General Discussion

We played an interesting matchup, Dacians vs. Carthaginians, 300 points each, using the “opposing armies: objective capture mission.” The battle saw the Carthaginians’ cavalry combat hero (defense specialist), light support hero with drum (fear specialist), Numidian cavalry, Numidian skirmishers, a Balearic slinger, Libyan spearmen, a phalangite, and a levy skirmisher VS. the Dacians’ heavy combat hero with a falx (melee specialist), light support hero with a standard and a Sica (inspiration specialist), light cavalry, naked fanatics, a javelinman, archers, light infantry, and noble infantry.

The Dacians’ melee ability was formidable, but so was the Carthaginian cavalry and their missile units. In fact, cavalry creates a lot of pressure for the opponent because they count as two units in determining control of objectives, and have extra life.

The battle began with a lot of maneuvering and positioning. One naked fanatic decided to hit the Carthaginian archer, and then run toward the Carthaginians’ objective in their deployment zone. The Carthaginian spearmen and phalangite came over in support of their ally archer to deal with the fanatic. This was a bit of an overreaction, and the Carthaginian units were drawn out of position.

The Dacians took advantage of the overreaction, and their combat hero charged with noble infantry, light infantry, and a naked fanatic into the Carthaginian light hero (already wounded), and the Numidian skirmishers. In the ensuing melee, the Dacian combat hero fought a Numidian skirmisher, a naked fanatic fought the other Numidian skirmisher, and the Carthaginian support hero was surrounded by two enemy units with no escape route. It looked grim for the Carthaginians. The Dacians wanted to make a statement, so they used their melee specialist ability. The Carthaginians sensing a huge defeat countered with their defense specialist ability.

It started out badly for the Carthaginians. The surrounded light hero was defeated and became desperate. Amazingly, he somehow, came back and was able to eliminate the two other units that also could not retreat. That was a surprising setback, but now it was the Dacian combat hero’s turn. He was armed with a falx, had the melee specialist ability, and was rolling 9 dice with a -1 defense modifier against a Numidian skirmisher with 1 attack die. Perhaps the skirmisher was inspired by the light combat hero’s stand and he rolled a 6. The Dacian combat hero shockingly failed to roll a 6 and was defeated by the lowly Numidian skirmisher. Likewise, the other Numidian skirmisher beat the naked fanatic.

Now it was time for the morale tests. The Dacians suffered one more casualty for the turn than the Carthaginians did. The Carthaginians used their light combat hero to determine which Dacian units had to roll. The naked fanatic passed the morale test. The Dacian combat hero rolled a 10, and its morale was a 10, so all was fine. But wait. The Carthaginian light hero that miraculously survived its melee had a drum—the roll of 10 was not good enough. The Dacians lost their combat hero.

In the end, the Dacians fought valiantly, but the melee disaster they suffered was too much to recover from. The odds of the Carthaginians winning that battle the way they did had to be astronomically low--but in battle, nothing should be taken for granted.

The two armies will fight the same battle again, hopefully learning from their mistakes, and trusting in their dice. 🙂