Played a fun game - 375 ap me as L. Carthaginian (206BC in Spain) vs Nick
Rogers, Thracian

Or it would have been fun if I had actually thought about it...  some very
basic mistakes by me, both as a player, and with the rules..

Army was:

2       Army Baggage    Irr     Bg(O)
1       CinC    Reg     Cv(O)
2       Numidian Light Cavalry  Irr     LH(O)
4       Numidian Javelinmen     Irr     Ps(S)
12      Libyan Spearmen Reg     Sp(O)
4       Poeni Infantry  Reg     Sp(I)

Command B               Type2   Army
Baggage Irr     Bg(O)
1       Sub general on horse    Reg     Cv(O)
4       Spanish Cavalry Reg     Cv(O)
1       Numidian Light Cavalry  Irr     LH(O)
1       Spanish Caetratii       Reg     Ps(S)
1       Poeni Cavalry   Reg     Cv(O)

Command C               Type2   Army
Baggage Irr     Bg(O)
1       Sub general on horse    Reg     Cv(O)
6       Numidian Light Cavalry  Irr     LH(O)
6       Numidian Javelinmen     Irr     Ps(S)
5       Spanish foot    Reg     Ax(S)
4       African Elephant        Irr     El(I)
3       Balearic Slingers       Reg     Ps(O)

Train Command           Type6   Army
Baggage Irr     Bg(O)

Stratagems: Scouting & Ambush

I invaded, and placed a Sea thinking I would have a frontal advantage. This
just meant that the limited space was cluttered even more with 4 DH & 2 Wd,
most of which, except for a large difficult hill in the centre of Nicks
deployment area, ended up in my left and centre deployment zones. I thought
I would get cute and deployed from left C, A, B with 2 elephants supported
in ambush by three Spanish auxilia. Nick deployed an enormous (40ME) command
of Ax & Ps, supported by a couple of Kn(I) on his right opposite the clutter
and stretching across tot he centre, on his left facing my cavalry a command
of roughly a dozen LH with Kn supports. I thought I might be able to monster
this using my cavalry if I switched the Numidians from my left, and I
elected to go (dice allocation) C High, A low, and B middle.

First bound Nick threw a 6 on the third command and declared a delayed
command. I pushed forward, hoping to take his LH out with my Cavalry with
support from my LH from the centre and left commands.  His delayed command
was a carbon copy of his mounted command...  oops...

This ended up in a huge swirling melee in which my cavalry failed to do
anything - losing two of their number to 6-1 splits very quickly, and
numbers started to tell. A slight reprieve when he threw 3 ones for PIPs
only delayed the inevitable, and eventually my smaller cavalry command
succumbed, although, down to a last 4 elements they did actually manage to
kill a couple of LH.  By this stage - I was staring down the barrel. My CinC
command was getting the low pips, but needing to do the real fighting, and
the Sp I had used to support the mounted wing had had 1, 1, 2 for three
bounds.

On my left I simply hadn't thought through the consequences of the El follow
up, and beating off his Ax and Psiloi (losing another 6-1 split for a nelly
to go down, I ended up being stuck with all four elephants advancing
(following up) and hadn't realised it wasn't compulsory to enter difficult
going, (4th bullet in follow-ups) to be mugged by superior numbers of Ps and
Ax.  With the elephant losses, plus three of the Numidians who had been
fighting on my right.

Conclusions: I have never been able to get Carthaginians to work for me,
this was no exception. I made a huge mistake in deployment and should have
had the elephants on my right. I also assumed my cavalry would beat his
light horse fairly handily, and the command was too small to do that much
fighting. Nick played well, and there were no mistakes for me to exploit to
try and seize the initiative back.