Strategika 23/10/10

Mark as Seleucis v. Jim as Antigonus

Seleucis is on the right.  Phalanx in centre with Elephants in front.  Galacian foot on the right, Galacian Horse on the left.

Antigonus has a little cavalry on his left, then mercenary hoplites, peltasts in the centre going forward to meet the elephants, phalanx right of centre & most of his cavalry on his right.

Both sides held back their phalanxes.  Seleucis did so to allow his elphants space to weaken the enemy.  Antigonus to give his peltasts time to deal with the elephants.  Antigonus's placing of the peltasts in the centre was just right.  They not only protected the heavy infantry from the pigs, but caused the pigs to make a mess of the Selucid light infantry as well.  By the time the centre was cleared Seleucis was left without any light roops at all.

The cavalry fight in the foreground went on for the whole battle, basically ending in a draw.  On the other flank, the Galacian foot were pin-cushioned by light cavalry & achieved nothing.

While all this was going on Antigonus' phalanx was being ponderously re-aligned & eventually set off diagonally towards the Seleucid centre.   Finally the hoplites were also ordered to advance making a covergent attack. 

By the time the phalanxes closed the Seleucid centre had been severely weakened by unopposed skirmisher fire and with the Galacians neutalised, the hoplites gave Antiginus superiority of numbers at the critical point.  Seleucis' centre soon collapsed & the battle was over.

This was a slow & ponderous sort of battle, with Seleucis on the defensive and Antigonus being systematic.  But it ripped along pretty well (a bit over 2 hours for a pretty big battle).  There were a couple of rules issues we worked on fine tuning as we went -  the rules are working well, but still improving.