavy Cavalry, 1 x Average Light Infantry (Velites) and 3 x Veteran Legionaries (Blades) plus 1 x Average Legionary. Ouch.

Vaguely based on the historical deployment in Lost Battles. The Carthos are leading with their cavalry and elephants, as they tended to do, with their infantry in support. Xanthippus is on the right. The Romans have got their Velites leading on the left flank, cavalry on the right and a  big blob of Legionaries in the middle. The Average Legionaries are in support in the centre, along with Regulus.

Another close initiative roll, but the Romans have it. 4:3

They roll forward on the flanks. The cunning Roman plan is to encourage the Carthos to put their elephant in the middle square to stomp all those crunchy Legionaries, but of course being outflanked on both sides will be a serious disadvantage. There is no combat as the Romans are either even odds or disadvantaged.

The Carthaginians take the bait and fighting breaks out along the front. I've just realised that they would have needed four PIPs to active both units in the centre and to attack on both flanks. Doh.

In the north the Carthos with a slight advantage inflict a hit on the Velites who stand their ground, but in the south they fail despite a much bigger advantage (supported flank and General). The Cavalry take a hit. That means that Nellie attacks with both flanks in the air against doubled ranked Legionaries with a General. The Elephant takes a hit but doesn't retreat (and stamp all over its friends).

Next turns initiative goes to the Romans, 4:3.

The Romans spring their Elephant trap in the centre, and it all goes horribly wrong and the attack fails on a draw. That was a bit unfortunate, +5 Blade, +1 support, +1 General vs +5 El +1 support, -2 for two open flanks. +7 vs +5 should have been a walkover, but such is life. Apologies for the rogue dice in the photo. 

In the continuing battle to the north, another shock reversal, this time the Velites rout the Numidian horse, and their supporting infantry promptly flee as well, leaving the Romans in control of the column. Is this going to be a re-run of Asculum and over in two turns?

Well, no. Using their 3 PIPs the Carthos take advantage of the more liberal movement regime and slip the supporting infantry from the elephant behind  the Romans meanwhile the Infantry in the reserve box lead the counterattack out. The Carthos now have a unit in each column again, and a third of the Roman Army is cut off.

The Velites flee from the Carthaginians and are destroyed. The supporting Legion fails its morale test and takes a hit as it can't retreat. Things are not looking good. Next time I'll leave the support unit behind to block stuff like this....

The last PIP is used to attack in the south and a hit is put on the Roman cavalry, leaving the Carthaginian centre held by the Elephant with 1SP. Next turns initiative 6:1 to the Romans. 

The Romans also indulge in some unit shuffling. The support Legion in the centre moves north to block the top row, while the isolated Legionaries at the top march south and turn to face the Elephants rear. Nellie is surrounded!

Sadly the attack on the surrounded elephants merely causes a retreat. Right over the top of the Legionaries in the way. The Legionaries take a hit and are destroyed. That went well then.

The battle lines have stabilised, but the Carthaginian centre looks very vulnerable. The Carthos still have two units in the reserve box though, which is a big advantage, but with only 1 PIP there isn't much they can do. The weakest unit is the Carthaginian spearmen in the centre top square. They are stuck in combat, facing away from the Roman Legion behind them.

The cavalry dashes forwards two squares to support them. At least if they are eliminated there will be a full strength unit left in the square.

The cavalry combat continues in the south. The Carthaginians have the advantage here and drive back the Roman cavalry. In the north the surrounded Carthaginian infantry are destroyed by the Legionaries. Carthage has lost 4SP, Rome has lost 5SP. Initiative for next turn is 3:2 to Carthage.

Xanthippus does some reorganisation. In the south the cavalry are  now disengaged so fall back through the infantry, who move up to take on the Legionaries (who have just lost their cavalry support). The other Carthaginian infantry unit moves up to support the Elephant in the centre.

The Elephant attack goes in an Regulus is killed! What a disaster! The Romans have now lost 6SP.

In the south though, the Carthaginian infantry attack fails and they lose 1SP.

The Romans move their cavalry across the support the Legionaries in the centre, but the attack on the elephants is a draw. In the south, the unsupported Legionaries get lucky and rout their opposite numbers. The Carthaginians have now lost 7SP and reach their Army break point. The will run on a '1' and roll a....'2'. Phew. The Romans are still hanging on having lost 6SP and their General.

Xanthippus hastily reorganises his support lines again. The cavalry sidestep to support the elephants along with the general. The Spearmen swap places with them and move south to hold the line and attack the Romans as they have a hanging flank.

Xanthippus leads the Elephants into the Legionaries and inflicts a hit. The Romans are now at their break point, and will run on a '1'. The roll a '2', however as Regulus is dead, it is subject to a -1, so the Romans break and run.

There is just the combat in the south left to resolve. The Carthaginian attack fails and they take a hit, so need to pass another break test. They have now lost 8SP so will run on a '2', but they manage to roll a '3' and hang on.

Well, that was a close run thing and it really could have gone either way. That all worked pretty well and I enjoyed doing the last two games. It takes longer ot write them up than to play them, but I'm not sure what longevity this has for me. I enjoyed getting out the Ancients stuff again, but as is my way, I've now become distracted by a couple of other projects, so who knows if I'll actually ever write these modified rules down. I've got Marks originals covered in my scribbled notes, and that will have to do for now. Well, that was fun!

 

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....