The (Unofficial) Great Battles of History
One of the helpful things that GMT sometimes includes with its games is a sample game folder, showing the rules in action for a few turns. Nothing similar is included in the the GBoH games, but I made this for those that, like me, learn better from example than by reading rules.
This replay is geared towards people that know about basic wargame mechanics, but who are GBoH novices. It's probably helpful to have the game components nearby as you go through this replay.
The scenario here is the Learning Scenario from SPQR (p.17 in the Scenario Book). It features a single Roman auxiliary legion, facing Hannibal himself with a small combined arms force. I further restricted the map to a tiny 14x12 hex grid, which slightly affects some of the gameplay, but keeps the illustrations to a reasonable size.
I've included rules references in [square brackets] whenever a new rule is introduced, so that you can look up the relevant rules as you go.
I've included some of the whys of the moves as well as the whats. Though I make no claim that the strategies followed are optimal, I do want to show some of the thinking behind a typical move. No die rolls were fudged in making this replay.
If you're more interested in other GBoH games, you can still get some use from this playthrough. Deluxe Alexander and Caesar, in particular, are very similar to SPQR. Even Lion of the North uses a similar command system, although combat has some different twists. Samurai is the "odd game out", with command and combat dissimilar to SPQR.
Please e-mail me with corrections or any other feedback.
The Romans (at the north edge of the map) have set up in a standard legionary deployment. The Triarii (HI/TR) are at the back, Velites (LI/VE) at the front. The cavalry is on the left and right flanks, under Falco and Drusus, respectively. Tribune Antonius is with the front line of cohorts, while overall commander Flamininus is with the second line.
Stacking is ordinarily one unit per hex [6.6], but the Romans can generally stack two infantry/hex [9.31], and have done so here, ready for Manipular Line Extension [9.36].
The Carthaginians have two elephants (EL) in the front line, Celtic Lancers (LN) under Mago on their left, and Numidian Light Cavalry (LC) under Tychaeus on their right. Hannibal is with the African Phalanx (PH) and Iberian Light Infantry (LI) in the center, with the two Balearic slingers (SK) just in front.
Click on the map for the map key.
During each turn, each leader in play will be activated, in ascending order of initiative ratings [3.0A] (the large number in the bottom center of the counter [4.1]). For this game, then, the activation sequence will be:
Note that the Roman player can actually activate the first three leaders in any order, since they have the same initiative [5.12].
What if the Carthaginians had also had an initiative 3 leader? Then you'd dice for the first activation, then the other player would move an initiative 3 leader, and finally the remaining two Roman initiative 3 leaders would activate [5.12].
Since Hannibal is an elite leader (denoted by the little red triangle next to his initiative rating [4.1]), he can always decide to grab the initiative at the beginning of the turn, although he cannot use Momentum to gain additional activations at that time [5.5].