Battle of Ali-cante

On December 17th we met at our local club to play a large Ancient game using the Impetus rules. Originally we were going to play a 6 player tournament, Romans against The Enemies of Rome, but one had to pull out due to other commitments. Instead we played a fictional battle on a 12ft by 4ft table. The Romans had three players each with a 300 points army and the other side were two players with a Carthiginian and Moorish Army of 450 points each.

The two battle lines were drawn up, the Romans on the left side and the moors and Carthaginians on the right

I had the honour to control the center of the Roman line and was overall commander of the Roman Army. Although with only playing a few Impetus games during the summer (and losing). I wil admit that I leant heavily on the advice of my two flank generals Guillermo and Toni.

Guillermo's impressive objective camp stood on the edge just behind my position. I just hoped I didn't knock it off the table.

The Roman's right flank, which was controlled by Toni. He began advancing against the Moors controlled by Cristian. Toni due to his bad luck threw four "ones" in a row putting most of his troops disorganised. Cristian however was able to move his light cavaly from his left flank all the way to his right flank without any problems.

I steadily moved my Roman line forward towards Miguel's Carthaginians.

The Allied Objective (A small town) was placed on their far right flank, behind Miguel's Carthaginians. They were faced with Guillermo's Romans and he was soon charging across the plain to try and capture the objective.

My steady advance in the centre was beginning to break down and to further compound the problem, the Moorish Light Cavalry was bearing down to threaten my right flank. Although Toni was supporting me with two units of his cavalry.

The Moorish Cavalry all of a sudden turned away and the threat had passed. I was able to reform my line, just as the Carthaginians started to advance to meet me.

With the Carthaginian support gone from his left flank I was able to position my troops to outflank him.

The Carthaginans crashed into my legionnaires, although I took a few casaulties, I gave as good as I got and held them at the front whilst my right flank began to turn their flank.

View of the Roman right flank, Toni has started to engage the Moor's units in the rough ground, but most of the Moor troops are rooted to the spot neat their table edge.

With the help of Guillermo's troops on my left flank we start to destroy the large warrior double units.

My ballister acts as the starting point for my troops to act as a hinge and begin to close the door between the Moors and Carthaginians.

Although some of my troops are taking more casualties, they are starting to double up on the enemy units and even starting attacking enemy units in the flank.

On the Roman right flank, things have come down to basically a stand off, with no real gain and with the Moor main line refusing to move to meet the advancing Romans.

With the successes in the centre and the Roman left flank the Carthaginians reach their breakpoint of 50% losses and begin to flee the field. The Moors are still well formed and almost untouched, however they have lost 1 unit. This means now the Carthaginians have all fled the allies have now suffered over 50% losses and must leave the field to the victors, The Romans.

Conclusions

This was a very enjoyable game and I was very satisfied with the use of my troops ( I didnt lose a unit). However I was dealing with mostly legionnaires and a few skirmishers and If I had to use other troops I would have probably got into more trouble. For me the action that decided the game was Cristian stopping his Light cavalry from threatening my right flank. Like myself he hadn't played Impetus a lot and had deployed his troops too close his own table edge. Had he advanced his main line it might have lifted a little pressure from his allies the Carthaginians.