Battle of Thevestis

We got together last Saturday for another battle in our ongoing 2nd Punic War campaign. This was the battle of Thevestis in north western Africa. In the campaign Rome has brought the battle onto Carthaginian soil which forced Hannibal to be recalled to Africa deal with the threat. In this battle a slightly depleted Roman army calls upon masses of conscripted Numidian allies to bolster its ranks against a complete Carthaginian army that has less, but still significant local Numidian support. 

Pictured in these photos are Phil (striped shirt), Charlie (Hannibal) and Michael (black shirt), the Carthaginian generals of the day. My portion of the Roman army primarily faced Michael's Carthaginian cavalry and Gaul infantry on our right flank. The other Roman generals were Ralph as the center commander (not pictured) and Greg as the left wing commander.

 Here in this photo to the left, Carthaginian Phil presses the cavalry attack on the Carthaginian right flank (Roman left) pushing the Roman's nearly to their camp. In the background our campaign GM Mike (in the tan shirt) and Roman left wing commander Greg (smiling with crossed arms) observe.

Our strategy was fairly simple. With less troops and no obligation to attack we anchored our left flank on our camp which was on a steep hill. That flank's line extended to a vineyard in the center of the table. Our right legion would form a battle line between that vineyard and impassable terrain on the right of the battlefield (aka the edge of the table). Our considerable Velite forces and local numidian skirmishers would sally out forward of the vineyard to harass and slow down the Carthaginian forces while our right legion and Numidian cavalry fought and hopefully beat the unimpeded Gaul infantry and Carthaginian cavalry.

The plan worked well, thanks as much to a day of good dice as it did to good execution. Our skirmishers were able to for the most part stay out of trouble, and caused significant enough havoc and harassment to allow the plan to work. In the end the Romans lost one unit of Velites and a local Numidian infantry skirmish unit while the Carthaginians lost Two units of Gauls, a unit of Elephants and a large unit of Campainian Hoplites.  When we called the game the Carthaginians were in significant danger of losing two of their veteran spear units and their cavalry on one flank was also significantly worn.

In a week or two Charlie, Mike and I will get together and execute the next moves in the campaign and generate another battle. In the meantime I'll continue painting 28mm ancient figures for our future 1st Punic War campaign. There will be an update later this week with another of those completed units.

Between playing DBA the night before and FOG all day for this game it was a weekend of Ancients goodness. Good fun both days thanks to good friends to play them with.