Battle of Tunis 310BC with own rules on 2'x2' on blog

[Shaun Travers]

I have been chronologically replaying the battles from Peter Sides ancient scenario books to playtest my own rules that use a 2’x2′ board. This is game 32 – The battle of Tunis. The full battle report is on my blog:

https://shaun-wargaming-minis.blogspot.com/2019/01/battle-of-white-tunis-310bc-using.html

I last played a battle from these scenario books with my own rules – Ancient Battlelines Clash – over two years ago. It had some minor issues that had been niggling at me but not sure how to resolve them. Over 2017 I wrote and played with some rules more linked to Bill Banks Ancients. I thought a mashup of those rules and Ancient Battlelines Clash would be the way forwards. I played a game in December 2017 but realised it was not to be. For the last year I have been renovating a house (still not quite finished) and quietly working on a new version of Ancient Battlelines Clash with some minor changes (that did come from the mashup ruleset) to resolve my issues with them. This is my first game with the revised rules and it went well. I am hoping to get more games played in 2019. In 2019 I have already played more games with Ancient Battlelines Clash (1) than in 2017 and 2018 combined (zero)!

Here is a picture showing when the Carthaginian right flank contacts the Syracusans:

 

[Deleted User]

Hi, Shaun,

thanks for the battle report. I have figures for the period (except for no Carthaginian chariots) but have never gamed it.

 

Can you briefly indicate your solo play mechanisms?

 

donald

[Shaun Travers]

Hello Donald,

Sure. The programmed opponents has some concepts that can be reused but the detail is specific to the rules.

The core of the program is that the army is split into three zones – left, centre and right.  Each zone will have a zone order:

Attack: aggressively advance to combat/missile fire
Probe: cautious advance and enter into favourable melees
Wait: cautious advance no further than centre line but change to Attack orders at first blood
Hold: don’t go over centre line and act defensively
Delay: similar to hold be try not be get into combat either.
(note that these roughly align to orders in WRG Ancients 7th edition)

A unit is of one of these types:

Impetuous: (will charge at enemies)
Shockers (Units that will get an advantage in melee when charging particular enemy types)
Missile Armed/Skirmishers
Other

Each unit type acts differently depending on zone orders.

There are also optional rules for potential changing or orders in a zone and cautious and bold generals influencing changing orders.

For deployment, there are rules for randomly determining zone orders dependent on the army unit composition e.g. if a unit is mostly mounted it may randomly get an army strategy of Flank attack, Envelop flanks or Oblique. For Flank attack the zone orders are Attack for the strong flank, Probe for the centre and Wait for the weaker flank.

The programmed opponent really only works from deployment until the midgame when it becomes difficult to generalise a unit move

[Deleted User]

That sounds pretty solid, Shaun.

I have a surfeit of opponents at the moment but I’m still interested in something I can do solo. Anyway, food for thought.

 

donald

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