Legio Wargames

Carth vets

The Carthaginain Veteran 3rd Line. 6mm Rapier figures

The Battle of Zama, 202 BC

On 17 April 2010 we hosted a game of Civitates Bellantes as part of the Society of Ancients Battle Day

It was a battle of epic proportions with the 35-50,000 men in each army being modelled on a scale of 1 heavy infantry stand representing about 300 men in 2mm scale. At about 40 figures per stand this is a scale of 1 figure = 7.5 men! There were 4 full legions each with 4000 heavy infantry figures elephants and more Numidians than you could easily count!

The Orders of Battle we used can be downloaded here:
They can be used with any scale figures or rules.

The Battle Report and Photos are here:

Zama Orbat
Battle Report
zama1

The initial deployment with 2mm figures

zama4 vets

The view from the rear of the Carthaginian lines, 2mm Irregular Miniatures painted by Tony Hughes of tinytintroops.co.uk. 

zamma 6mm 5

The Carthaginian front lines advance against the Romans. 6mm figures from my collection - a mix of Heroics & Ross, Baccus and Rapier

Zama is always going to be a long game. Unless the Carthaginians score an early victory with one of their front lines the Romans have to survive the elephants then slog their way through two lines of enemy infantry, before they come up against Hannibal's formidable veterans.

It was gratifying that the results on the day were very similar to the original. Despite some early successes on their left wing the Carthaginian elephants caused more damage to their own side than to the Romans. The Legionaries cut their way through the first two Carthaginian infantry lines, and although exhausted by the time they reached the veteran line, Massanissa's Numidian cavalry and Laelius' Italians returned from having chased of their opponents off the table and were threatening the Carthaginian rear.

Photos of the battle and a more detailed report is on the following page.

Battle Report