We announce the late arrival of the 310 from Tunis.

Nearly seven years ago I set up the Battle of Tunis in 310 BC between the Syracusans and the Carthaginians for a bank holiday AMW refight. At the time I reviewed the scenario, decided that it sucked, put the toys away and did Magnesia instead.

For my first Shedquarters game of the year I thought I'd do an AMW refight to open things up. I set up Bibracte 58BC, decided I didn't like it, put the toys away, looked back at "Lost Battles", realised I might have been wrong about Tunis and set it up again.

Since I last tried this out, my collection has moved on a bit. I still needed to pull in a few Assyrians to make up the numbers - particularly for the chariots - but at least I've got some Samnites and Etruscans now.

So the situation is this. Syracuse in Sicily is being besieged by the Carthaginians. War between Carthage and Syracuse has been a thing for a while, on and off. I did one of the other battles in the wars a few years ago, and you can read about that here. This time, the Tyrant of Syracuse, Agathocles, in order to relieve the pressure on his city, nips off with an elite force and counter invades Carthage. The city fathers of Carthage have to put together a scratch army to oppose the invader. Their army is commanded by two rivals, Hanno and Bomilcar. The Syracusans are commanded by Agathocles and his son. For this game I put in a third commander as well, as it looks like the Syracusans were split into three groups, a left, right and centre.

The set up looked something like this:

The set up is based upon "Lost Battles" by Phil Sabin, and the rules are slightly modified AMW.

Unusually for a Monday Night Group game these days there were no online participants. Ian cried off having had a busy day, and Jon withdrew as it looked like we had enough people turning up in Shedquarters to take all the commands. The last time we had an MNG game in SHQ with no one on line was the 10th March 2020.

Here's a wide angle shot to show you the gallant band who braved foul weather to turn up and play the game. Most came bearing Christmas left over sugary snacks. To the left we have Chris and Richard, playing the Carthaginians, on the right Tim, Steve & Phil in the distance, as the forces of the Tyrant.

I randomised activation for the five commands by using coloured playing cards. This was not to everyone's taste. Turn one saw Phil shoot at Richard's chariots with his archers and inflict some damage. The chariots are quite tough to kill, but to reflect their historical effectiveness their morale is brittle.

On the other flank, Chris got motoring, and threw his chariots into some Samnite heavy infantry. 

The first round saw Chris inflict two hits to none of his own, showing that the chariots are quite tough. Chris also moves up with his Numidian javelin men, and inflicts a couple of casualties too.

Alas for him Tim was able to swing a hoplite phalanx into his flank, and he did inflict a lot of damage, and the unit also failed a morale check.

Elsewhere, Tim has dropped his slingers out of the way having had a shot at Chris' infantry. This is one of the changes to basic AMW, allowing LI to interpenetrate.

Steve also contacted the Numidians with his Etruscans (okay, they're Neo Assyrians) at the top of the picture, expecting an easy win. It did not prove to be the case, both sides losing two bases through a combination of hits and morale rolls.

However it didn't take long for the last chariot base to be killed.

At the far end of the table, Richard about faced his infantry and marched towards his own table edge, and also skedaddled his chariots, convinced that should he fight it would all be over quickly (I think he assessment was unduly pessimistic: he was probably going to lose but not that fast.)

Phil was facing a long march before he rolled any combat dice.

Richard had spotted a weak point in the Syracusan line, and charged it with some of his better quality infantry, leading them personally to ensure maximum impact.

He sure got that, but after inflicting more damage than his unit received, Hanno alas died in the heat of the combat. All the surrounding units, plus his, then took a moral check. They all failed. Richard started giggling hysterically at this point.

On the other flank Chris was getting well stuck in, and the Carthaginian Sacred Bands were doing a fine old job on Tim's fellows.

Richard redoubled his efforts to keep out of the way of the enemy. You can see at the bottom of the picture that Chris has smashed into some of Tim's Samnites, and has done a lot of damage.

Chris crashed through the Syracusan left flank, and contacted the slingers. At the top of the picture he was unable to break the Samnites before Tim swung his reserves round to hit them in the flank.

Richard is doing some fancy stuff, to try and inflict some damage on Phil with minimal risk. His cavalry is rushing to shore up his right. The scenario doesn't allow the two Carthaginian generals to come to each other's aid, reflecting the fierce rivalry and ambitions at the time.

Chris' breakthrough troops have an absolute mare, as the slingers shred them and they fail morale checks. Elite troops, eh? Can't trust 'em.

Richard's chariots collide with one of Phil's hoplite units, led personally. In a slaughter fest to rival anything in any game of AMW I've ever run, the two units end up dropping to a single base in one turn.

Then they are gone, along with some other units. The end of turn last base morale check extra rule we play has done away with a lot of stragglers. Steve has broken through in the centre, but Richard has a spare cavalry unit now that can take one in the rear.

Phil has now got almost in touching distance of Richard's infantry, who have nowhere else to go.

We played another turn, and nothing made things better for Chris and Richard, so rather than run the game to the bitter end - Phil & I have a meeting in the morning, and Steve needs to be at work for 7am - we agreed a Syracusan win, and had a cup of tea/coffee and left over mince pies. 

A much bloodier outcome than historically, but the same side won. The game is stacked a bit against the Carthaginians, but they have slightly more troops, and should be able to sneak a win if lucky. The thing for them is that they are mostly regular Heavy Infantry, whilst the other side have a lot of Hoplites. Hoplites are great. They hit on 3-6, instead of 4-6. This means they should win. However, once they lose cohesion (i.e a base is killed)  they lose the 3-6 hit, and dropped a troop type to "Auxiliary infantry". The heavy infantry are then rolling twice as many dice per base, so it can slip away from the hoplites quickly. I think that it might have been better to have a go, with a slim chance of winning, rather than string it out with an even slimmer chance.

So there we are. Seven years later than planned, but at least we got it played.