Carthaginian and Roman republican clash

This weeks game saw us return to hail Caesar rules to have a ancient game using my dads Carthaginians and Republican Romans. I decided to use the Carthaginians and grouped my men in three divisions, cavalry on the rught, main body of veteran Spearmen with supports in the centre and over on the left was the Lybian Spearmen division with supports. My dad opted for a cavalry division which was facing off against mine, the centre was a massive division of Roman infantry and his right flank was held by a division of spainish allies. 

The battle lines drawn up

Velites, Hastati,and Principes form a formidable centre division

My Lybian Spearmen with supporting elephants and Gauls advance towards the Spanish infantry who had reached the hill line first after my CnC had blundered attempting a move!

The Roman Velites quickly dispatch the Carthaginian skirmishes shielding the main body of veteran Spearmen.

Both cavalry divisions close ready to charge.

Early action sees the Lybian Spearmen and citizen Spearmen somewhat surprisingly beat and shake the Triarii units.

The Roman Velite units reform their line leaving my Carthaginians little choice but to charge them.

Despite fresh Roman Principles joining the melee the Lybian and citizen Spearmen still win the melee 

Finally the Veteran Spearmen break through the first line of the Roman centre.

The cavalry clash as both division leaders join in the melee

My left flank performs very well and drives the Spanish troops back from the hill shaken as the presence of the elephant proves to much for their nerves

Along the centre the veteran Spearmen and elephants clash with the Roman Principes and supporting Hastati 

My dads right flank is broken and the remains of the division is forced to withdraw from the field, my Lybian Spearmen division now turns ready to launch a flank attack onto the Roman centre

The centre combat sees a bag of mixed results as both sides are forced back in disorder to regroup as a the elephant is broken fire failing its stampede test.

The Roman centre starts to thin out as the Principies start to break from the veteran Spearmen although the Romans do break the Gauls on the righ centre leading to the possibility of been able to turn the Carthaginians centre.

Despite having the upper hand in the game we ran out of time and I was unable to break my dads Roman Republic morale. I had won the battle on the right flank by breaking the opposite Spainish division and had started to get my troops into a position to seriously threaten the Roman centre. Both our cavalry divisions were a spent force from fighting each other throughout the game, my dads was one unit from been a broken division where mine was mostly shaken units. The centre was still very in the balance with both sides still having plenty of fighting troops ready to get stuck in, so the game we decided was a winning draw to the Carthaginians, as we both felt if the game continued the Carthaginians were likely to win. It was a good battle, we didn't wait round to long to get stuck into each other so there was plenty of action throughout the game. The rules played well again, we had a couple of sticking points during the game especially with using small units for the most part in the Roman army regarding when supporting in a combat but I think we have cleared this up since. We also forgot a few special rules during the game for certain units but to be fair we have been using a lot of different rule sets lately to remember everything. However I still think Hail Caesar allows for a good ancient game and I think they are my preferred rule set after trying different ones recently. Good stuff 😄