"Battle of Trebia" Topic

"In 218 BC. Hannibal crossed the Alps and invaded Italy. Under Ticinus, he managed to defeat Publius Cornelius Scipio (his father). The Romans retreated to Trebia, where Tiberius Sempronius Longus arrived a little later with a new army. Many ancient authors wrote about this Battle, but not all of the works have reached us. Something has been forgotten, something has been lost from human memory, and we don't know everything about it…"
UT

Main Battle at Big 15s Historical Wargaming Blog

link

Armand

"Alas, the peculiarity of Impetus is that troops move very slowly, and usually it is not possible to realize victory on the flank; units simply do not have time to attack the center."

This is a critical issue for game design, particularly in the ancient period. It is my impression (although I've never played it" that Impetus does stress the frontal attack, with little scope for player intervention once the troops are deployed. I suspect that that, combined with the issue mentioned above by the player, would make it difficult to refight Trebia using Impetus. It would be interesting to hear of other people's experience.

Interestingly too, the players had elected to play using equal points. While overall troop numbers were similar, I suspect that most game systems would give the Romans a "points advantage", since the many legionaries would be quite expensive compared to Hannibal's Gauls. This would further benefit the Romans, making an historical result even more difficult to achieve.

Cheers,
John

Thanks

Armand