Syracuse vs Carthage - The Portable Ancient Wargame

After feeling pretty put off from several days playing a totally inconclusive game of Three Ages of Rome, I reset the table and deployed a Syracusan army against a Carthaginian one for a more reliable game of The Portable Ancient Wargame, as set forth in Developing the Portable Wargame. 

Syracusans!  Almost this entire army has been painted for over a year, but never been moved in anger before!

For some time I have toyed with the idea of an ancients campaign set in Sicily, where Carthage, Syracuse, Epirus, and the Roman Republic all clashed at various times.  I recently finished painting some more Greek Hoplite types as well as some Greek light cavalry which at last made putting a decent non-phalangite Greek army on the table possible. 

Initial deployment, with Carthage on left and Syracuse on right.  Using the Grid-Based Wargaming ancients deployment system a bit, all heavy infantry is deployed in the center initially three squares deep (i.e., 3 lines).  This seems okay but the first thing both sides invariably do is fan out into basically a single line of infantry.

Using the old DBA 1e army lists, I assembled a Syracusan army whose main features were a lot of heavy infantry hoplites, supported by decent cavalry (heavy and light), light troops, and even some longer range artillery. Carthage was a usual mix of heavy infantry (Libyan, Iberian, and Gallic) with a little more light cavalry (Numidians) but no elephants at this time.

Both sides line up and advance.  The Numidian cavalry decides to tangle with the Greek cavalry, while the Syracusan artillery throws back the Iberian infantry and disrupts the Carthage line.

I calculated the Exhaustion Point for both sides at 1/3 of their total starting SP, and a Breaking Point (as borrowed from the Portable Pike & Shotte Wargame) at 1/2 lost SP.  This means that both sides can become exhausted, but one side loosing half its Strength Points causes it to route and hands victory to the other side.

Syracusan hoplites.

Plays of any variant of The Portable Wargame go quite quickly, less than an hour and sometimes done in 30 minutes.Victory tends to hinge on very small things you usually wouldn't expect. A common decisive moment, I've found, is whether one side can bring its heavy infantry to attack without suffering too many losses by its skirmishers or flank cavalry before making contact with the enemy heavies.  If a side can get its heavies in contact with the enemy while still at close to starting SP strength overall, they will have the necessary SP fortitude to take some losses but also to press advantages or exploit gaps as they become available. 

Syracusan catapult artillery. This is actually one unit, I just used to two models so as to fill up the 6" square more.

In this game, the Syracusan catapults seemed to perform well, dropping an early lost SP on one Carthaginian heavy infantry unit and causing another to fall back, disrupting the Carthaginian battle line. The Carthaginians had cavalry superiority on their right flank, consisting of two Numidian light horse units and one heavy Libyan cavalry.  Although opposed by a single Syracusan light cavalry unit, both Numidian units were routed.

Numidian light horse and Syrcusan light horse skirmishing on the flank.

Carthaginian battle line advancing.

This is after a few rounds of close combat between the heavy infantry lines. Some of the Syracusan hoplites have taken a beating but are still standing. However, the Syracusan heavy cavalry has hooked around the Carthaginian left flank and are attacking Gallic infantry from behind, while another cavalry is poised to attack from the flank after having finished off the Carthaginian heavy cavalry contingent.

These lowly Syrcausan staff slingers were key to destroying the Libyan heavy cavalry on the Carthaginian left.

The game was over but these Gallic warriors were very poorly situated at game end, with Syracusans on three sides.

Syracusan hoplites (Macedonian Hypasists by HAT).

Libyan and Syracusan heavy infantry in close combat.

Syracusans and Iberians in close combat.

End of game.

With Syracuse the victor, I set aside the Carthaginians and got out the Romans. Now a plan was hatched: a quick round robin series of games: Carthage vs. Syracuse, Syracuse vs. Rome, Rome vs. Epirus, Epirus vs. Carthage.  No Rome vs. Carthage game, they've played before already.