Punic Nightmare: Crimissos River 341 BC

[MengJiao]

  So if you combine Tyrant and GHOA deluxe, you can set up a Crimissos River on the Issus map as instructed.

I rearranged the armies a bit and added some Etruscans and a possible 2nd fording area downstream -- BUT the lower terrain levels will have a chance of
miring a unit if it moves its full allowance (resulting in no movement next turn and a cohesion hit).

I see now the bluer units that should be with Hamilcar at the ford -- if I do another shot of this battle, they may appear (unless they are already in the
dead pile).

I don't see how the Cartheginians have a chance (that's then halfway across the ford and about to be massively ambushed while in column):

[MengJiao]

  So if you combine Tyrant and GHOA deluxe, you can set up a Crimissos River on the Issus map as instructed.

I rearranged the armies a bit and added some Etruscans and a possible 2nd fording area downstream -- BUT the lower terrain levels will have a chance of
miring a unit if it moves its full allowance (resulting in no movement next turn and a cohesion hit).

I see now the bluer units that should be with Hamilcar at the ford -- if I do another shot of this battle, they may appear (unless they are already in the
dead pile).

I don't see how the Cartheginians have a chance (that's then halfway across the ford and about to be massively ambushed while in column):

And near the end of turn one (with just a Carthegenian rout and a Carthegenian momentum to go) things are indeed a mixed bag:
the Punic right is collapsing despite a well-done massed chariot attack.  The Punic foot Sacred Band has smashed a Syracusian allied phalanx. 
The Etruscans are across the ford in column behind a screen of tribal infantry.  Hamilcar's Greeks are holding the ford and Hamilcar himself is
with some bogged down Celtic mercenaries just across the ford.  Gisgo is going to attempt to bring the left wing cavalry across the downstream ford.

So, not quite as bad as I expected. 

[Martok]

Are there any rules/limitations you've given yourself for this scenario? 

[MengJiao]

Are there any rules/limitations you've given yourself for this scenario?

   The chit-pull thing works okay as a solitaire-aid as long as you don't overthink things.  For example, with the Punic Sacred Hoplite Band, I got a good early pull and I just attacked  the enemy hoplites directly in front.  This worked well at the time, but if I'd thought things over, I would have realized this smashing of the immediate opposition was going to leave the Sacred Band isolated (as happened in the real battle).  Now, half-way through turn 2 and say 25 minutes into the battle, the Syracusian elite heavy cavalry has killed the commander of the Sacred Band and nearly wrecked about half of the Sacred Band (photos later).

  So the only limitation once I'm running the scenario is to make optimum moves in context for the force that gets its chit pulled and avoid doing overall strategies.  This sort of simulates the command and control of the armies of the period and the training of the troops (ie attack what you can see, withdraw if you need to if you can).  Supposedly the Theban army of about this time was one of the first known armies to have a planned, mid-battle re-alignment of forces, and of course the Persians always set up with contingencies in mind (it seems to me) and they were usually successful, but their armies are somewhat under-modelled in the GBOH series, I think.   

  On the other hand, I tried to give the Carthegenians more of a fighting chance than they had in the actual battle.  I removed the thunderstorm rules and substituted mire.  I added Etruscans and an extra fording location and pulled the ambushers back 300 meters.
Maybe that wasn't enough.

[MengJiao]

Are there any rules/limitations you've given yourself for this scenario?

   The chit-pull thing works okay as a solitaire-aid as long as you don't overthink things.  For example, with the Punic Sacred Hoplite Band, I got a good early pull and I just attacked  the enemy hoplites directly in front.  This worked well at the time, but if I'd thought things over, I would have realized this smashing of the immediate opposition was going to leave the Sacred Band isolated (as happened in the real battle).  Now, half-way through turn 2 and say 25 minutes into the battle, the Syracusian elite heavy cavalry has killed the commander of the Sacred Band and nearly wrecked about half of the Sacred Band (photos later).

So, yes, the Punic forces are in trouble, but Gisgo is coming up carefully across the soggy ground with some excellent cavalry and Hamilcar still has powerful mercenaries at the ford (though partially blocked by mired Celts):

[MengJiao]

So, yes, the Punic forces are in trouble, but Gisgo is coming up carefully across the soggy ground with some excellent cavalry and Hamilcar still has powerful mercenaries at the ford (though partially blocked by mired Celts):

And deploying the Etruscans, the Celts and the light infantry at the end of one turn (Hamilcar beats up a Syracusian phalanx near the ford and javelins and celts damage another), and driving back the Syracusian horse (I rolled to see if they would pull back or fight), the Punic forces improve things a bit.  Winning the initiative, Bomilcar gets the most wrecked part of the Sacred Band into column and marches them out of the trap.  Things still don't look super good: the chariots are out of command and far behind enemy lines.  The right wing is still a mess and more troops are bogged at the upstream ford.
  The Syracusians are likely to hit the Punic right again and roll up the whole Punic array; they have the horsemen and hoplites to do it:

[Martok]

Yeah, I just don't see how Carthage can pull this one off.  Seems like the best they could manage in this scenario is a fighting withdrawal with most of their army intact.  Are they supposed to be able to win in any form? 

[MengJiao]

Yeah, I just don't see how Carthage can pull this one off.  Seems like the best they could manage in this scenario is a fighting withdrawal with most of their army intact.  Are they supposed to be able to win in any form?

  The scenario as given for them seems impossible to win and is made much worse by the thunderstorm rules.  I modified that to give them more of a chance (got rid of the thunderstorm, added a ford).  Fighting withdrawals are nearly impossible with the GBOH Hoplite rules unless you have lots of cavalry and most armies in this period were weak in cavalry.  The exceptions were the Macedonians and the Persians and we know how that turned out.
  On the other hand, there are some things about the Punic army in this scenario that give it slightly more of a chance than it seems to have at first glance.  They still have some very good cavalry and the mercenaries are quite tough too and the tribal light infantry is pretty good for light infantry.  So maybe, just maybe, they can rout the Syracusians.

[MengJiao]

Yeah, I just don't see how Carthage can pull this one off.  Seems like the best they could manage in this scenario is a fighting withdrawal with most of their army intact.  Are they supposed to be able to win in any form?

  On the other hand, there are some things about the Punic army in this scenario that give it slightly more of a chance than it seems to have at first glance.  They still have some very good cavalry and the mercenaries are quite tough too and the tribal light infantry is pretty good for light infantry.  So maybe, just maybe, they can rout the Syracusians.

  And after some very lucky rolls by both sides, it looks like the Carthegenians may well indeed win.  Hamilcar's assorted mercenaries have smashed the Syracusian  right wing, though one phalanx (using the Hoplite collapse rules) barely hung on.  And Gisgo may well beat up the Syracusian left wing.  Plus, while the rout numbers are very close (38 Syr to 33 Punic), the smaller Syracusian army will completely rout at 75 rout points while the Punic army won't run away in toto until 115 rout points.  Still, nothing is certain at this point (start of Turn 4):

[Martok]

What a perfect bloody mess!  Will be interesting to see what happens; that Hamilcar appears to even have a chance astounds me. 

[bayonetbrant]

How do you like the double-wide counters?

It always seemed to me it was a good way to represent how unwieldy the formations could be, but did so by themselves being unwieldy counters.

[MengJiao]

What a perfect bloody mess!  Will be interesting to see what happens; that Hamilcar appears to even have a chance astounds me.

  I think in the original scenario (and the real battle) he didn't have much of chance, but I gave him some Etruscans.  Combine those with 3 good mercenary phalanxes and lots of good celtic mediuim infantry and some lucky rolls and he is crushing the opposing Syracusian professional field force and some allies.

[MengJiao]

How do you like the double-wide counters?

It always seemed to me it was a good way to represent how unwieldy the formations could be, but did so by themselves being unwieldy counters.

   They are very unweildy, not so much as counters, but as convincing representations of the formations they represent, ie they are good representations of some very unweildy formations.  I hadn't really thought at all about what the whole point of hoplite warfare was (and why it sometimes could beat a good army like the Persian Army).  The Hoplite game seemed very convincing in terms of simplicity and outcomes and in its analysis of why these formations existed and what they could do and what they could not do.  They existed to give poorly trained militia some amazing shock power.  The weird charge at Marathon probably did astound the world (and no one more than the Athenians probably).  On the other hand, professional phalanxes were even stranger as the tales of the Spartans and the mercenary 10,000 and their march up country show (the 10,000 was in a battle an lost, but was still able to march out...what is odd is that they could not win...no doubt mostly because of the inherent limitations of hoplite warfare).

  So I guess the double-sized counters serve as a kind of warning that you are going to be fighting in a mode that has many limitations.

[MengJiao]

What a perfect bloody mess!  Will be interesting to see what happens; that Hamilcar appears to even have a chance astounds me.

  Looks like the end for Syracuse: the Spartans failed to finish off the wreckage of the Sacred Band (and had their commander killed as well) and Hasdrubal comes crashing in with chariots and the more elite horsemen of the Sacred Band.   So that's disaster left, right and center for Syracuse.  They are at 53 for routs and the Punic rout markers sit at 39.  Naturally, nothing is certain, but I think the Punic forces can clean things up in the next few turns and get a very non-historical win (and yes, PS, the end came even faster than I'd expected -- Gisgo's Numidian cavalry hit the wavering Spartan line from behind and that rout pushed the Syracusians into complete rout and thus the battle ended -- 14 per Spartan phalanx times 2 = 28, plus 53 = 81):

[Martok]

Wow!  Good on the Carthaginians then. 

Of course, you did give them a hand in this scenario.  So now the question I have to wonder is, what "extras" could they have done without and still pulled off a victory (were the addition of Etruscans and the removal of the thunderstorm rules necessary to win, etc.)?