On thinking about last week's battle we realised that most of the issues we had were to do with us not having played ancients for a long time & we were misremembering rules. This week we fought with almost the same armies as last week, but having boned up on the ancient rules as well as making a couple of minor tweaks to the new order system.
Only two players this week, Jim as Seleucis & Mike as Dimetrios.
Seleucis' army is on the near side of the table. He has placed his phalanx in the centre flanked by Galacian foot on both sides of it & Galacian cavalry supported by elephants on both flanks. His companions are in reserve behind the centre.
Dimetrios also put his phalanx in the centre with mercenary hoplites on the left & most of his cavalry on their left. The other flank was covered by just two cavalry units & some horse archers.
On the near flank Dimetrios is trying to delay the Seleucid advance with his horse archers.
In the centre the phalanxes advance cautiously on each other. On the right of them Galacians have charges the hoplites which have been deployed in massed formation. On the far flank Dimetrios is attacking with his cavalry, Seleucis has sent his companions to support his right flank.
On the near flank the Seleucids are advancing despite significant losses to the horse archers. In the centre the phalanxes have locked horns while the hoplites are getting the upper hand over the Galacians. On the far flank Dimetrios' cavlry is getting the upper hand.
On the near flank the Galacians have overlapped Dimetrios' phalanx. On the far flank Seleucis has had to commit his companions to plug the holes.
The phalanx blocks at the right hand end of both phalanxes have been broken. The hoplites have broken the Galacians on their flank, but the companions are pinning them down. Both extreme flanks are still indecisive.
Seleucis' left hand phalanx block has moved to the right to cover Dimetrious' victorious phalanx block, while the Galacian continue rolling up the other end of Dimetrious' phalanx. Both flanks remain indecisive.
Both flanks have end up pretty much M.A.D. but Dimetrious' phalanx has been destroyed, rolled up from it's right flank. In the last turn both sides went over 50% losses. Dimterios having had 10 unit points broken out of 18 & Seleucis had lost 11 out of 21. So a Phyrric victory for Seleucis.
The battle went much more smoothly than last week. Having read up on the ancient rules helped, but also the tweaks made to address the issues that ancients showed up in the new system worked really well. The simultaneous system provided a lot of instances in this battle where the players had to make decisions where the right choice depended on what the enemy did - introducing a skill element lacking in IGOUGO.
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