I'm trying to build another "bid card" campaign game setting for use at Metro
Seattle Gamers' Dragonflight convention later this summer. I've always wanted to
do a game based on the Second Punic War (218 – 203 BC): I'm particularly
interested in the early years through Hannibal's victory at Cannae, but the
whole war is a great source for interesting tabletop battles. But as soon as I
started to answer the most basic questions – what nations/army lists should
participate? – the complexity of the task became apparent. As we speak of "The
Mediterranean World" of classical antiquity, it could be argued that the Second
Punic war was in fact the first "world war." Virtually every significant city,
state or tribal group of the western Mediterranean basin were directly involved
in combat for part or all of the war. And the concurrent First Macedonian war,
arguably another theater of Rome's war with Carthage, and brought in
belligerents from as far east as Pergamon on the west coast of Turkey.

Given these facts, it takes very little speculation to arrive at more than a
dozen possible belligerents or "sides" in the campaign:

II/8a Campanian, Apulian, Lucanian or Bruttian/Bruttian or Lucanian
II/8b Campanian, Apulian, Lucanian or Bruttian/Campanian
II/9 Syracusan
II/11 Gallic (Transalpine Gaul)
II/11 Gallic (Cisalpine Gaul)
II/13 Samnite
II/31j Hellenistic Greek/Aitolian
II/32 Later Carthaginian
II/33 Polybian Roman
II/34 Attalid Pergamene
II/35 Later Macedonian
II/39a Ancient Spanish/Iberian
II/39b Ancient Spanish/Celtiberian
II/40 Numidian or Early Moorish

Even if I had 14 players lined up to participate in such a game, there are
issues of geography and political context that argue against making many of
these powers full participants in the war. Syracuse, for example, was a
relatively loyal ally of Rome until after Cannae, when Heironymus, the young
heir of the great tyrant Heiro II, was manipulated into allying with Hannibal.
This decision led immediately to his assassination, and the ultimate destruction
of Syracuse as a regional power through a long and destructive Roman siege. It
would be a powerful foray into alternate history to allow Syracuse to be a full
partner in the war, mounting expeditions to Spain, Numidia or mainland Italy.

Many participants also joined the war only in the aftermath of Hannibal's
enormous victory at Cannae. One of Hannibal's great frustrations in the Italian
campaign was the reluctance of many Italian city-states to undertake any attacks
on Roman armies outside their own territories, so these would also be very
unlikely to end up fighting in Sicily or Spain.

The truth is that only Rome and Carthage fought in every theater of the war, and
whether operating independently or as clients of either great power, other
states were unlikely to pursue conquests outside their native regions without
direction from one of those powers.
A campaign that truly encompasses the entire war would have to have some complex
rules regarding diplomacy and alliances, and I think these would be a lot to ask
people to assimilate, particularly in the chaos of a well-populated gaming room.
It's also probably not possible to conduct 15 campaign turns and resultant DBA
games in a convention game, even if you start in Period I and go until they lock
the room up.

In order to make a more manageable game, I plan to break the war down into
smaller, regional campaigns, with belligerents that actually could have fought
one another. The war began in Spain, when Carthage attacked the city of
Saguntum, an ally of Rome, and from that point to the gates of Rome, the path of
Hannibal's march was crowded with people who enthusiastically fought with him,
against him, and against one another. I think the following six army lists would
represent this melee nicely:

II/11 Gallic (Transalpine Gaul)
II/11 Gallic (Cisalpine Gaul)
II/32 Later Carthaginian
II/33 Polybian Roman
II/39a Ancient Spanish/Iberian
II/39b Ancient Spanish/Celtiberian

These six armies will begin their conflict in 218 BC, and continue until at
least 216 BC, but could run through 213 BC or even longer. Even though Hannibal
took the war to Italy in 216 and thereafter, fighting continued in Spain, Gaul
and Northern Italy for years, often with profound impact on the strategic
situation in other areas.

That's the game I actually intend to present at Dragonflight in August. But this
naturally leads into a second "regional campaign" for the Italian peninsula,
after Hannibal's invasion. The belligerents in this war might include the
following:

II/8a Campanian, Apulian, Lucanian or Bruttian/Bruttian or Lucanian
II/8b Campanian, Apulian, Lucanian or Bruttian/Campanian
II/8c Campanian, Apulian, Lucanian or Bruttian/Apulian
II/13 Samnite
II/32 Later Carthaginian
II/33 Polybian Roman

Rome's strategy of attrition and isolation of Hannibal's allies meant there were
numerous occasions when the latter ended up fighting their own battles. And
there were long-standing rivalries between Italian cities that continued with
new vigor while Rome's attentions were occupied with her own survival. The
Bruttians attacked cities such as Croton during the war, and the Campanians
seized the invasion as their main chance to throw off Roman domination. The
people of Capus saw their city as the rightful seat of a new Italian order that
Hannibal would help them to create. But many of the ports and cities of Apulia
and Calabria remained loyal to their Confederacy with Rome, and Hannibal's
eventual alliance with Tarentum was unacceptable to many of that city's
neighbors. His inability to use the ports of Neapolis and Rhegium, caused by his
alliance with their closest rivals, would hamper his communications with Sicily
and Carthage. Even though the engine of the war remianed Hannibal's presence in
Italy, it drove many ancillary conflicts that made for a miserable period of
history and a fine miniature wargame,

Three of the four Samnite tribes rebelled against Roman authority and nominally
supported Hannibal, but it is hard to make a case for them conducting operations
against anyone but their immediate neighbors. Another option would be to include
the tribes of Cisalpine Gaul, but these generally fought as part of Hannibal's
army after he reached Italy.

Of course, it might be more fun to pare the Gauls and Spanish down to one army
apiece, and toss in the Numidians and Syracuse, and the Later Macedonians, and
the Aitolian Greeks. The possibility that Pergamon might end up in a death
struggle with King Syphax of Numidia for control of the Mediterranean could be a
lot of fun too. Two other possibilities that occur to me: one could have several
Roman and Carthaginian armies in the field at once, as was often case during the
long war. If that we the case, a Syracusan or Spanish army might completely
thrash a Roman Consular army, or an army lead by Mago or Hasdrubal the Bald,
without actually conquering Rome or Carthage. The possessions of those empires
would be split between two or more regional commanders, and probably neither
Rome nor Carthage would actually be available to put at risk. After all,
Hannibal killed more than a quarter million men in Roman service in 15 years of
campaigning, and he never managed to set foot inside Rome. One doubts that
Massinissa of Numidia or the Chief of the Boii could do any better.

The second cool possibility is this: With so many clients and allies scattered
across the map, both Rome and Carthage were frequently represented by other
people on the field of battle. The Syracusans, Numidians, Apulians and Samnites
could therefore stand in for a Roman or Carthaginian army in a given battle, as
called for by the play of certain cards, with a concurrent point bonus for
winning a battle with a theoretically less-accomplished army. Think of it as
adding a "degree of difficulty." The more I think about it, the more resolved I
am to create another campaign game for just two players, each of whom would have
control of all the fleets, armies, allies and politicians of the Mediterranean's
pre-eminent commercial and military powers.

But first things first. I'll be ready to host six players for "Hannibal's Road
to Rome" at Dragonflight next month. One of the Ancient Spanish armies will go
home with the most successful player on the day, and all particpants will get to
keep a scratch-built turf-pallisade camp.

Andy Hooper
Bacteria Valley