Fishponds Wargames: Carthaginians

Showing posts with label Carthaginians. Show all posts

Saturday, 22 May 2021

SAGA: Archer Wars

We continued are re-familiarisation with SAGA this week with another quick game of Romans vs Carthaginians. This week in an attempt to combat the ranged superiority of the Carthaginians the Romans recruited the Cretan archer mercenary unit.

This unit comprises of 8 Warriors who generate 1/2 shooting/melee dice per figure and have a few nasty rules. They can be activated to shoot for free once per turn as long as that is the first activation they undertake and also on their first shot of the turn they gain 2 extra attack dice and a +1 to hit. Either of the last two rules would be good on their own but together is really powerful, you'd probably want these chaps in any army that lacks good shooting abilities on it's board.

Having realised how nasty the Cretan's are I was fortunate to have my mounted Warrior unit opposite them so moved up and charged in the second turn, taking 4 off and pretty much eliminating them as force from the game.

The rest of the game saw the Romans come on in the normal fashion with the Carthaginians looking to weather the initial storm and then counter-attack to cause damage. Mr T's rolling was down to his normal standard and his troops fluffed a couple of big combats so I was able to wear him down reasonably quickly.

The game ended when the Roman commander was exhausted by my Levy archers and then finished off by my commander who bravely rode in to complete the kill.

Sunday, 9 May 2021

SAGA: The One with the Elephants

For this week's SAGA game I decided to try out some elephants which are a new unit for Age of Hannibal. I used the same force as last time but replaced the 2 points of Hearthguard with 2 points of elephants in one unit. The elephants count as citizens so they can be the one unit of citizens you need in the army. Mick went with the same force as last time.

Romans

2 points of Hearth Guard in two units of 4

3 points of Warriors in three units of 8

1 point of Levies with Javelins in one unit of 12

1 Warlord on Horse

Carthaginians

2 points of Elephants in one unit of 2

2 points of Contingent Warriors on foot in two units of 8

1 point of mounted Contingent Warriors with javelins in one unit of 8

1 point of Levy bowmen in one unit of 12

1 Warlord on Horse

Elephants come with several special rules to simulate their role on the battlefield. The Carthaginian battle board doesn't have a special elephant related abilities on it but they can make good use of some of the abilities. Eagle Eye could be used to boost their shooting attack, but that is better used on the levy bowmen if they are still generating 6 shoot dice. Blood Price is another ability that stands out as it allows you to transfer up to 2 wounds onto a neighbouring unit instead of taking them on the target unit. This coupled with the Resilience (2) is the only way to keep those elephants in the game, as they only have 1 wound each if the enemy can get through your defences then the unit can be wiped out very quickly.

Whilst the elephants don't generate a lot of base attack dice, 5 versus the 8 of one point of Hearthguard or Warriors, they do score automatic hits which in most cases should make up for that.

The scenario we rolled up allowed us to nominate one opposing unit to count as double kill points so Mick went for the elephants making them worth 8 kill points each, this meant we would be certain to see them in action.

The game itself followed the same pattern as the last one with the Carthaginians sitting back and the levy archers shooting up the Velites whilst the Roman foot advanced to get to grips with the enemy

The got into position and launched one battle board loaded attack against the elephants when I had my defensive abilities ready almost did the job, despite rolling a fair few attack dice the resilience (2) and Blood Price meant I was left on 3 fatigue and transferred two deaths onto the Spanish infantry. I did leave both our battle boards empty so if Mick had been able to activate for another charge that turn he would most likely have taken at least one if not both off.

Unfortunately he couldn't and I had the chance to load my defences back up again and when the next weaker charge came in I was again able to survive with both elephants and inflict some more casualties back.

As one last final throw of the dice the Roman commander charged in but taking 4 automatic hits along with the other hits I rolled left him as a thin pile of pulp on the battlefield.

So the elephants worked in the sense that they lived but it takes a fair amount of battle board investment to keep them safe and even though they didn't die it was on the knife-edge a couple of times, I think you'd always be worried about the loss of the investment you've put in, 2 points of foot Hearth Guard are a safer investment in my eyes.

Sunday, 25 April 2021

SAGA: A Battle of Heroes

Continuing our re-familiarisation with SAGA we opted this week to use the scenario generator matrix supplied in the book of battles. This gives a random selection of scenery layout methods, warband deployments and victory/special conditions. The scenery condition allowed Mick to setup 3 pieces of terrain and me to move them, the deployment was pretty standard with us alternating deployment through mounted ranged > mounted > foot ranged > foot units and Mick taking first turn. The victory condition was to add up points left of your force at the end with extra VP's available for reaching the opponents corners.

We went for pretty much the same forces as last week with Mick splitting his 8 Hearthguard into two units of 4 and I replaced the Citizen Warriors with a unit of Contingent Warriors. The thinking behind this was that with attack dice being hard to generate for the Carthaginians it was best to have one main strike unit and then a couple of shielding units with the Contingent abilities being focused on staying alive.

We both moved forwards for the first turn with the Romans seeking to bring their limited ranged firepower to bear against my archers.

In the second turn the Romans who where activating first again pushed forwards and in my turn I unleashed the archer levies. The Eagle Eye ability is the only that gives extra attack dice and this is for ranged attacks only, a rare dice gives 4 attack dice and any other only 2. During the game I was able to put a rare dice on this ability for all but one round so the archers shot with an impressive 10 dice most goes. The levy archers managed to kill 5 Velites with their first volley and the mounted Warriors with javelins also shot one off, this left the Velites seriously damaged.

During the Romans turn I also managed to make good use of the Redeployment ability, this allows you to move one unit 4 inches (short) before your opponent gets to activate. This allowed me to move the mounted Warriors into shooting range during my turn and then back out of a comfortable charge range in the Romans turn. The Carthaginians also have an ability which allows you to cancel the activation of an opponents unit that has a fatigue on it, for only a common dice this can mess up a potential charge from the opposition.

Over the next few turns I kept up the shooting from both the archers and the skirmishing cavalry with one unit of Contingent Warriors being committed to killing off the Roman Principes (red shields), the Romans kept grinding forwards as they lack a devastating ranged attack.

Eventually the Romans did make it into contact on my right causing a fair few casualties but I was able soak up a reasonable amount of damage and shoot/melee a unit of Triarii off the table.

That was the end of the 6th turn and thus the game and once again the Carthaginians proves victorious. This week the levy bowmen did a lot of the heavy lifting and they certainly earned their points back and more, in fact I didn't even need to commit the Hearthguard unit into combat.

It does make me wonder if I need to use the attacking power of the elephant(s) but as I've bought and painted the models I will certainly give them a try next time we play.

Saturday, 17 April 2021

SAGA: The Age of Hannibal

After a long break from playing any SAGA this week we dusted off the rules and got the new Age of Hannibal armies and book out.

We started off with a straightforward 6 points a piece game using the Kill scenario to get back into the swing of the rules. SAGA is pretty straightforward from a game mechanics point of view with little book keeping, most of the nuance is offered via the battle boards.

I took the chance to dress the edge of the board with the new Iron Age ring fort I'd painted up, and it looked like some Greeks had moved in.

The Romans consisted of:
2 points of Hearth Guard in one unit of 8

3 points of Warriors in three units of 8

1 point of Levies with Javelins in one unit of 12

one Warlord on foot

The Carthaginians consisted of:

2 points of Citizen Hearthguard on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Contingent (mercenary) Warriors with Javelin on Horse in one unit of 8

1 point of Contingent Warriors on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Citizen Warriors on foot in one unit of 8

1 point of Levies with bow in one unit of 12

one Warlord on Horse

I'd had a quick look at the Carthaginian board before and playing through the game it became obvious that the board is mostly defensive in nature with the only way to add attack dice being for shooting. So the decision to take a big unit of Hearthguard paid off as the generate lots of attack dice natively. The three warrior units struggled to put out much hurt against the Romans as they lacked the dice.

It may be that the Carthaginians need to invest in the Elephants in order to offer an alternate punching unit. The Elephants can also shoot so would benefit from using the Eagle Eye ability.

The Romans as you would expect like to be moving forwards onto the enemy and they have a couple of abilities which allow them move forwards, the Pilum ability which allows a free Shoot and then Charge is good, especially as it is only one common dice to use. In contrast to the Carthaginians the Romans can also generate extra attack dice pretty easily, again encouraging them to get stuck in.

In the game itself the Romans closed in on the Carthaginians quickly and almost wiped out a unit of Warriors early on with the Carthaginian Hearth Guard counter attacking to stabilise the situation and wiped out the exposed Roman unit. The Hearth Guard followed up with some more fighting and the Carthaginian archers proved effective whilst the Velites hung back in the woods.

The Roman Triarii (Hearth Guard) where eventually committed and managed to maul the Spanish cavalry but by that time it was too late and the Romans had lost two complete units of Warrior with a third almost wiped out.

We picked up the rules again pretty quickly with the only real delay being the need to learn the battle boards so we can distribute the activation dice, this will speed up with practice.

This week also saw the much delayed arrival of my League of Infamy pledge so I can now finish off the Kingdom of Men army by painting up the three General on Winged Beast that I was missing.

I can then get the game itself painted up and ready to play.

Saturday, 9 January 2021

Saga: Carthaginians

I recently completed all the extra models to convert the Clash of Kings Carthaginian starter force in to a SAGA army. In fact with the extra Greek models I have I can probably also field an Iberian & Greek force with a little proxying for the Iberians.

The Carthaginian list reflects their reliance on mercenary contingents by dividing the troops up into Citizens, Contingents, and then Levies. You can use any dice to activate a Citizens unit and need a Common or Rare dice to activate your Contingent units.

As can be seen above the Contingent troops are all Warriors whilst the Citizens include Hearthguard, Chariots and Elephants as well. A players army must include at least one unit of Citizens but the rest can then be of any type. Getting the correct mix of home grown and mercenary units is important in this list as some of the ability effects vary by unit type.

Some new Iberian Cavalry

Citizens can also use Contingent troops as a human shield using Blood Price, useful for protecting your Hearthguard but even better for protecting your Elephants and Chariots. You could also use a unit of Levies to soak up the damage as well. A unit of Javelin Levy who could advance and take a free shot alongside the Elephants would seem a good tactic. I will try and cover the two new units in another blog post in the future, they look like fragile damage dealers to me at a quick glance.

As mentioned the Carthaginian battle board has several abilities who's effects vary depending on the unit type. So Coordination can be used to boost the attacking power of your Citizen troops and boost the defence of the Contingent troops. All have this common theme in place, so you have more abilities to help your Citizens cause damage and more to make the Contingent troops stay alive.

I presume this is to reflect the use of Hannibal's Contingent troops to absorb the Romans charge whilst his Citizen troops enveloped the flanks.

The board also has an ability to encourage the Carthaginian general to invest more heavily in mounted troops (including Elephants) than a Roman general would. Being able to activate 3 units with just one dice is very powerful as it allows you to concentrate dice on other abilities on the board rather than movement activations. Even being able to activate 2 units for one dice is good so foot armies can still make good use of Encirclement.

The Carthaginians also have an ability to boost their shooting and deprive the enemy of any cover bonus they may have. This again would make taking a unit of Javelinmen alongside Elephants extra potent, not forgetting that the Elephants also have a ranged attack so could benefit from this as well.

With the inclusion of unit type specific ability effects and an the extra option of Elephants & Chariots the force selection for Carthaginians and the battle board play is more complicated than the Romans. I think it will take a fair few games to work out exactly the best way to tailor the force and this will change depending on your likely opposing force. On the bright side as I don't own any Carthaginian Chariots at least that is one option that I don't need to worry about.

Perhaps a good starting force could be:

2 points of Hearthguard in 1 unit

1 point of Mounted Contingent Warriors with Javelins in 1 unit

2 point of Foot Contingent Warriors in 2 units

1 point of Levy Bowmen in 1 unit

It feels like the Citizens should be the fist in the force with the other units in place to shield them from harm and harry the enemy.

Then once you know the board a bit better you could swap 1 or 2 Elephants in for Hearthguard points.

Sunday, 1 November 2020

The Ruined Temple and other Occurrences

With the rest of the week I've been busy on the hobby and playing front completing some models and also getting a couple of games in.

The completed terrain is a ruined temple from Scotia Grendel which is a reasonably large resin kit. I gave it a quick clean and then assembled it on a MDF base to keep it all in place. This did make painting a little more tricky but looks better once on the table.

I'd also picked up a Mantic terrain crate which contained some temple scenery parts in hard plastic to add a dais and altar. The dais is set into the Polyfilla on the base whilst the altar is loose. The base itself is large enough to use as an area of rough terrain in a skirmish game, something the open nature of the ruins helps to facilitate.

I also picked up a Talos model from Mierce Miniatures when they had them on half price sale. Even at half price these aren't the cheapest of models so I put him on a 75mm square so he can be used as a Titan in Kings of War. I had planned to weather him up with some Verdigris but liked the way he looked after the initial coats and wash went on so I've not done that yet, I can always come back and do that in the future if I change my mind. Again this is a resin model, I judged that a metal model that large would be a pain to assemble and handle. The model itself went together without too much issue, I did need to straighten the spear in some hot water but that was easily done.

We also had the second of our KoW v3 practice games, with the Undead and KoM playing the Fools Gold scenario. This uses five bluff tokens per side with victory point values of: 2 * 0VP, 2 * 1VP & 1 * 2VP. The tokens are placed value down on the opponents half of the table and then all revealed at the end of turn 3.

Having the slower force I opted for a much tighter deployment have placed my 2VP token to the left of the house and my 1VP tokens on the hill to the houses right and in the wood behind the house.

The Undead force was unchanged from last week with the KoM opting to run 3 Regiments of Knights rather than 1 Horde & 1 Regiment, this meant a change around in the Sergeants and Scouts:

1 * Foot Guard Regiment

3 * Knight Regiment

1 * Mounted Sergeant Regiment

1 * Mounted Sergeant Troop

1 * Mounted Scout Regiment

2 * Mounted Scout Troop

2 * General of Winged Beast

2 * Wizard, one with Heal

1 * The Captain

The KoM put their 1VP tokens on the far right of the Undead line but in what was an error the 2VP token was put in the Undead's bottom left corner. Whilst I didn't realise this until the end of turn 3 this meant I had 4 points in the corner I had deployed in, which was lucky.

On my left the Zombie Legion managed to chew it's way through 2 troops of cavalry and a Regiment of Knights in three turns of combat. This secured the left flank whilst the Undead centre and right was taken apart by the men.

Had the KoM 2VP token been placed anywhere but the bottom left corner then I wouldn't have had enough troops left to contest any other tokens.

During the melee in the middle I had a couple of surge attacks that came up 1inch short of completion so things may have been a little better if I'd been able to commit an extra caster to surge those units into combat.

In the end I managed to hold on to a win with the KoM failing to rout my Revenant Infantry, a charge which could have seen them over-run into a winning position.

I also managed to get a second game of Clash of Spears in with the Romans and Carthaginians once again going into combat.

As with the last time the Iberian allies of the Carthaginians got killed early on but they did manage to take out the Roman Velites before they expired.

With this game we introduced a unit of cavalry on each side with the Romans having four Equites melee cavalry and the Carthaginians having six Numidian light cavalry. The Romans probably needed more models to make the unit work properly as with only 4 attacks the dice can swing rather heavily one way or the other. The Numidians seemed a decent unit with a decent shot but also the capability to charge in when required.

The Roman heavy infantry found it tough to punch through the Carthaginian Hoplites so I think a bit more work on how to get the Hoplites out of close order to make them more vulnerable to the Romans is required. The Roman pilum throwing is most likely not going to be enough in a 1 unit vs 1 unit situation.