Yes folks the lure was too strong.

Tony Kinner is a Ancients teacher and big Ancients wargame fan. He wants the big picture!!

Say no more.  I of course was late to Vassal, had a cold and had forgotten more than I knew. The good news is Tony was prepared!

We put him running the Carthaginians to avoid the Political headaches and frustrations for our first play.

He boldly struck out with Hiero to attempt to siege Massena and then Hanno moved in from Lilybaeum.

Hiero of Syracuse ever the stalwart fan of Carthage immediately places the miscreant Mammertine rebels under a siege.

He then scores a Siege Attrition! But the forces survive inside and Hiero loses just 1  step.

Hano fails to get into the action and Finishes just outside of Massena.

Once the Auguries finish placing drought throughout the land and the hapless Roman Trireme scatters the Roman Consul Claudius Caudex in a bold move crosses the straits at the behest of the Senate [ He needs to make a request to leave the Province he is Consul for]. He easily avoids the Punic naval intercept and lands to find….well an army quiet a bit larger than he expected.

We will need to re do this segment. We neglected to let the Punic forces attempt to intercept!

Being able to do so when Caudex landed means Hanno and Co would be the attacker. Huge turn about face!!  [Rule 6.53].  Which explains my …wow this is too easy as Rome nausea at the time.

Carthage would roll equal or under campaign rating of 5 that Hanno has. A failed intercept; however means the attacker would accrue a further +2 DRM also for the enemies failed intercept attempt.   So if Carthage is successful as an interceptor then they become the attacker. This would swing the result around 180 from what we have. With Carthage as the Attacker the net DRM is now +2 in their favour. Assuming the same roll of a 7 this would give us a 10/20 result with the Romans required to lose 20% and Retreat. Which would open them up to Butchery and Slaughter in Pursuit.

For battle losses in the combat we resolved tonight the following would happen also :            Since DRM was >-3 Carthage lose 5% less. [8.33] a nice side benefit for having higher DRMs than the enemy.

 

So. Continuing the attack we were conducting. The DRMs came in at -5 against Rome and a 7 is rolled. This gives the dreaded X (-1) result. X results are a reroll and we look at the bracketed number to see what the final result is.

Now re roll and we got BOTH players using their Guile rating (Rome  2 Carthage 0). So on the result of  the X roll : We re rolled a 6 -1 +2 =[7].

But it is the X COLUMN number in brackets [7] a 5/20 result , dropped down 5% for the DRM ABOVE  5/15. See below in step 4.

More when we get to it!