"Cannae win with the Romans?" Topic

I plan on staging the battle of Cannae scenario at the club using Caliban's scenario and lists. Is there any chance of the Romans winning this battle, apart from the Carthaginian player having absolutely no clue to what he's doing. Unfortunately, my club mates are more savvy than that!

If the Punic cavalry didn't reform after routing the Roman cav to return to the battle, or the Gauls and Spanish didn't fall back in an orderly manner, or the African infantry didn't time the flanking well…
Or the Romans chose different ground to fight on with different tactical approaches.

There's every chance that the ROmans could have won the original if they had not been overconfident because of their superior numbers and had not abandoned manipular tactics. If you're playing with Carthage outnumbered like they were and the Roman player has a clue then certainly the Romans can win.

"Cannae win…?" Did you really say that!?!?!?

:-)

What rules system? But yes, if the Romans don't just try to plow ahead then there's no reason they shouldn't have a chance. Heck, depending on the rules system it might be possible for them to win if they plow ahead and punch through the Gauls/Iberians….

-Will

Yes, we played it twice with Armati 2 rules and the Romans won both times.

Sorry, Ray. Couldn't resist ot!

wminsing – We will be using War and Conquest rules.

With WRG rules of any number, it would be impossible for the Carthaginians to win.
Reason? The front rank of the Carthos have no rules mechanism to "fall back fighting in good order". They would probably break, sooner if not later. And that in a nutshell is the problem I have seen with most rules.

"Cannae win…?" Did you really say that!?!?!?

For some reason I heard Sean Connery's voice when I read the title…

…and had not abandoned manipular tactics.

The Romans used the same line relief tactics they always used. They just doubled up their consular armies. They essentially has extra lines for relief. They lost this ability when the Carthaginians rolled up the flanks and attacked the rear of the Roman army. Prevent the flanking maneuvers and the Romans have more than enough "firepower" to win.

With WRG rules of any number, it would be impossible for the Carthaginians to win.

And that in a nutshell is the problem I have seen with most rules.

Then I suggest you try "Lost Battles". The Carthaginians can certainly win using those rules, although it is by no means a done deal.

Yes, the problem with most rules is replicating the Carthaginian victory, not a hypothetical Roman one.

As above, the only rules I've seen the Romans lose Cannnae with are Strategos/Lost Battles and even then it is a close run thing. Will the Cartho centre hold while they collapse the Roman flanks?

The Romans should lose with Armati 2. The Carthaginains have a much more flexible army and they can win on the flanks. The trick is to get the Romans to spend enough time getting through the centre and you can do this by:
1) Not advancing your Spaniards/Gauls into the Romans but making them come to you.
2) Make the Gauls non key. For Hannibal they are throw away troops.Putting the Gauls in wide formation with the Spaniards behind them. Let the Gauls fight three rounds and then die. Then let the Romans fight the Spaniards. That gives the cavalry and the Africans time to win on the flanks.

Alternatively put the Gauls and Spaniards in a checkerboard formation and let the Gauls go forwards to fight, but hang back with the Spaniards. The non key Gauls will die, the Spaniards will generally survive for three rounds. That is six moves for the Romans to win on the flanks and turn in on the Romans with Africans and Cavalry. Seeing as the cavalry should get into contact well before the infantry they should have enough time to win, recuperate and go hunting flanks.
Armati is very much about timing. You need to hold an opponent with an inferior fierce whilst you beat him elsewhere on the field and then combine your (now) superior force against him. Its a very Hannibalic set of rules.

In our two Armati 2 games the Roman cavalry managed to hold off the more numerous Carthaginian cavalry by good dice luck.
In the first game the Roman centre advanced and detroyed the Carthaginian infantry as their cavalry was nullified. In the a scenario rule was set that if either commander was killed that side lost. Thus Hannibal was killed in the second game, ending it.

All true.

Yet Hannibal did advance the Gauls and Spaniards who did not all die and Hannibal did win.

His assesment of what they could do was better than that of the Romans and better than what some rules think they could do.

Of course the Romans could have won at Cannae and they clearly thought they would otherwise they would not have fought there.

It probably was a close run thing despite the huge butcher's bill.

The Romans used the same line relief tactics they always used.

I'm fairly sure they didn't. They abandoned their usual tactics, crammed their soldiers together in solid mass hoping the numbers would overwhelm the Carthaginians.

The cramming occured because of battle field events not deployment. Goldsworthy wrote a nice book about it called..ahem Cannae. A good title.

What's the book about?

Well, knowingly cramming your soldiers into too confined a space is just another way of abandoning your usual manipular tactics and deployment if you know they won't be able to maneuver. Either way it's poor leadership and hubris against someone who had shown brilliance in times past – I don't think that's in dispute. I'm going to look this one up again – I haven't read it in a very long time.

Coincidentally, I just tried this (albeit solo) last week with the same rule system, using just under 4000 points on a 5x9 table. This was only my 2nd W&C game, so forgot a couple of rules from time to time – probably made a difference.
I tried to model the intentional retreat with these rules:
1. Fall Back(only Spanish/Gaulish regular infantry): prior to rolling for combat results morale tests (but after calculating other factors), the Carthaginian player may elect to withdraw 1" for 1 combat bonus, up to a maximum of three. If morale test is passed, withdraw number of inches as selected, if test fails, route as normal. SIP points may be used to reroll test as normal.
2. Break off (only Spanish/Gaulish regular infantry): The Carthaginian player may elect to break off from combat and withdraw 1 – 3" by taking a command test. If the test is failed, continue combat as normal
3. Follow up (Romans only): In the event that the Carthaginians Fall Back or Withdraw using the rules above, the Romans may attempt to follow up. Roll 1D6 and subtract the number of inches the Spanish/Gauls fell back, and move forward that number of inches. If that results in the Romans contacting the Carthaginian unit, combat will continue in the following round with all applicable bonuses (including fighting in extra ranks) as if the Carthaginian player had not moved.

They worked pretty well- and the Carthos sorely needed the extra combat points to avoid routes on several occasions.

Hannibal needs to roll well to survive. I was 0-3 in recovering SIP used for strategic advantage (50-50 chance)

I think the Roman cavalry is a bit too strong. I had 2 units of Celt cav (12&8) and 2 units of Spanish (10 light, 8 regular) against 3 units of Rome (8 each). It took five turns to finally defeat them. Of course the Romans were ridiculously lucky with armor saves. Maybe they need lower morale or something.

On the Cartho right,I had 3x6 Numidians vs 3 x 8 Italian cav. They did pretty good with it & run skirmishing staying out of the Italians charge range – until the Italians got two turns in a row, which enabled them to turn to face and then charge. The Numidians need lots of room.

In the center Most of my Carthos were in units of 24. The Romans were in Maniples of 15 (two ranks of 6, 1 rank of 3 – when I had them in WAB they were 3x5). A charging maniple with full support starts out at +5 combat result before the first casualty.Given the Roman heavier armor and the heavy throwing spears, it is very difficult for Celts/Spanish to tie, let alone win. In my game – it didn't even come down to the princepe, let alone the triarii

Aside from Lost Battles / Strategos, I've also seen Cannae work with Simon MacDowall's Legio VI rules. They are available here: link

It's one of those battles that (I think) works best modelled from the top down rather than from the bottom up, because the Carthaginian superiority in planning and command is the decisive factor, but it still worked with Legio VI, so I was impressed.

Most games favor the Romans because they have hindsight and will do as much as possible to mitigate the actions which caused their decisive loss… often this allows superior numbers to wear out the Carthaginians.
Commonly overlooked is the issue that the Carthaginian army was simply superior in everything except maybe in armor, and the Spaniards and Gauls that did the heavy lifting suffered some heavy casualties but managed to hang around…
In the WAB game cited above, one would feel that lathering on some veteran rules for the Carthaginian units might help, plus some stubborness for the Celts and Spaniards just for this game….

Well, knowingly cramming your soldiers into too confined a space is just another way of abandoning your usual manipular tactics and deployment if you know they won't be able to maneuver.

But the point is that the Roman commanders didn't *order* their troops to 'cram together' (though intervals were decreased), it *just happened* due to the way the battle played out; the formation became compressed as they pushed back the Carthaginian center but the flanks held firm.

-Will

In advance of the War & Conquest battle mentioned above by Korvessa, we had some excellent discussion about the battle here link and I made a couple of suggestions.
As JJartist says (As did I) its a battle that probably needs some 'scenario special rules' for an accurate model. For any one who follows the link, you will see I did get somewhat excited (!) and so certainly want to write up and try out the battle myself at some point. I believe in Korvessas next trial of the battle he is going to change some of the Carthaginian troop selections, which should redress the balance as he was a little light on core infantry.

Looking forward to the next reports!

Kind regards
Rob
scarabminiatures.com
warandconquest.co.uk

It's the sort of battle that might work well with all of the players on the Carthaginian side, trying to replicate history against pre-programmed Romans.

Simon

It's the sort of battle that might work well with all of the players on the Carthaginian side, trying to replicate history against pre-programmed Romans.

What an interesting game that could make! U like it!

We have two primary sources for description of the battle: Livy, Polybius. Livy is the less reliable.

Livy:
"At length after long and repeated efforts the Romans closed up their ranks, echeloned their front, and by the sheer weight of their deep column bore down the division of the enemy which was stationed in front of Hannibal's line, and was too thin and weak to resist the pressure."

Polybius:
"The Roman horse he stationed on the right wing along the river, and their foot next to them in the same line, placing the maniples, however, closer together than usual, and making the depth of each maniple several times greater than its front."

Depth equaled greater weight of attack. This was a decision made to not only destroy the enemy but also to bolster the morale of the Roman soldiers/decrease the likelihood of a rout.

Will, I think you're right on that. Maybe Varro wasn't as incompetent as I once thought. Being beaten by Hannibal doesn't necessarily mean you're stupid. On a command level, I'm pretty sure they had reasons for doing what they did…it's just that Hannibal defied all their presumptions. Now that is genius -making that many enemies do what you want them to do.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions, chaps. It seems that I will have to try and break his centre before I lose my flank guards and possible encirclement.

If the Romans deploy the triarii on the flanks (as Scipio would probably have done), they have a good chance of preventing a cavalry envelopment and winning a fair victory with the infantry fight, though probably achieving nothing like the crushing casualties Hannibal caused. As it was, using the triarii to attack the enemy camp and deny him a refuge to retreat to is clear hubris.

Will, I think you're right on that. Maybe Varro wasn't as incompetent as I once thought. Being beaten by Hannibal doesn't necessarily mean you're stupid. On a command level, I'm pretty sure they had reasons for doing what they did…it's just that Hannibal defied all their presumptions. Now that is genius -making that many enemies do what you want them to do.

Yes, they definitely played right into Hannibal's plan (or Hannibal came up with his plan when we saw what the Romans were up to), there's no doubt about it. But the Romans had a good reason to do what they did, it's just that it was the wrong thing to do in this case!

-Will