Today I am sharing even more exciting, new and fresh EPIC scenarios for Commands & Colors Ancients. This is definitely my preferred way of playing that game with my wargaming friends – and as I already brought to the table all the official EPIC scenarios, this was the final time to create something on my own!

What I decided was to focus on the Second Roman Civil War, and thus grand clashes between Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey. So far with my group we played following of my designs:

All three games gave us a lot of fun and were also positively received by the CCA players community. Continuing with this good tradition, I created the EPIC Thapsus (46 BC) battle; Pompey is no more but his elite legions in Africa (and later in Spain) still has to be crushed.

PS. As always, you can click on each picture to see the details.

Some of my articles regarding C&C system:
Commands and Colors games – my 3 favorite
[REVIEW] Commands Colors Ancients
Strategy Article – Skirmishing and Evasion
Strategy Article – Breaking The Line, Holding The Linet

EPIC Civil War series:
EPIC Illerda (49 BC)
EPIC Dyrrhachium (48 BC)
EPIC Pharsalus (48 BC) 
EPIC Thapsus (46 BC)
EPIC Munda (45 BC)

Thapsus (46 BC)

Historical background

Following his set-back at Ruspina, Julius Caesar spent some time regrouping before making a surprise night march of 16 miles and camping near the Pompeian-held coastal town of Thapsus. Caesar immediately placed Thapsus under siege. Though numerically superior, Metellus Scipio, the Pompeian commander in the area, originally had no intention of risking a direct battle with the formidable Caesar.

However, Caesar had forced the issue with this threat to Thapsus. If Scipio allowed a key city to fall without a fight, then key allies would defect to Caesar. Scipio reluctantly brought his 40,000 man army up to relieve the city. He occupied a defensive position and drew up his line with elephants (provided by King Juba) on the wings.

Caesar opposed the pachyderms with light archers and slingers, while taking personal command of his right wing. As the battle began, volleys of missiles sent the elephants reeling. At nearly the same time, Caesar’s infantry, eager for battle, attacked without orders. Many of the elephants stampeded into the center of Caesar’s line. Caesar’s horse countered a Numidian cavalry charge and forced them to flee. After the failed charge, the Pompeian line crumbled and the rout was on.

Pompeian resistance in Africa had been crushed, but the civil war was not quite over. There remained one more Pompeian bastion – Spain.

Set-up

The placement of both forces (click to open in the new window). That time I played with Lukasz (who was commanding Pompeian) and Marcin (responsible for Caesarian). You can sea to the right as well as large marshes on the left. Both will narrow the battle space significantly.
The left wing had superior Numidian cavalry on Lukasz side but poorly deployed. Marcin formed in a standard, legion line with skirmishers at the front.
As a subordinate commander I was placed on the right wing, with Caesar himself and big contingent of cavalry. Two dangerous elephants were facing me.

Session report

Let the fun begin! After some maneuvering I decided to attack elephants with Caesar – hoping for a good roll and killing them. Uff, I got what I wished for.
Darken the Sky from Pompeian forces was pretty deadly, with as many as 7 blocks killed in the center!
Marcin – quite reasonably – decided to send his second beast again Heavy Infantry of Caesar. He rolled ZERO hits on 5 die (only swords and red color scored, with swords being potentially rerolled). I do not have to add what Caesar did in return…
Once no more elephants, Caesarian Cavalry on the right surged forward! What a Charge it was – a potential break-through started to loom over Pompeian forces.
Clash of Shields is a card players tend to keep for an “opportunity moment” – often not playing it at all. Here a pretty efficient use of it on one Pompeian Legion 🙂
Told you about that potential break-through on the Caesarian right? It started to materialize!
In the end the pinned Lukasz cavalry was destroyed at the edge of the map. But the revenge was close! More on this in a moment…
…as the action finally moved to the second wing! Yes, Caesar legions rushed forward and the mutual annihilation started.
What is worse, Lukasz had good enough cards to counter my Caesar charge, killing the cavalry, heavy infantry AND Caesar himself in the process! But it was too late – the last point was scored by Marcin on the other side of the map and the game ended.

Conclusion

Final look at the map – a pretty historical result, with definitive Caesar win although great general dying in the field.
Close-up on the left wing (Marcin vs Lukasz) – while not so intense fighting here, the final points for Caesarian side were scored here!
Close-up on the right / central area – Kuba J/Filip. There was so much action, attacking back and forth up to the moment when Caesarian cavalry managed to break through and the slaughter during the rout started. The forces regrouped by Lukasz from center stabilized situation, killing Caesar in the process.

Summary

I will admit it – we had such a fun and joy with this scenario, despite in the end Caesar prevailing significantly. The key to success for Pompeian forces will definitely be in proper management of Elephants – they might be key to protect their left flank.

That experiment proved that transposing regular CCA scenarios to EPIC format can give impressive results and fantastic gameplay. I will definitely continue and post scenarios to CCA NET page:

More session reports to come – enjoy!