Having won the EMEGC I decided to play funny armies but not especially winners. The 3rd Athens Reckoning theme made for a possible heavy roman environment but I still decided on a Zama army.
Carthaginian lists are sometimes weak and the mandatory 18 gallic DC does not help as they cannot stand up to romans, pikes or CL and I was to play in that environment :-)
But I wanted to test a Zama based army
First I would meet Petros Petrakos and his early Seleucid .
Petros is a very agressive player, perhaps even a bit too agressive but he got iniative, terrain and outscouting for him which would make it very very difficult for me and end in my defeat ..Not total defeat but defeat
The good start was my Numidian ally has some doubts
I wanted some terrain but everything went wrong so I ended in a plain with some poor LS, loose order guys, average DC vs cataphracts, SUP pike ( 2 TUGs) , 4 nellies ...Outscouting was not to my advantage
Did I tell you he is a bit agressive ....
The shooting of my balearic slingers was ...well they went to train back home and I asked for better trained guys
In short his center will oblitarate mine and he will reach the camp but not destroy it. I managed to kill his cataphracts as he underestimated foot LS SUP, the veterans who charged him and the effect of many skilled skirmishers around his second cataphracts TUG .
The game was hotly contested but he won 10-8
One or 2 more turns would have seen a 15-6
Zama Carthaginians have many difficulties winning in the open . I wonder if the Italian veterans should not be flexible rather than loose or be SUP melee expert as veterans but that is another debate