Punic Wars - Night Raid on Carthaginian Camp

Friday night saw the continuation of Rupert's Punic War campaign, after a somewhat dormant period, with the Romans in North Africa, sallying out in strength to raid the Carthaginian forces that were besieging their positions.

Initial set-ups saw the Carthaginians, asleep in their beds within the camp walls (red units, in the grey squares on map to left) with cavalry, heavy & light infantry dispersed across the camp.

The Roman (blue units) forces lined-up with 5 legions in the centre, screened by some light infantry, then on each near flank more light infantry plus heavy cavalry on each remote flank.

At this point it should be noted that each Carthaginian unit would check each turn to see if it 'wakes-up', whilst unwoken the unit cannot move and is considered disordered if attacked.

The terrain was unknown to the Romans, but known to the Carthaginians, that shown in yellow was all they were certain of, being clear terrain. All green squares were split into quarters with a one in six chance of bad terrain in each quarter of a tile.

The final scenario special rule was that given this is a night raid, the game is played with all units limited to 8" moves, only reverting to full moves again once daylight arrives on turn 21!

'Michaelus Maximus Meridians' was Commander of the Roman Army and the African Legions, loyal servant to the Emperor. Commander of the Carthaginians was one of Hannibal's minions...
 

the heght of teh battle, Carthaginians make a stand within the camp
as routers pass them by as the the Romans hesitate

The Carthaginians, not knowing where the Romans might attack from, were distributed around their camp, whilst the Roman plan was simple, a concentrated hammer blow at one end of the enemy camp. With luck, the Roman's would be into the camp quickly, hitting units before they wake and drive defeated units back through the camp, preventing any reinforcements hampering the Roman advance.

The Roman legions cracked-on once the game started, moving across the cream terrain at 6" per turn. The Carthaginians managed to wake some light infantry and cavalry, which were thrown forward to delay the advancing legions, which they managed to do for a few turns, albeit that they were driven back to the camp walls each turn.

Carthaginians streaming out of the camp's rear gates in a state of rout.

Eventually the light infantry broke, allowing the legions to surge into the camp, meanwhile on the Roman left flank the light infantry and cavalry were able to start tracking around the flank of the camp. On their right flank, the light infantry ran into bad ground, though the heavy cavalry were able to move on and check emerging Carthaginian light cavalry that had left the camp.

Then after morale checks, additional Carthaginian units began to break, all of a sudden half of the Carthaginian camp was in rout. Then the Roman forces frozen, not gaining enough command factors, two turns in a row, to move any units. In that time the Carthaginian routers cleared much of the camp and a number of units rallied.

The Romans pressed on, engaging with Carthaginian heavy infantry, several rounds of melee continued with the Romans wearing down their opponents and breaking one then two heavy infantry units.

The roman 3rd legion were battered by Carthaginian units and evenually broke.

On the flanks, Carthaginian cavalry broke the Roman light infantry on the Roman right flank, in turn the Roman heavy horse pushed forward and finally broke one of the enemy light horse. On the Roman left flank, the lights flanked and attacked advancing Carthaginian units whilst the Roman heavy horse, crashed into the rear of the camp.

More Carthaginians routers

As day broke in the game (turn 2) we reached the end of the night,the game had been planned a s a 2 week affair but there wasn't enough of a game left to allow for a second week. the Carthaginians had two heavy infantry units engaged with a veteran legion and one of these had just been hit in the flank by a fresh Roman legion, both the Carthaginian units had reached zero cohesion points and would break soon.

It was left to Rupert as umpire to deliberate the impact on the campaign,this will be communicated to the commanders in due course. An enjoyable game that a number of 'nip & tucks' / 'to and fros' despite the apparent one sided nature of the game.