Our local group was mainly in the mindset of practicing for an open tournament later in the month, but Murray Evans was happy to bring a Classical army for me to face. In light of that I decided to bring out my Carthaginians.
The last time that I had played the army I was using my newly painted Numidian allies and trying to make mediocre elephants work. With three mediocre elephants you'd expect one to win, one to lose, and the third to either draw or win.
That last game had been a mutual destruction against an opposing Carthaginian army. My Numidian MC didn't get to shoot at all, and the elephants were still in combat at the end of the game with neither side having routed. I thus decided to take an unchanged list and see if these units would work.
Murray brought Hellenistic Greek (Achaean League 146BC).
My Carthaginian list. This has the Africa option rather than Spain to have access to the Gallic infantry.
Murray's list.
I won initiative and defended in the plains.
For terrain I took the compulsory field, a second field and a hill with a field on it. Murray took a coastal zone and a plantation (? field).
We both adjusted terrain, which ended up with a long band of terrain for my elephants to move through.
Initial deployment
My biggest decision was where to put the Numidian allies. One option was the far right flank. However I could expect that the Greeks would hug the coast (why else put it in) so my cavalry could end up negated by being out on a flank and terrain between them and the action, and terrain protecting any flanks. The second option was on my left flank, and just ignore the coast. However it is unlikely they'd get to turn a flank. The final option was to have them in the centre. This would allow the LI to work with the elephant corps in the terrain. The cavalry all had javelins and could shoot at enemy infantry. If the Greek army was small and anchored on the coast, there was the possibility they might see a flank. Finally there was the risk of them being unreliable, and being in the centre of the battlefield meant that there was a good chance they'd have enemy move within 4UD.
Thus I went with elephant corps on the right flank in the field on a hill, the Numidian allies in the centre and the heavy infantry on the left flank. I didn't anchor the heavy infantry on the coast, but wanted to leave myself the option of sliding left if I needed to anchor on the coast or sliding right if I wanted to join up with my other corps. The cavalry in the Hannibal's corps I put adjacent to the Numidian allies, as I thought they would be best off working with them. The alternative would be to hold back the medium cavalry behind my battleline as a reserve.
Murray had a small cavalry corps on his left flank, on the outside of the terrain. He had some MI spear and MI 2HW in the terrain. Most of the rest of his battle line was pikes - a mixture of ordinary and mediocre.
End of Greek Turn One
The Greeks generally moved forward as far as they could, in many cases making a second move. The light infantry moving up through the terrain revealed my two light infantry in ambush.
End of Carthaginian Turn One
The elephant corps moved forward and slid left to line up with the next patch of fields. The light infantry that had been in ambush moved back to screen the elephants. The Numidian's were short of command pips but moved the light horse forward to throw their javelins at the pikes. The heavy infantry moved forward and slid left towards the coast, while their light horse also moved up to shoot at the pikes. The medium cavalry from the two corps was left back due to lack of command pips.
The Greek infantry started doing some tricky manoeuvres. The MI spear advanced and wheeled, rather than trying to sneak down my flank. If I charged them I would be exposing a flank when I conformed to them. The mediocre pike on the Greek right flank contracted. In the centre the pike charged my light horse. On the Greek left flank the MI sword turned 90 degrees and moved into the fields (leaving their flank towards me). The Greek light horse moved up to ZOC my medium infantry unit, and the impact heavy cavalry positioned itself to be able to charge that unit.
End of Carthaginian Turn Two
I decided to deal with the enemy Thureophoroi MI near the coast by charging them with my leftmost two units of heavy infantry. The rest of my heavy infantry line charged the enemy skirmishers, which also effectively protected the flanks of the units engaged with Thureophoroi MI.
My two sets of light horse (two from the left corps and four from the Numidian corps) moved up to just short of contact with the enemy pikes and proceeded to throw their javelins at them. I was also able to move up two units of the Numidian MC (the third wouldn't fit) and one unit was able to take part in the shooting.
On the right flank I had to decide between keeping the elephants back with the ZOCed medium infantry unit, or accept that MI would be charged in the front and rear and was doomed anyway. I thought that it was more important to move up my elephants and get them into combat. The screening light infantry charged the enemy Peltast light infantry, which evaded. I rolled "up" for the charge distance and this meant that my LI was able charge into the flank of the enemy Thracian 2HW. The rest of the elephant command moved forward and slid left.
End of Greek Turn Three
In turn three, the Greeks moved their skirmishers forward through their pikes to shoot at my heavy infantry. One pair of pikes charged my light horse, which evaded. The pikes charged far enough that they would have hit my Gallic medium cavalry, which also evaded.
In the fields, the Thracians turned to face my light infantry javelins. The Greek light infantry moved up to support them, and my light infantry unit in support on the left evaded back rather than risk being pinned in combat and getting charged in the flank next turn. In the resulting combat one of my light infantry units routed.
The enemy impact heavy cavalry charged the front of my medium infantry, and the light horse charged in the rear. The Greeks were +1 (MC vs MI) +1 impact +1 support +1 for LH in the rear. I lost impact because I was attacked in the rear, so the matchup was +4 vs +1. I lost by 4, hurray only two wounds. Oops, furious charge made it 3 wounds and the unit routed.
End
End of Carthaginian Turn Three
In my turn I had charged the heavy infantry against the enemy skirmishers and into the pikes as I didn't want to just stand still and take shooting. The first round of combat my spears would be down one factor vs the pikes but the impetuous swords would be evens but have furious charge. However I won one combat and lost three.
In the centre I moved up my light horse to ZOC the pike and moved up the Gallic medium cavalry to get behind one flank. I also moved up a unit of Numidian medium to face their other flank. The 1 UD square marker in the photo was to ensure that if the LH was charged they would have room to evade.
In the fields, two of the elephants charged the enemy and routed the disrupted unit and did two hits on the other unit. Unfortunately the winning elephant had to pursue, which left its flank exposed.
I moved two units of LI skirmishers up in front of the MI spear near the fields. Shooting was a bonus, but I mainly wanted to restrict how far the MI could wheel if they charged (I did not correctly understand the charge rule).
A enjoyable game, especially since it was a change from two parallel battle lines. There were lots of angles, attempts on flanks, and it felt that we were always having to make decisions.
I'd never seen a Hellenistic Greek army before, so facing that wall of pikes was intimidating. It felt like I had too much cavalry for facing an army like this, though if there hadn't been a coastal zone things might have been a bit different.
Given that I had so much cavalry, it might have been better to try and optimise the terrain for cavalry rather than for elephants.
With respect to how the elephants worked, one routed its opponent but the compulsory pursuit was a disadvantage. The second lost its battle and was routed. The third didn't really get into combat. I am thinking that I could have gone with just two elephants and with the 14 points saved for the mediocre elephant and the escorting light infantry, I could have spent 12 points for two units of impetuous medium swordsmen.
I've used the Numidian allies twice now. Whilst its nice to have painted up different models, I could have essentially fielded equivalent using the core Carthaginian list. Yes there would be no Medium Cavalry javelin, and they did get to use their javelins in this game, but all in all shooting only achieved one or two hits during the game. However if I was to use them with my Republican Romans, that would completely change the way the army would play.
We only got through four game turns, so I need to learn to make decisions and play faster. Our group used to only aim for one game a day, which allowed us to savour our games. Now they are getting more tournament focused, players expect to get two games in one day.
With respect to my army composition, I don't think that three mediocre elephants achieve much more than two mediocre elephants. Whilst they would be good against a mounted opponent, would they get into combat? A pair of impetuous MI swordsmen would still have furious charge against enemy infantry but wouldn't have the disadvantage of mediocre. Furious charge is rather mitigated when if you throw high on the combat dice you take off 1 for being mediocre.
In terms of rules we got wrong, I assumed that the second rank of my light horse being within 1UD of enemy would be ZOCed. However under "Exceptions to ZoC" on p38 "An enemy ZoC is ignored by a unit ... entirely behind an intervening friendly unit". My Numidian light horse could have attacked the enemy pikes in the rear.
I did my evade moves incorrectly, in that when my evading units met friendly troops they could not interpenetrate (could not at least partially reach the other side of the friends) I was sliding to go around them but not deducting the slide distance from the movement allowance.
With respect to using my light infantry to limit how far the enemy could wheel to charge, I was mistaken. The rule on p43 is "The initial target must be reachable without passing through any enemy units. However heavy troops can choose a target behind enemy LI in open terrain as LI units are forced to evade".