Back to our board game assisted biography of Fabius Cunctator! In the first part, we’ve seen where Fabius came from, how his career was already illustrious before Hannibal’s invasion, and how he was then called to Rome’s highest emergency office – the dictatorship. Today, we’re covering the turning point of the war against Hannibal, Fabius’s later campaigns, and his final years – as always, with board games.
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“The Man, Who by His Delaying Restored the State to Us”
After Fabius had laid down the dictatorship, the consuls returned to the traditional method of Roman warfare: Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro were ready to offer battle to Hannibal once more. Hannibal’s third major battle in Italy ended for the Romans even worse than the clashes at the Trebia and Lake Trasimene: At Cannae, the Roman center advanced, their wings gave way, and the entire army was caught in the double envelopment. Rome lost 50,000 soldiers in a single day, including consul Paullus.
The catastrophe at Cannae made Fabius the obvious choice to lead Rome. While he did not take any formal office immediately, his authority, encouragement, and – once more – attention to religious rites calmed the Romans and rekindled their belief in victory.
Fabius was now at the height of his political, military, and religious authority – and he used them. The Romans elected Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Lucius Postumius Albinus as consuls for 215. When the latter was killed in action before he could assume the office, the college of augurs (of which Fabius was a member) vetoed the by-election of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, citing religious reasons against having two plebeians as consuls. Instead, the patrician Fabius was chosen to be consul alongside Marcellus. Fabius would be co-opted into the second important priesthood, the college of pontifices, expanding his religious authority even further.
The two consuls of 215 were both seasoned commanders – just what Rome needed in such dire times. At least Fabius would have thought so. When the elections for the consuls of the year 214 were almost completed, Fabius as the presiding magistrate annulled the elections, claiming that the chosen candidates were no match for Hannibal. The elections were held again, and this time, Fabius and Marcellus were returned for another year (contrary to the Roman prohibition of consecutive terms in office).
In any case, Fabius and Marcellus worked well together. They contained Hannibal in 215 in southern Italy, allowing him no more successes in peeling off Roman allies. In 214, Marcellus went on the offensive in Sicily, while Fabius continued to shadow Hannibal’s army and punish Rome’s unfaithful allies. Their division of labor had them soon known as “the sword [Marcellus] and shield [Fabius] of Rome”. When their terms ended in 213, both of them were confirmed as pro-consular commanders.
As Hannibal’s forces dwindled away, his attempt to destroy the Roman alliance system was failing. Even those cities which had joined him were slowly retaken by the Romans. Marcellus conquered Syracuse, the biggest city on Sicily, in 212. Fabius went for a prize of similar importance, besieging Capua, the biggest Italian city after Rome. Hannibal knew he could not defeat Fabius with his shrunken army. Instead, he tried to save his last major ally by marching on Rome, hoping to lure Fabius away from Capua.
Fabius, however, was as phlegmatic as ever and called Hannibal’s bluff by continuing to siege Capua. Rome held, Capua fell. Hannibal’s war was all but lost. The edge of the Carthaginian invasion had been blunted by Fabius’s patience and tenacity, until Rome’s almost-inexhaustible supplies of soldiers allowed it to take the initiative. Fabius’s contemporary, the poet Ennius described him as the “man, who by his delaying restored the state to us”.
The Last Campaigns
Hannibal had lost, but Rome had not yet won. The cities who had broken faith with Rome in Italy had to be re-taken. Rome still had need of Fabius. He was elected consul once more for 209, and also named princeps senatus (“first of the Senate”), an honorary title which by tradition would have been bestowed on the most senior senator who had served as censor.
Bedecked with these honors, Fabius set out against Tarentum, the last major city in Italy which still supported Hannibal, while other Roman generals kept Hannibal busy. Fabius secretly negotiated with the leaders of the city. They broke with Hannibal and opened the city gates to the Roman army – but Fabius had them slaughtered to veil that he had gained the city by treason.
Not a good time to be Tarentine. From Hannibal & Hamilcar.
Tarentum was plundered. Fabius had a colossal statue of Hercules brought to Rome and placed it next to a statue of himself on the capitol, emphasizing his connection to the divine ancestor which he claimed.
Eclipsed
Hannibal was still in Italy, but Rome was firmly on the offensive. The young Publius Cornelius Scipio invaded Spain and expelled the Carthaginians and proposed to invade the Carthaginians’ African seat of power. While Fabius still argued for a defensive strategy which would contain Hannibal, his word did not count for as much as it used to: He may have been the nominally most influential senator, but his strategy had outlived itself. It had been necessary lest Rome suffer defeat, but it could not deliver the ultimate victory.
Scipio found support in the senate and sailed to Africa. Hannibal was promptly recalled by the Carthaginians and made his way back to Africa as well. Scipio met Hannibal at Zama and defeated him in a bloody battle of attrition. Carthage sued for peace soon after. Fabius did not live to see it. He had died a few weeks before the battle of Zama.
Plutarch’s biography of Fabius (which prizes unity of character over historical accuracy) can be found in an English translation here.
Polybius’s Histories which deal with the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean including the Second Punic War are online in an English translation here.
Fabius has found remarkably little attention by modern biographers. If you read German, I recommend this short, but insightful piece on him: Beck, Hans: Quintus Fabius Maximus. Musterkarriere ohne Zögern [Quintus Fabius Maximus. Model Career without Delaying], in: Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim/Stein-Hölkeskamp, Elke: Von Romulus zu Augustus. Große Gestalten der römischen Republik [From Romulus to Augustus. Great Characters of the Roman Republic], Beck, Munich 2000.
We have done quite a few board game assisted biographies on this blog. Today, we are going farther back in time than ever to cover the life & games of the Roman statesman whose life is half shrouded in myth: Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. You might know him as Fabius Cunctator – Fabius the Delayer. Without further delay, we’ll get right into the first part of his life – his origins, early career, and, when he was already one of the pre-eminent Roman statesmen of his time, the defining event of his life: The war against Hannibal in which he took on an extraordinary office. Let’s go!
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You may have wondered about Fabius’s long name above. This is a good opportunity to look at Roman naming customs, which tell us a little about Fabius, and a lot about the Romans. Quintus was his given name (the Romans used only around 20 given names for boys, and the five most common names (Quintus being one of them) already made up more than three quarters). Fabius was his family name, marking him as a member of the gens Fabia. The three remaining names were various kinds of nicknames – Maximus (“the greatest”) was a name he had inherited from an ancestor, Verrucosus (“the warty one”) he had received himself for a wart on his upper lip, and Cunctator (“the Delayer”) he earned for… well, we’ll get to that.
The Romans were big on family, and so the second name would have been the most important one to them. We’ll thus stick to calling our protagonist Fabius. He might have been even prouder of his family than the average Roman, as his was the patrician gens Fabia, one of Rome’s great aristocratic families. From his birth around 280-275 BCE on, Fabius was thus destined for a political and military career.
We do not know much about his early life. Fabius’s ancient biographers assert that he was deliberate to the point of slowness, but this seems like projecting his later fame of “delaying” back to his youth to maintain unity of character. In any case, Fabius was anything but slow in his career.
Young Roman nobles were expected to gain some military experience. Fabius could do so in the First Punic War, a protracted struggle (264-241 BCE) with Carthage over the control of Sicily and Sardinia. Rome won, mostly due to the almost bottomless manpower from which it could recruit – in addition to the city itself, Rome had founded many colonies all over Italy, and was allied to almost every other city on the Italian mainland. Fabius’s insights into generalship and Rome’s system of alliances would come in handy later.
Well-born Roman men with ambitions could not but go into politics. The Republic offered several elected offices for which they competed. Usually, these were taken one after another in a fixed sequence (the cursus honorum (“course of honors”)), but the rules were not as fixed in Fabius’s 3rd century BCE as they would become later. Thus, Fabius was elected to the lowest office (the quaestorship, responsible for financial administration) twice (first in 237), but, after climbing the second rung on the ladder (the aedilate), he skipped the third (the praetorship) altogether. Instead, he ran the highest office (the consulate) only four years after his quaestorship. The people of Rome elected him consul for the year 233. Fabius had fulfilled all ambitions which a regular Roman noble could have.
Yet Fabius was not content to be just any Roman noble. While his domestic pursuits were unremarkable – he unsuccessfully opposed a law introduced by the tribune of the plebs Gaius Flaminius which distributed lands in northern Italy to military colonists – he defeated the Ligurians during his consulate and was awarded a triumph for it. That was an extraordinary honor, rarely bestowed. Given that his victory was won against a rather minor enemy, that spoke of Fabius’s political clout.
The triumph was the greatest honor that could be bestowed on a victorious Roman general – and it affirmed the Roman belief in the righteousness and victoriousness of their cause.
Fabius left his consulate as one of the first men in Rome. He consolidated his political power even further, attaining the censorship (an office elected only every five years and correspondingly rare, even amongst former consuls) in 230 BCE, and, in contradiction to traditions prohibiting the repetition of high offices, became consul again in 228. Then, he used his good contacts to the Greek world to ensure that Romans could, for the first time, participate in the Isthmian Games. Two consulates and a censorship would ensure Fabius’s political primacy for the rest of his life.
Ten years after the end of his second consulate, Hannibal invaded Italy.
Invasion: Hannibal in Italy
Carthaginian-Roman relations had remained difficult after the end of the First Punic War. With Rome in control of the islands, the Carthaginians had diverted their energy to Spain. Their leading family, the Barcids, had carved out a large and prosperous colonial empire there. To avoid conflict with Rome, the two empires agreed on a division of spheres of influence. When the Carthaginians clashed with the city of Saguntum, it applied to Rome for help. The Romans resolved to aid Saguntum, even though the city lay in Carthage’s sphere of influence. Some of the ancient authors report that Fabius led a senate faction which favored negotiations over war with Carthage, others – like the generally reliable Polybius – oppose this interpretation. In any case, the hawks prevailed and war was declared on Carthage. The Romans sent an army to Spain, but the Barcid commander Hannibal seized the initiative by skirting the Roman force and crossing the Alps into Italy. Hannibal defeated a Roman army under Publius Cornelius Scipio (the father of Scipio Africanus) at the Trebia river and allied himself with the Gallic tribes in upper Italy. Fabius counseled that Rome avoid engagement with Hannibal and instead rest on its superior strength to wear him out.
In the second year of the war, the two Roman consuls (one of them Gaius Flaminius, Fabius’s opponent from his first consulate) each awaited the Carthaginian army in defensive positions on either side of the Apennine mountains, ready to support each other. Yet Hannibal snuck through the mountains, got into Flaminius’s back, and annihilated his army in a surprise attack on the shores of Lake Trasimene.
Setup for the Lake Trasimene scenario from Commands & Colors: Ancients (Richard Borg, GMT Games): You can see the Romans pinned against the shores of the Lake when the Carthaginians began to emerge from their covered positions in the hills and forests north of the lake. Image from CommandsAndColors.net.
One of Rome’s consuls was dead, the other cut off from the city by Hannibal’s army. The Romans resorted to this leadership crisis with an emergency measure: There was one office whose holder did not have to consult with a colleague – the dictator. Now was the time for such a man.
Dictator: Fabius vs. Hannibal
Traditionally, a dictator would be appointed by the two consuls. Yet one of them was dead and the other cut off from Rome. The remaining senators took matters into their own hands and had the popular assembly elect Fabius dictator. Having an additional experienced general in a crisis offers some advantages, as the Roman player in Hannibal & Hamilcar (Jaro Andruszkiewicz/Mark Simonitch, Phalanx) can attest: The Dictator event places an additional general (whose requirement of a strategy/battle rating of 3-3 makes it likely that it will be Fabius, as there is only one other general of this kind in the game) in Rome, and, as the advantages of unified command are lost in a game which has unified command (the player) anyway, also gives three combat units as a boon.
Another perspective on the office is found in The Republic of Rome (Richard Berthold/Don Greenwood/Robert Haines, Avalon Hill): As all players represent individual Roman factions, putting a dictator in charge can save the Republic from all too many military challenges – but it also runs the risk of making the dictator too powerful to be contained in the political competition of the republic.
Fabius, for one, was all taken up by the current crisis when he was named dictator. He identified the crisis as not only military, but also psychological: The catastrophe at Lake Trasimene had shaken the Romans’ confidence that they would eventually win through their own courage, the help of their allies, and the benevolence of the gods. Fabius began at the latter end. As the highest public official, he was also responsible for attending to religious rites, and he made sure to give them immaculate attention. His ostentatious piety included vowing large public sacrifices to the gods in the coming season, and personally, he promised to build a temple to Venus Erycina, a goddess associated with the gens Fabia.
The religious aspect of Roman life is rarely well understood by modern, secularized, audiences. Board games also don’t get it right very often. The Republic of Rome includes priesthoods which can be conferred on characters (the historical Fabius was a member of the priesthood colleges of both the augurs and the pontifices), but the in-game effect is abstract – it just increases their voting power. Only the pontifex maximus (Rome’s highest priest, literally the “greatest bridge-builder”) has an additional function, as he can veto political proposals (on the grounds that the omens are not favorable). Omens are also the only way in which religion features in Hannibal & Hamilcar: The Good Omen event allows the player to manipulate a die roll.
Religion, the foundation of ancient culture, as a one-time effect.
The two games thus present two differing interpretations: Republic of Rome’s priests are – much like any other Roman aristocrat, from whose ranks they are recruited – concerned with the political advancement of their faction and will use their religious powers as an other tool in this political competition. Hannibal & Hamilcar’s recipient of “good omens” seems to be in fact blessed by the gods (as the omens can manipulate the impact of crossing a difficult mountain pass or the likelihood that a Carthaginian fleet carries reinforcements over the Mediterranean Sea). Neither the former opportunism nor the latter true belief captures the social and cultural importance of ancient religion (without subscribing to the particular Roman form of polytheism) fully, pointing to a certain blind spot in board games.
Fabius’s religious restoration has found less attention among modern readers than his military response to the crisis at hand. In short, after the defeats at the Trebia and Lake Trasimene, Fabius refused to meet Hannibal in a pitched battle. Instead, his army shadowed Hannibal’s, hoping to chip away at his supplies. Such a gradualist, but tenacious approach continues to be referred to as a “Fabian strategy” until today.
Despite Rome’s bad experiences with field battles against Hannibal, the strategy was unpopular. Romans were used to fighting – and winning – battles. Refusing them smacked of defeatism, if not straight-up cowardice. Fabius’s nickname Cunctator (“the Delayer”) stems from the early days of his dictatorship, and it wasn’t meant as a compliment.
The strategy was also initially not successful. Closely observing Hannibal’s army from unattackable positions did nothing to the counter the desolation the Carthaginians visited on the lands of Rome’s allies whose loyalty to Rome now faded. And the one time when Fabius had Hannibal cornered at the plains of Ager Falernus (in September 217 BCE), the Romans were duped: Hannibal feigned a nocturnal attack on the pass by tying wooden torches to the horns of 2,000 oxen, lightly guarded by some of his troops. which resembled an advancing army at night. The Romans, led by Fabius’s second-in-command Marcus Minucius Rufus, engaged in a confused melee in the dark (against Fabius’s explicit command) while Hannibal slipped away by another route with his main force.
Fabius’s reputation reached its nadir after the battle of Ager Falernus. Minucius Rufus was among the Dictator’s many critics. Fabius’s tenuous political position is evidenced by the senate practically appointing Minucius Rufus his co-dictator with an independent command of part of the army – but both parts were to operate in conjunction. Minucius Rufus eschewed Fabius’s careful positioning of the army on the hills to avoid battle and moved into the plains at Geronium to engage Hannibal. He got his wish… but not the way he wanted: Hannibal’s small force at Geronium turned out to be bait, and the reinforcements which Hannibal had hidden nearby started mauling Minucius Rufus’s army. Fabius swept down from the hills with his army. Now Hannibal was under attack from both sides and retreated. While Minucius Rufus’s army had suffered outsized casualties, the battle had not turned into a third disaster.
With Minucius Rufus taken down a few notches – he had to come to Fabius’s camp after the battle and hail him as his second father for the gift of his life – the challenge to Fabius’s authority was met. Yet Fabius was still not popular, and after his six-month term as dictator expired, he returned to private life.
Plutarch’s biography of Fabius (which prizes unity of character over historical accuracy) can be found in an English translation here.
Polybius’s Histories which deal with the rise of Rome in the Mediterranean including the Second Punic War are online in an English translation here.
Fabius has found remarkably little attention by modern biographers. If you read German, I recommend this short, but insightful piece on him: Beck, Hans: Quintus Fabius Maximus. Musterkarriere ohne Zögern [Quintus Fabius Maximus. Model Career without Delaying], in: Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim/Stein-Hölkeskamp, Elke: Von Romulus zu Augustus. Große Gestalten der römischen Republik [From Romulus to Augustus. Great Characters of the Roman Republic], Beck, Munich 2000.
While I have not played a bunch of games focused on the Punic War, the few that I have played are very good and I am always interested in a good Ancients combat game. Last fall, GMT Games announced a new 2nd Punic War game called Punicus: The Second Punic War designed by a newcomer in Carlos Oliveras. I have been very eager to learn more about this game and reached out to Carlos recently for an interview and he graciously accepted.
*Keep in mind that the design is still undergoing playtesting and development and that any details or component pictures shared in this interview may change prior to final publication as they enter the art department.
Grant: Carlos welcome to our blog. First off please tell us a little about yourself. What are your hobbies? What’s your day job?
Carlos: Thank you for supporting the hobby in these times. As for me, I’m a guy—well, more like a man with presbyopia now—who’s starting to struggle to read the counters without glasses. I’m into the same things most people of my generation grew up with: films, books, and music, plus a hobby that wasn’t nearly as widespread in Spain in the ’80s and ’90s: games—Eurogames, role-playing, video games, and above all, wargames. And to pay for all that, I work as a naval architect.
Grant: What has motivated you to break into game design? What have you enjoyed most about the experience thus far?
Carlos: I’ve been involved in wargames for quite a while. For instance, I was the rules editor for Mark Simonitch’s Stalingrad ’42, I put together the player aids for Craig Besinque’s Conquest & Consequence, and I translated Successors into Spanish—so I suppose the next natural step was this: designing my own game.
There are a lot of fun parts to creating a game, but there’s one aspect that may not be strictly “design” and yet is genuinely enriching: working with so many people from so many different places. You realize that despite differences in countries, cultures, and ways of being, people—if they want to—can understand each other, and we’re not as different as we sometimes think. If there were more wargames, there’d be less war. Coming away with that conviction leaves you with something genuinely positive.
Grant: What is your upcoming game Punicus about?
Carlos: I haven’t exactly found some untouched topic that no one has ever made a wargame about — honestly, I wasn’t that original. It’s another Second Punic War game: Hannibal, Scipio, and the whole cast. It’s a block wargame with cards of medium complexity, designed to be playable in an afternoon.
Grant: What games gave you used in inspiration for your design? Why?
Carlos: Punicus is built on Craig Besinque’s HellenesSystem, one of my all-time favorite games—one of Craig’s real gems. I’ve played it so much that I always wanted to see it applied to other settings: the Second Punic War, the Gallic Wars…I kept hoping Craig would eventually design something along those lines. In the end, I got over my hesitation and decided to do it myself.
Grant: What is the scale of the game? Force structure of units?
Carlos: Because this war is so long, if I want the game to be playable in an afternoon it has to take a very strategic, high-level view. Each turn represents one year. As for the units, given how diverse (and sometimes contradictory) the sources are, I’ve adapted the order of battle to what produced the best balance during playtesting. For example, even though it seems Hannibal began the war with more elephants than his brother, in the game they both start with the same number of elephants.
Grant: How are the units represented? What is the layout of the blocks?
Carlos: The units are essentially wooden blocks with stickers. In short, the sticker shows the unit type (infantry, auxilia, cavalry, etc.); its Combat Value (the number of dice it rolls in combat); its Combat Rating, which determines when it attacks (in alphabetical order) and what it hits on or uses to cause routs; its Movement Rating; and, very importantly, its Home Box, which tells you where that unit can be recruited.
Grant: What advantage do blocks offer the design?
Carlos: Basically, it’s the fog of war. And not just because you don’t know what unit is in a given block—you also don’t know its exact strength state, since a single block can have up to four step levels. On top of that, there’s the physical feel of handling something solid like wood, which—without taking anything away from cardboard counters—is simply satisfying. I know that’s not strictly a design point, but it matters. If I have the choice, I’ll always prefer playing Punicus on the table rather than on Vassal.
Grant: Why was this a subject you wanted to create a game on?
Carlos: I love history, and I have to admit that when I was a kid, Hannibal’s campaign really blew my mind—elephants, crossing the Alps…to me it was like a movie, with the extra thrill that it had actually happened. Years later I was lucky enough to play Mark Simonitch’s Hannibal, and it made me feel like a kid again. So when I found myself with the chance to create a Second Punic War game using the Hellenes engine, I didn’t hesitate. And yes—designing it has been just as fun as discovering who the Carthaginians were back then, and as fun as playing Hannibal years later.
Grant: What are the unique features with the system used for the game?
Carlos: If we compare it to Hellenes, what sets Punicus apart is basically three things. First, the addition of non-combat units such as Generals and Catapults. Generals, for example, improve the units they are stacked with, and if that general also happens to be an active leader for their side, they can apply their special ability. For instance, Marcellus’s special ability improves the assault capabilities of the units with him. Second, new actions like production, piracy, and diplomacy—yes, you can take cities by sending ambassadors and persuading their citizens they’ll be better off with you. And third, the addition of a personal player board where each side can invest Supplies into researching projects, letting you shape your long-term strategy.
Grant: What unique elements of the Punic Wars did you want highlight in the game?
Carlos: I’d like the game to capture two things. First, the asymmetry between the sides. Carthage starts with tremendous striking power, but its enemy is far away. Rome is a sleeping giant: it loses battles, but it keeps standing—unyielding, impossible to discourage. You know it will wake up; how long it takes, and what form that awakening takes, will shape the rest of the war. Second, I wanted to reflect how the war evolves. Early on, players have fewer options, but as the campaign advances new possibilities open up to explore—investing in projects, diplomacy, piracy, and so on. The idea is that turns shouldn’t feel repetitive as the game goes on.
Grant: What various unit types are included in the game? What is unique about these units?
Carlos: There are three classes of units: Civians, Barbarians, and non-combat units. Civians represent the era’s city-based forces: Infantry, Auxilia, Cavalry, Elephants, and Fleets. Each unit type has something that makes it distinct. For example, Cavalry can perform a special attack called Harrying. Elephants are a powerful arm, but with the drawback that they can panic your own troops. Barbarians are slow but hard-hitting units, with the key trait that they dissolve in Winter—unless they are with Hannibal. Finally, there are the non-combat units: Generals and Catapults. They cannot operate on their own, but they can significantly influence battles.
Grant: How are cards used in the design? What are Action Points?
Carlos: The game is played in Years. At the start of each Year, each player is dealt six cards. In each of the seasons that make up the Year, players choose one of their cards face down and reveal them simultaneously. The card’s orientation determines whether the player will resolve its event or use its Action Points—one or the other. Each Action Point allows you to take one action, chosen from: Movement Actions (from standard Maneuvers to Piracy actions), Building Actions (recruiting and reinforcing), Production and Diplomacy.
Grant: Can you share a few examples of the cards?
Carlos: Yes, of course. Here is the “Hannibal Leads Carthage” Card and its key features. This card starts on the Carthaginian player board. It is a Leader card: while it remains on the player board, it grants its player its Leader Value (additional Action Points) and also gives Hannibal’s block a Virtus, or special ability—in this case, it means that any Barbarians with him do not dissolve in Winter. You can also see a value labeled Damage. When a unit crosses a mountain border, or a Fleet runs into a storm, you draw a card to see whether it takes damage.
Grant: How are cards used for research?
Carlos: At the start of the Year, players still play their cards either as events or for Action Points, but in this segment those Action Points are not used to take actions. Instead, they are used either to make an offering to a god (which will allow future appeals to that god to do things like reroll dice) or to invest Supplies in projects. This is the only time projects can be researched. That means that if, in the previous Year, a player didn’t produce Supplies—or spent them on maintaining troops during Winter—they may have no opportunity to research at all.
Grant: What different research options are available and what are their benefits?
Carlos: There are basically three branches: one that boosts production, one that increases naval power, and one that benefits land forces. It’s also worth noting that the projects for each side are not 100% symmetrical, which further differentiates how Rome and Carthage play.
Grant: How does activation work?
Carlos: Units don’t activate on their own; players have to spend their cards’ Action Points to move them. In other words, if a player plays a card as an Event, they won’t be able to move their units that season—the only combat they might still carry out is siege attrition from sieges established in earlier turns. Likewise, if a player plays a card for Action Points but it only provides 1 AP and they spend it on something other than movement—for example, using that AP to produce—then their troops won’t move that season. So each turn you have to think carefully about what you do, because your Action Points are limited: if you do one thing, you can’t do another. It’s that Twilight Struggle feeling of always being short on points—more or less.
Grant: What is the layout of the player boards?
Carlos: The player boards are dual-layer boards, so units and Supply cubes can sit neatly recessed in place. Each player board has a Praetorium, an area that holds units the player cannot recruit at the start of the game; these units will enter play later through Diplomacy Actions or Events. There is also the Proiecta section, where players invest and accumulate Supply cubes while researching projects. At the top, there are slots to hold groups of blocks in case the stack becomes too large to keep on the main map. At the bottom of the player board are the Rostra, where each side places the cards of its active leaders.
Grant: What key choices are forced upon the players?
Carlos: Each season, the player has to ask themselves which card to use and how to use it: for Action Points or for the Event. On top of that, the decision must factor in that the number of Action Points has a direct impact on initiative—who will act first that season. In principle, you don’t know in advance whether you will go before your opponent or not, so even what you intended to do with your Action Points when you committed the card may have to change, because your opponent has altered the board situation. That card-use choice is a recurring one every turn, but there are more decisions. For example, when you are besieging a city and the battle phase arrives, you have to decide what to do: attrition or assault. And for the defending side, when you are assaulted you have the option to capitulate—you lose the city, but in a less dishonorable way than if you were to lose the assault. Also, in battles a side can always choose to withdraw at the start of its round to execute an ordered retreat and limit losses.
Grant: How does combat work?
Carlos: It’s fairly straightforward. In a battle, blocks are revealed and sorted alphabetically by their Combat Rating. Blocks attack in letter order (A/B/C/D…), with defenders acting before attackers when the letter is the same. A block attacks with a number of dice equal to its printed Combat Value, and it scores hits and routs according to its Combat Rating. For example, an A2 block would attack first because it’s an “A” unit, scoring hits on 1–2 and causing routs on 5–6. Each hit reduces the strongest opposing block, and each rout forces the weakest opposing block to leave the battle. When all blocks in the combat have attacked, the Combat Round ends. Combat Rounds repeat until one side is eliminated or retreats. Combat also changes depending on the battle type. For example, in an Assault, the forces inside the city are treated as A2 blocks and they also receive a defensive bonus.
Grant: How is victory achieved?
Carlos: There are different types of victory. A Decisive Victory requires reaching 15 points and controlling an enemy Core City. A Negotiated Victory can be achieved with only 12 points. If neither of those victory conditions is met and the game reaches the end of its campaign years (which, in principle, players also won’t know in advance), a final comparison determines who wins—or whether the game ends in a draw.
Grant: What do you feel the game models well?
Carlos: What I think the game models well is the overall course of the war. It’s not that it perfectly models individual battles or grand strategic movements, because the game is somewhat sandbox in that respect. It’s more about the feeling that, with the sides being so different, both players are under constant pressure to perform at their best—because one mistake can swing the whole game. It feels like a war, not just a series of skirmishes. For example, Carthage starts with an impressive striking force, but its native recruitment base is far away and the war is long, so there’s constant pressure: victory can’t rely on a single great general forever. Rome, on the other hand, knows its potential is enormous, but it has to survive long enough to actually bring that potential online before its opponent brings it down.
I have come to Italy not to make war on the Italians, but to aid the Italians against Rome. – Hannibal Barca
Grant: What has been the experience of your playtesters?
Carlos: I think they’re having a good time. The fact that they want to play it again means the game has them hooked. And beyond that, their help has been invaluable—adding rules that turned out to be fundamental, or even almost creating cards like Mutiny. We’ll most likely put out a call for a new round of playtesters in an upcoming GMT newsletter, so if anyone’s interested, keep an eye out.
Grant: What are you most pleased about with the design?
Carlos: What I’m enjoying most is that the playtesters (including the developer, Joe Dewhurst) have had very few questions about the rulebook wording. It also helps that I started from a very polished manual like Hellenes.
Grant: What other designs are you contemplating or already working on?
Carlos: Right now, almost all my time goes into Punicus, but I have rough outlines for a block game about the Spanish Civil War (something like Spain Front, maybe) and a solo game about a certain Julius Caesar.
I love a good block wargame! And, in my opinion, this game looks extremely interesting and I am very much excited to learn more about it. I also very much like the idea of investing in technology and projects. Just such as neat addition to any wargame as you have to balance investing in replacements for your lost troops or new abilities and strength.
Two of the greatest commanders of antiquity died in 183 BCE, 2200 years ago. Their names are Hannibal Barca and Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus – but Hannibal and Scipio will do to refer to them.[1] Their lives have many parallels – long absences from home, an adult life dominated by war in the first and politics in the second part, and finally the experience of being an individual too big to fit into one’s small community. We’ll look at their youth and their fortunes in the war when they were in Carthage’s favor in this article. A second part will cover the second part of the war when Rome struck back and Hannibal’s and Scipio’s years after the war that defined both their lives.
There are many board games which deal with the dramatic events of the second war been Rome and Carthage which I will discuss here. The most prominent one (and the one I will draw upon the most) is Mark Simonitch’s Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage (Valley Games). I took the pictures of the new edition Hannibal & Hamilcar (Mark Simonitch/Jaro Andruszkiewiecz, Phalanx Games).
Early Years
Hannibal was born in 247 BCE as the son of Hamilcar, Carthage’s most successful general of the First Punic War against Rome.[2] Hamilcar was not good at moving on after the defeat in this war and let this influence his parenting: According to a popular story, he took the nine-year old Hannibal and Hannibal’s little brothers Hasdrubal and Mago to a temple and had them swear never to be friends of Rome. Then he left the city to expand Carthage’s imperial possessions in Spain, taking his eldest son with him. Nine years later, he died in battle against an Iberian tribe. His son-in-law Hasdrubal the Fair (married to Hannibal’s oldest sister and not to be confused with Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother) took command. Hamilcar and Hasdrubal the Fair gained possession of the largest part of southern and eastern Spain with all its riches in iron and silver. When Hasdrubal the Fair died in 221 BCE, Hannibal was the new supreme leader of the Carthaginian empire in Spain.
Scipio was eleven years younger than Hannibal. He came from one of the most distinguished Roman noble families and was brought up in the traditional style of Roman aristocracy and prepared for political and military duties. Therefore, he joined the military when he was 17 or 18 – just as war had broken out with Carthage.
Hannibal’s War
Hannibal’s successes in Spain had aroused Roman suspicion. Rome demanded Hannibal stop his advance at the river Ebro. Hannibal, however, disregarded this unilateral meddling in his affairs and proceeded to attack the city Saguntum just beyond the Ebro which sent an embassy to Rome for help. Despite their big words, the Romans left Saguntum in the lurch – a hint of the mixed opinions in the Roman senate. Nonetheless, they demanded that Hannibal leave Saguntum be. Hannibal was unimpressed.
He conquered Saguntum unmolestedly and then took his forces, including 37 war elephants, to Gaul and then further towards Italy. A Roman army – led by Scipio’s uncle Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio – marched to Gaul as well, but Hannibal avoided battle and let Gnaeus make his way to Spain in an attempt to catch Italy underdefended. Although it was already October, he proceeded to cross the snow-covered alps – the most famous, and, at the same time, most overrated of Hannibal’s deeds. Sure, it was a daring feat, but nowhere as ground-breaking as people would make it seem – of course Rome knew that armies could pass the Alps. And yes, it was more difficult since it was already fall, but that was Hannibal’s own fault for waiting in Gaul until the consular army had passed him. Most importantly, while elephants in the snow must be a grand sight to behold, the crossing took great losses on the men, when Hannibal could hardly afford losses for a campaign where he’d have trouble getting reinforcements from home or recruiting on site.
Hannibal crossing the Alps with his army in Hannibal & Hamilcar. Note the dotted and dashed lines – those are passes which might reduce your army size due to attrition.
Nonetheless, the crossing of the alps was the beginning of Hannibal’s glory days. He defeated the Romans under Scipio’s father Publius Cornelius Scipio at the Ticinus (Scipio earned his first respect in this battle saving his surrounded father with a daring solitary charge at the assailants). He killed half of the Roman force in the battle at the Trebia with a skilled attack on both flanks. Finally, he ambushed a Roman force that had neglected its reconnaissance at Lake Trasimene, annihilating it and killing its general, consul Gaius Flaminius.
After these crushing defeats within the span of a year Rome changed for a defensive strategy implemented by Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, called Cunctator (“the delayer”). Fabius avoided direct engagement in favor of constant skirmishes to wear the invading force down while Rome built up her forces (the “Fabian strategy”). This went against all Roman traditions, and many proud Romans viewed it as downright un-Roman. After one year, the Senate gave Fabius the boot and opted for a more assertive strategy against Hannibal once more. The new consuls went straight for Hannibal with a superior force of 80,000 men against the Carthaginian’s 50,000. One young officer in this Roman army was Scipio. The two armies met at Cannae in southern Italy, and Hannibal did what he had always done – just on a bigger scale this time: The Carthaginian center gave way to lure the Roman infantry forward. At the same time, both the Carthaginian left and right won their engagements and outflanked the Romans. They managed to completely encircle the Roman army, and then it was nothing but a massacre. 70,000 Roman soldiers died. Scipio was one of the few survivors.
Hannibal’s most famous victory in Hannibal & Hamilcar: His double envelopment annihilates the army of the attacking consul Gaius Terentius Varro.
Now the way to Rome was open – but Hannibal did not march on the city, producing one of the big what-ifs of military history. His decision was as controversial then as it is now – Hannibal’s cavalry officer Maharbal fumed “You know how to win, Hannibal, but not how to use a victory!” when he heard of it. In the end, Hannibal may have made the right call – Rome would have been difficult to besiege, and with the momentum of his great victory, Hannibal could bring many cities in southern Italy to his side which had been discontented about their alliance with Rome. The issue remains in contention until today, and board games certainly are no exception: Hannibal – Rome vs. Carthage employs a siege system that indicates that Hannibal would not have had an easy time scaling the walls of Rome, whereas it’s pretty easy for an army to flip cities to your side when there is no enemy to contest it. Hannibal vs. Rome (Rome Package, Reiner Knizia, GMT Games), on the other side of the spectrum, ends when one side moves an army onto the enemy capital – even if there is an enemy army.
The catastrophe of Cannae brought the Fabian strategy back into fashion and Fabius himself back into command. And Hannibal despaired over the Roman resources of manpower. While the Romans couldn’t beat Hannibal, he couldn’t break them, either. And so he kept marching through Italy, trying to convince as many cities as possible to join him. There were never enough. The Romans contented themselves with not losing against his main army and keeping tabs on him. Increasingly, they waged the war as if Hannibal wasn’t even there – Fabius as the “shield of Rome” made sure Hannibal was in check without seeking battle, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, the “sword of Rome” re-conquered cities elsewhere, most famously Syracuse on Sicily.
Marcellus sieges Syracuse in Hannibal & Hamilcar. In the background, Fabius Cunctator keeps tabs on Hannibal’s army.
In Spain, the Carthaginians had been more successful. The Roman army under Scipio’s uncle (later reinforced by Scipio’s father) which had bypassed Hannibal in Gaul was defeated repeatedly in Spain. In 211, Carthaginian forces under Scipio’s brother Hasdrubal annihilated the Roman army in Spain. Both Scipio’s father and his uncle Gnaeus were slain. When the Roman Senate decided to send another army, they chose Scipio as the commander. The young Scipio – still only 25 – became the first Roman to hold a pro-consular command (that is, a command for someone who had been consul, the highest office of the Republic) without ever having been as much as a praetor (the second-highest office). Scipio’s talent – and the Senate’s wish to make this a war of revenge – trumped the venerated rules of the Republic.[3]
For an engaging account of not only Hannibal’s life, but also the larger Barcid family history and their political and military machinations, see Hoyos, Dexter: Hannibal’s Dynasty. Power and Politics in the Western Mediterranean, 247—183 BC, Routledge, Abingdon-on-Thames 2003.
The best Scipio biography is still Scullard, H.H.: Scipio Africanus. Soldier and Politician, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY 1970.
Footnotes
1. Carthaginian males have a given name that is generally selected from only a handful of names. To avoid confusion between all the dozens of Hannos or Hasdrubals, they are given a nickname which may become hereditary – Hannibal’s nickname Barca (which means “the lightning”) came from his father Hamilcar Barca’s blitzkrieg exploits in the war against Rome, and it became some kind of family name for them.
Roman naming conventions changed over time. During Scipio’s life, the most famous system of the tria nomina (three names) rose to dominance. Male Roman aristocrats would usually have three names in this system. A praenomen (given name) was selected from a list of only about 20 names – in Scipio’s case, Publius. The family name (nomen gentile) Cornelius was legally the most important, since belonging to a Roman family gave the bearer full citizenship rights. Lastly, the often-hereditary nickname (cognomen) was more and more used as the main name referring to a person – which is why we call Scipio Scipio (and not Publius or Cornelius). He had inherited this nickname from a distant ancestor who must have held public office since scipio refers to the staff that would have been the symbol for office. What about Scipio’s last name Africanus? Well, that’s another nickname. This one, however, Scipio acquired for himself. We’ll get to that in due time.
2. You see how our perspective is Roman here – we call the wars between Rome and Carthage “Punic” wars after the Punic Carthaginians as Rome’s enemies. The Carthaginians might have called these wars the “Roman” wars (just like the Vietnamese call what is known in the western World as the “Vietnam War” the “American War”).
3. Rome never had a codified, written constitution, but there were conventions on how to conduct politics. One of these rules was that all offices had to be taken in the right sequence starting with the lowest. These rules were evolving. Granting Scipio the command started a massive trend to shape the rules to fit ambitious individuals.
Anmelden
