Description
Military Strategy Game on Rome vs Carthage. Scipio Africanus vs Hannibal. Study and recreate some of Hannibal’s greatest battles from the 2nd Punic Wars.
4 Historical Scenarios & Setups for:
Cannae -Outnumbered, Hannibal encircles and totally annihilates a Roman Army.
Trebia -The Romans thought they already won this battle. Hannibal turns defeat into another victory.
Trasimene -Classic ambush. A Roman march is stalled by a road block. Hannibal’s hidden army strikes with surprise from behind a hill, driving the panicked Romans into the lake behind them.
Zama -Hannibal’s final battle where he is defeated by Scipio Africanus.
Includes enough forces to recreate most battles from this period. Fight other historical battles or fight your own battles against an unknown force.
- No Maps. Play this directly on the tabletop.
- Kriegsspiel style, hardwood pieces.
- Includes Carthaginian War Elephants.
- Does NOT include beach sand!
Rated Most Realistic & Accurate for:
• Command & Control limitations
• Fog of War -hidden units and chaotic move order
Used to train officers in the US military and in military academies around the world.
What the Professionals Play
Great for teams and solitaire play.
Paul Davies (verified owner) –
A superb and affordable introduction to the Pub Battles rules. Beautiful components, which use simple rules to surprisingly deep effect. Jostle for position, feint, manoeuvre and strike!
Both the setup and the rules are customisable to your taste: the game includes guides for building your own armies as well as a selection of historical scenarios, and gives optional rules for added realism and detail. The clear and short rulebook and memorable, intuitive systems make for a fast and enjoyable game with quick setup and endless replayability.
Dave (verified owner) –
Love this game. So it’s light enough to teach to anyone but involved enough to be fun to wargamers. It plays very fast and is very exciting.
Solo play is very fun (playing both sides) because of the chit pull mechanic. The game is very well designed where each of the 4 scenarios or the make your own scenarios start right before contact. I’ve described it as a knife fight in a phone booth. Then as you begin to lose units and generals the game accelerates. Transitions from strategic grande movement and becomes a very tactical fight.
Can’t recommend this game enough. Plays in a small area, is fast, and fun. Theres enough troop types to create different setups but not enough to bog the game down. You can play without a reference sheet and rulebook! That’s a first for me for any ancients wargame.
Nick Lockhart (verified owner) –
Extremely enjoyable game. Rather simplistic at first glance but provides some sublime feedback. Do buy some small blocks of other colours – you’ll very quickly want to add other European tribes into the mix too!
Ege –
It is slightly above my budget at the moment, but definitely worth buying (hopefully do so in a very near future). Let alone the cute little pieces, I really like pub battle’s innovative gameplay experience
Mat (verified owner) –
The Pub Battles system lends itself easily to its transcription in antiquity. What do we have?
– The pleasure of playing with wooden pieces (Kriegspiel style, but which could have been used in the tent of the Carthaginian Hannibal)
– specific units (weak detachments for war tricks, heavy infantry – light-heavy cavalry – units with low morale, high morale…) – ELEPHANTS OF WAR!
– A fog of war, we play blind: who is standing behind this piece of wood? 1000 men, 2500 legionnaires?
– A command system based on generals, realistic and intuitive: you command a battle line (units side by side) or a sector.
– a game that easily underlines the quality of the generals: the talent of each one allows to anticipate the action or to delay it.
– a simple combat system that does not unnecessarily accumulate bonuses and malus.
– a simple system that allows you to create your own army.
Of course, this is not a simulation game that goes into every detail: like all Pub Battles games, the scale used synthesizes the data to focus on the orders to be given to the upper level. The essential without however neglecting tactical aspects (flanking, moral forces, units of different nature…)
In summary, in 8 turns, it will take a good command to hit the enemy without suffering, keep the initiative, break through his lines and finally win.
The correlate is the gameplay: easy to set up, fast to play (1 hour), tactical, surprising, going to the essential, plastic enough to adapt to the scenarios or scale.
There may be some things to improve, to modify: but the whole is good.
I can’t wait for the Gallic, Germanic, Greek and Persian extensions.