Punic Wars with PaperBoys and WoFun (Battle of Trebbia)

I finally took the plunge and picked up a very large Punic War 18mm miniature collection from WoFun Games out of Romania. 

wofun-games.com

Lucian (manager) at WoFun does a great job of making the ordering as hassle free as possible. I have had two orders so far and both arrive here in Southport, NC within 2 weeks!!

A couple shots of the figures as I assembled them.

Sprues of the armies. About 40 of them.

Above are the Carthage elephants, citizen infantry, and Liby-Phoenician cavalry

Gauls o-plenty!

Hastati of the Roman Legion. 

A wider shot of one of the four Roman\Italian Legions I have in the collection.

List of rules or games I hope to use these figures with:

Piquet's Archon 2, To the Strongest, Age of Hannibal, and Commands & Colors Ancients.

My first foray will be with C&C Ancients and the Battle of Trebbia in 218 BC.

Books I've been Reading about the Period

Trebbia (7-5 Carthage victory) - 

I played the straight-up base scenario and here is the setup:

This fight was a very near run thing, as the Romans had the early lead, then Mago's group arrived and wreaked havoc on the Romans, but then the Romans had one last ditch effort and nearly came back for the win. I hadn't played C&CA in a long time, so I made some bonehead moves\attacks. Lessons learned!!

I used the CDG Solo Assistant from GMT Game to play out this game as I was alone.

This was also my first time using the Solo assistant and it ran pretty smoothly, although the mechanics of the solo version were not as fun as just playing to the best of my ability with both sides normally. I won't be using the Solo Assistant again with C&C.

Dotting the Stands

I decided to put "Mark-It" 1/8" dots on my bases to allow for easy identifications. I plan on putting a white dot in the middle of the green (Aux) and blue (warriors) bases to help do more distinctive identification. 

I just ordered these off Amazon:

AmazonSmile: Innovative Ideas Small 1/8" Removable Mark-it Brand dots for maps, Reports or Projects - Blue : Innovative Ideas: Toys & Games

I think they look great on the bases of each unit. I put one dot on the front and one on the back so that each player can see the unit type at a quick glance.

Below: Gallic Warriors (need to add the white dot to the middle of the blue dot)

Below: Triarri Heavy Infantry (back)

Below: Triarri Heavy Infantry (front)

Satisfied with how the dots work on the units, it is off to re-fight Trebbia with some new house rules and tweaked unit scenarios.

Re-fighting Trebbia with a Friend

My friend Bill came over for a game of C&C Ancients and were fought Trebbia again.

Scenario Alterations

So, I'm not thrilled with the scenario forces from the official GMT Games scenario so I made up my own based on my research of the battle.

1. I removed the warriors in the Roman army. Livy only mentioned there was one Gaul tribe still allied to the Romans, but made no mention of their size and contributions to the battle. I just removed them.

2. I based the Roman setup based on the 2 Consular legions present and scaled down to fit on this game board, which turned out to be 2 Triarii (HI), 4 Principes (MI), 4 Hastati (Aux), and 4 Velites (LI). Plus 1 Roman Cavalry (MC) on the right flank and 2 Italian Allied cavalry (MC) on the left flank. (See setup below. Make sure to click photos to enlarge).

3. On the Carthage side, I added one Gaul Infantry (MI) to the center, added\changed each cavalry wing to have 2 Gaul\Spanish\Punic (MC) and one Numidian Cavalry (LC)

4. Lastly, Mago's force was very small (2000 total men) so at this scale it is hard to represent them, but I gave them one unit of Numidian (LI) and one of Numidian (LC). Note: in the three games I had played with this scenario, Mago only came in once.

Roman Setup

Note that the red round disks indicate the lines between the three zones: left, right, and center.

Romans consult the auguries before battle:

Carthage Setup

Note the extra cavalry, medium infantry, the Elephants and Heavy Infantry are repositioned too.

2nd Punic Wars House Rules

I used the following house rules for this period.

1. Hastati (Aux), Principes (MI) , and Spanish (Aux) infantry all get ONE SHOT pilum attacks. This the same as Light infantry. I have a Litko "Arrow" marker on them. I remove the marker once they have fired and they can't do ranged fire again.

2. Light infantry, if evading or moving, can move through friendly foot troops without penalty. Retreat due to combat\fire is still the normal rules.

3. Light Infantry destruction doesn't award Victory Banners. I love this rule! It allows the main lines to fight without losing half your Victory Banners to worthless light infantry destruction.

The Battle Begins

So, Bill took the Romans as they were the least complicated and I took the Carthaginians. 

Below: the battlefield before the carnage begins

Below: Hannibal (Eric) commanding the line.

I thought Bill played well for his first C&CA game and he hadn't played the system for years (Memoir 44).

Here are some photos of the action, with me gaining a Carthage victory (7-4). Mago didn't appear, but the game was very close with Bill doing some early masterful moves. Two "Line Commands" really helped my army come to grips with the Romans. 

Below: Bill moves his nasty Romans forward to try to knock out my elephants!

Below: My lights are attacked in mass by the Roman line of Principes!

Below: my Gauls like to fight naked! Yikes!

Below, Bill sent in everything he could to break my Liby-Phoenecian Heavy Infantry.

We had a great time and I'm glad to get this collection on the table! I foresee may more games in the near future. I also plan on doing a C&C game with my WoFun Conquistators.

Cheers!

Eric