Ancient Warfare Month

October turned out to be a month that took me three falls out of five due to work activity.  Its a great thing to own your own business, except that sometimes that business owns you, too.  So, apologies for the lack of posts the past couple of weeks.  I'm going to try and make up for it with a series of posts this month focusing on Ancient Warfare, principally through AGEOD's Birth of Rome and Alea Jacta Est strategic simulations, and through the excellent but complex Ancient Warfare series from HPS Simulations.

Note that while I have an interest in ancient warfare, I'm by no means a budding Caesar.  I expect to stub my toe and take a bit of a thumping against the AI, particularly in the Ancient Warfare tactical games.  Also, while I'm at least as interested in Greek, Alexandrian, and Hellenistic warfare as I am in Roman warfare, I'll probably stick mostly to Roman this time around due to the games I have available.  I need to dig out my copy of Hegemony Gold and get it re-installed on the new gaming system...

For our first excursion, we're going to command Rome in the Third Samnite War.  This war began in 298BCE, pitting Rome against the Samnites and their allies: the Etruscans, the Umbrians, and the Senones Gauls.  Rome's victory secured nearly the entire Italian peninsula for the Republic.

Initial Samnite positions

 The Samnites dominate much of central and southern Italy.  Rome is also already engaged with the Etruscans to the north of the city.

I'll need to try and take as many of these cities as possible over the course of a decade of war.

On the tactical front, I'm going to try one of the Samnite Wars scenarios included in Punic Wars.

I should also point out that if you're not a big fan of ancient warfare, Chris over at The Sharp End and RangerX3X are going nuts with great new scenarios for Command Ops.  Chris' new scenario, "The Fight for Best." is available here, and Tim's new scenario, "St. Oedenrode" can be downloaded here.  I suspect playing both of these fine scenarios will interrupt my Roman excursions over the coming weeks.