Battle of Zama with CC:A

Nick stopped Saturday evening for dinner, retrieve his daughter and play a couple of games of CCA. We gamed Bagradas twice using 6mm miniatures rather than the blocks. The first game, I played the Romans and then swapped sides for game number two. The Romans were victorious in both games despite my perception that the Romans should be underdogs in this scenario. In my solo plays, Carthage tended to win about 75% of the games so I expected the same tendency in FtF play. Perhaps, my sample size of two FtF games was too small to support my thesis. Anyway, the games were closely contested with the Romans winning 7-5, 7-6.

Next scenario up for solitaire play is Zama. Below is the initial deployment.

In the first game, Romans won 8-2 with a quick envelopment of the flanks and then the destruction of the elephants in the center. It was over before the Carthaginians got going. The only two banners the Carthaginians managed to gain were the result of one combat where one medium horse and an attached leader were taken. The loss of the Roman horse and leader prompted me to consider the action I took to destroy these two units.

The diagram below depicts the situation at the start of the Carthaginian turn. The Roman horse with leader faces a Carthaginian warband with leader. 

Carthage plays a 'three unit right' card and moves the light infantry two hexes to block the left rear retreat hex for the Roman while the warband moves two hexes to cut the right rear retreat hex.

The Carthaginian medium infantry moves adjacent to the Roman horse taking the position vacated by the warband.

With Roman escape blocked, the warband attacks since it must Close Combat having moved two hexes. The Roman horse took one hit and two flags and was forced to retreat. With no retreat, the horse was destroyed. The leader, alone in the hex, was killed on a single roll of 'helmet.'

After making this move, I wondered if this encircling tactic could be justified on the ancient battlefield. Should enemy units project a ZOC that would stop such penetrations or is this attack deserving for those units finding themselves over-extended?