Tales from a Wargame Shed
  • Blog
  • Home
  • About me
  • Periods played
    • Napoleonics
    • 17th Century Eastern Europe
    • ACW
    • Ancients
  • Scenarios and house rules
    • American Civil War scenarios
    • 17th Century scenarios
    • Napoleonic scenarios

Blog

The Metaurus: an ADLG scenario for Hamilcar’s last gamble

26/7/2018

3 Comments

 
We played a 200 Point game of ADLG last night. I always enjoy a game more if it is linked to a real battle (however fuzzily) and I wanted to see if I could fit a historical scenario into a ‘legal’ ADLG format. I chose the Battle of the Metaurus, 207BC, fought between Hamilcar Barca and a consular tag team of Salinator and Nero.

This post is about turning a historical battle into a scenario. The next one will report how the game played.

Background

The Metaurus campaign was perhaps the last chance for Carthage to defeat Rome in Italy. After years of stalemate on the peninsular, Hamilcar had crossed the Alps with an army to reinforce Hannibal. Rome was determined to prevent the Barca brothers from joining forces and a lucky piece of intelligence revealed Hamilcar’s planned route. Nero, commanding the consular army facing Hannibal, took a picked force and rushed to join his colleague Salinator in front of Hamilcar. From being outnumbered, the Romans now had at least parity with Hamilcar and for once, seemed to have an advantage in cavalry. The Romans tried to hide the arrival of Nero and bring on a battle but Hamilcar realised that he was facing two consuls, supposedly because his scouts heard two trumpet calls in the Roman camp. Hamilcar withdrew along the river Metaurus, looking for a crossing point. However he was unable to cross and as the Roman pursuers came closer, he resolved to offer battle.

There are different versions of this story in the sources and the debate goes on about the location of the battle, nature of the field and forces involved. I chose what seems to be the current majority view, which results in the following elements:

Because he has turned to face his pursuers, Hamilcar deploys his whole army first. The river Metaurus runs down one flank of the table. It is impassable. Hamilcar deploys with his right wing on the river. Next to the river is a strip of open ground. Hamilcar’s left deploys on high ground, with a steep defile in front that will seriously disadvantage an attacker. The Roman side of the field has a low hill towards the rear, opposite the high ground. Otherwise it is featureless. After Hamilcar has deployed, the Romans deploy using the standard deployment rules, except that there is no ‘dead zone’ next to the river so troops may deploy adjacent to it.
Picture
The battlefield viewed from the river. Hamilcar will deploy on the left and Nero on the right
The Armies

I created two 200 Point ADLG armies, using army lists 53 and 55. All troop types were picked straight from the lists except the Gallic foot. Hamilcar’s Gauls were recently recruited. Some stories say they were drunk at the battle but it is also possible that they were just disaffected and shaky. Either way they fought badly and Hamilcar deployed them on the high ground to make the best of a poor contingent. I decided they would be mediocre heavy swordsmen and not impetuous, reducing their points cost accordingly.

Hamilcar’s army contained 6 stands of the mediocre Gallic Heavy swordsmen; 4 of Spanish medium swordsmen; 2 of African spearmen; 2 of Spanish medium cavalry; 3 of Gallic medium cavalry; 3 elephants; 3 Libyan light infantry with javelins; and 3 of slingers. Hamilcar was brilliant and his two subordinates were competent. Break point 26.

Nero and Salinator commanded 10 stands of hastati/princeps heavy swordsmen; 5 of light infantry velites; 2 of Allied light infantry; 2 of triarii elite heavy spearmen; 4 of Roman medium cavalry and 2 of Allied heavy cavalry. Nero was brilliant and Salinator and Licinius were competent. Break point 25.

Ben and Matt faced off on Wednesday evening. Their exploits are reported in my next post.
3 Comments
Stewart
27/7/2018 06:54:58 am

Very interesting, looking forward to the battle report.

Reply
Steve
22/8/2018 04:35:55 pm

Well done. I may borrow this for a convention game.

Reply
Tim S
23/8/2018 07:10:14 am

Thanks. Please do!

Reply



Leave a Reply.

      Enter your email address to subscribe to blog updates

    Subscribe to blog alerts

    Archives

    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All
    6mm Figures
    Absolute Emperor
    ACW
    ADLG
    Ancients
    Battlegroup
    Battle Report
    Blucher
    Bolt Action
    Chain Of Command
    Eastern Renaissance
    Epic 40K
    For King And Parliament
    Games Workshop
    General
    Honour Games
    Infamy! Infamy!
    Lasalle
    Longstreet
    Modelling
    Napoleonics
    Napoleonic Scenarios
    Pickett’s Charge
    Polish Armies
    Rules Review
    Scenarios
    Scenery
    Sharp Practice
    Shenandoah
    Soldiers Of Napoleon
    Space Hulk
    Sword And Spear
    Tercios
    Too Fat Lardies
    To The Strongest
    Wargame
    Wargame Campaign
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Wars Of The Repubic
    What A Tanker
    World War Two

    RSS Feed

  • Blog
  • Home
  • About me
  • Periods played
    • Napoleonics
    • 17th Century Eastern Europe
    • ACW
    • Ancients
  • Scenarios and house rules
    • American Civil War scenarios
    • 17th Century scenarios
    • Napoleonic scenarios