Thursday 14 June 2012

Punic War Campaign - The Battle of Hispalis 211 BC

Carthage: Assert political control: Lucania goes over to Carthage. The 'allies' count is now 12 to 5 in favour of Carthage.

Rome: Assert political control by converting two spaces under CUs. Spain and Sicily are slowly falling under Roman sway. 

Carthage: Recruit in Spain.

Rome: Major Campaign. Scipio to Hispilis. Marcellus to Bilbilis. Nero to Agrigentum.

Carthage: Hasdrubal force marches to Hispilis (southwest Spain). An encounter battle!

The campaign situation is shown below.











































The Battle of Hispilis - Initial Deployment.

Scipio has 10 CU, Hasdrubal has 10 CU plus 4 allied CU for provinces in Spain. We decided to give Scipio a force something like his historical army. We decided he should have 5 'legions'. This totalled 97 Unit Integrity points. Hasdrubals force consequently totalled 136 Unit Integrity.

For a change, and as the two armies had moved on the last card played, we decided to call this an encounter battle. A simple way to create this as a tactical situation is to allow free deployment anywhere along the table length / side of table. So that is what we did.

After the armies had deployed we carried out the characterisation card draw, Rome 8 cards, Carthage 10 (they lost 1 for the difference in command quality). The Romans drew 68 morale chips plus a Deft Cavalry card. The Carthaginians drew 78 morale chips, an Aggressive Melee Up 1 card, a Wild card, and a Stratagem - which drew a 7 to define it as 'Thickets in Woods'.

Although Rome is outnumbered, they are led by Scipio (later Africanus). This gives them a very tough veteran army. The morale chip count is similar. We expect this battle to be very hard fought.

Here are some deployment shots, with Rome tucked up in the corner; hmmmm, no flanks!:








6 comments:

Sgt Steiner said...

Your killing me with all these excellent AARS and pics ! :-)

Phil said...

What a table! Your figs are really great, and the AAR very interesting!
I'll come back!

Willie Anderson said...

Great set up James!

Gunny Highway said...

Gentlemen,

All I can say is B.... E.... A.... Uteefulllll!

Good luck to both sides,
Respectfully,
Gunny

Adam said...

Great looking battle in prospect. Dangerous deployment by the Romans IMHO; if either side of their defensive box is stoved in the rest of the army is dead meat...

fireymonkeyboy said...

I love this blog ;) Excellent campaign, and the eye candy is top notch.