Magnesia

This question and Dave Ulatowski’s answer were posted on the Classical Hack Yahoo Group. I think Dave gets it!

Seleucid and Magnesia

Benito_Marisa wrote:

Hi

Regarding Seleucids, I have found an army list & scenario for Magnesia

Has anyone fought this scenario with these list? Is it a balanced game?

Regards

Benito

Dave’s Reply

I have not used this particular list, but I have done a refight of Magnesia twice. What I did was to take the Bar-Kochva reconstruction of the battle' and, following Phil's philosophy of disregarding equal points and balance, I simply laid out the troops spaced as in the Bar-Kochva diagram. This was easy to do as the diagram is done to scale.

Both times, I placed the scythe chariots too close to the enemy to make a successful charge impossible according to the rules I was using, and I placed the cataphracts immediately behind them. The Roman skirmishers were placed so that they could get off a good shot at the chariot in the first bound.

The first time I set up the game, things went historically. The chariots messed up the cataphracts, and the phalanx held its ground while the Romans attacked. Antiochus was chasing routing Romans with the Cataphracts, the Agema, and the Argyrispids.

The second time, years later, the Seluicid saw the danger to his cataphracts and retreated them before the chariots could do any damage. Also, the phalanx and elephants attacked and routed most of the Romans. Antiochus came along for the ride.

I used the old WRG 6th Edition for these games, but Classical Hack would work as well or even better (with its elephant rules).

The above does not answer your question, but maybe it will give you some ideas about how to set up a scenario.

Dave