"Historican't Con: BBDBA AAR of Carrhae, 53 BC" Topic

An account of our BBDBA refight of Carrhae 53 BC on my blog:

link

Fun game even if we did get our es handed to us.

In hindsight we should have used the Cataphracts to break the Roman formation, then send in the light horse through the gaps. But when we made our plan we never even looked at the combat charts.

Thanks for the game,

Mark

Another alternative would have been to skirmish with the LH, rather than charging into close combat. In DBA 3.0 terms, skirmishing would appear to equate to a single line of LH, and charging into close combat would appear to equate to LH with rear support. In the former (skimishing) case, LH can flee, while in the latter (close combat) case, they can't and are destroyed (as happened numerous times in this particular game).

The intent of the skirmishing LH would be to break up the Roman line of Bd, as the LH couldn't be killed in frontal combat with Bd. A further refinement might be to put a second line of LH one BW back from the first (i.e. with a gap). I haven't totally thought this through, but if done correctly this might prevent any Bd sorties to "close the door" on remnant LH in contact with the main line of Bd.

Anyway, an interesting tactical problem, and an example of the tactical depth of the DBA 3.0 system. (Do I get brownie points for this?).

MH