As promised, the Diadochoi of Alexander appeared at the great HMGS East convention, Historicon, in humble Lancaster, Pennsylvania this past July 2001. Convention goers were treated to a monstrous number of figures in battle array for this, the penultimate battle before Eumenes finally succumbed to the combined might of the rest of Alexander's generals. The Successors (in Greek "Diadochoi") refer to the mightiest of Alexander's generals who vied with each other for control of his vast Empire after his death.

I have been presenting my "Successors Series" of battles at the last few conventions in order to follow Eumenes' battles against Antigonus, the general assigned by the rest of the Successors to stop Eumenes' solidification of power. I also wished to demonstrate to the community a non-tournament approach to Ancient miniatures battles. My battles do not come from unhistorical match-ups in an artificial competition, but rather model actual battles as described in various passages of the ancient author, Diodorus.

With nearly 1000 hand-painted figures of 25 mm scale on the tabletop, this was one big battle. I gratefully thank the NASAMW for prize support, Old Glory for helping to make this event happen, and the HMGS East organizers for giving the Diadochoi enough room in the Distlefink lobby to properly lay out the expanses of terrain. The terrain space was essential really because there was quite a lot to model! No better people to know this than my good friends who helped me to set up and tear down: John Thomasovich, Mike Lorenzo, Otto Schmidt, and Jim Abline.

This battle is described by Diodorus [19:25-31] and features Eumenes and Antigonus squaring off this time in the land of the Paraitacene (modern day southern Iran). Eumenes, carrying on as the final remnant of Perdikkas' faction, is unbelievably holding things together and continues to maintain a tenuous hold on the eastern part of Alexander's empire. Antigonus was given the imperium by an alliance of the other Diadochoi in the West to gather up a large army and wipe out Eumenes at all costs. Antigonus has slowly pushed Eumenes further and further East but both ambitious generals felt secure enough to offer battle in the land of the Paraitacene.

The battle took place on a relatively clear field but the armies anchored one of their flanks on a set of steep hills to prevent being outmaneuvered. In both games I hosted, clever players tried to use their lighter infantry or cavalry to wend their way through the hillocks and steal some advantage on their opponent. For the most part though, these units moved so slowly that they only came into play in the last stages of the battle. In fact, only once one side's flank was being rolled back did these scouts come into play, being in a position ready to pounce on the disorganized withdrawals.

There were two unusual events that happened at this game that were not typical based on the other HMGS East games I have hosted. At this Historicon the elephant units on both sides were relatively effective. Usually they evaporate quickly but in these battles they caused quite a bit of havoc. Unfortunately, as is their wont, the elephants caused as much havoc for their side as for the enemy!

The other unusual thing was that in both games the players were very aggressive with their phalanx lines, pushing them up quickly and engaging them in the mid-game. I've found that in most other games, the players misjudge how slowly the lines move and tend to be more conservative when engaging them. I think they must feel secure by maintaining that long wall of lances. At this convention though, I think the gamers were emboldened by my description of the Silver Shields. This unit, if you will, was the old guard of Alexander the Great's original expeditionary force. The side that had them knew they had big guns and wanted to see what they could do and I think the other side wanted to be the ones to finally cut the Silver Shields down to size. Hence the lines closed rather quickly and this was quite satisfying from my perspective since this was an important maneuver in the historical outcome. According to Diodorus, the Silver Shields were able to cut a hole through Antigonus' line, but not before their cavalry wing had been dissolved and consequently forcing them to give up the battle for fear of being outflanked.

I was lucky enough to have a diverse mixture of players at each game. There were some stalwarts, former Successor Series players that I have come to recognize from their recurring appearances at my gaming table. These folks are really great to have at the table, being familiar enough with the Classical Hack rules that they can help move their battles along leaving me free to referee the trickier situations that develop overall. In addition to these veterans I also had a large number of "bug" gamers, also known as science fiction/fantasy gamers. Perhaps it was the large elephant figures on the table or the colorful uniforms but for some reason the bug gamers are drawn to my Ancients events. These are great fellows to have pushing lead because they are gamers after all and hell-bent to win, but at the same time they are wielding unfamiliar troop types and so perform some wacky maneuvers. Fog of war indeed!

The final third of gamers that showed up at my Historicon games were kids from about 12 years on down to 8. Again I have to thank my veterans for coaching these young gamers and keeping the games moving. That is not to say that some of these young guns needed much coaching - some of them are sharp, calculating, and looking for a kill. It does not take much for them to catch on that it is quite beneficial to have a fast unit waiting nearby to exploit any openings in the phalanx's line of spears. Others kids who are maybe a little closer to their age in maturity still have quite a bit of fun and I am especially amazed at their ability to take a beating and never give up. After each game, some of the kids had a few questions which I made time to answer because you can see lights come up in their eyes as you tell them more and more. I think the cobwebs from their history classes suddenly become a lot less dusty when you tell them that they just slaughtered one of the most famous of Ancient generals!

With this diversity of player types and the sheer number of players around this large battle's tabletop, you have to have a set of rules you can lean on to help keep the game moving. In my experience Classical Hack is an excellent set of rules for this purpose. I find that they are simple enough that even new players can pick up the mechanics quickly. I have consistently had them pushing through the turn sequence by turn 2 or 3, resolving all their movement and melee on their own. In addition to being easily understood, the rules retain enough of the flavor of this period of warfare to make them a fair recreation. I especially like the fact that morale plays a large role in the mechanics, since this mirrors the historical reality of the time. Where the rules do bog down a bit is when large numbers of phalanx units are engaged with one another. There are a lot of individual resolutions that are necessary in this situation and so the turn pauses from its typical flow. I doubt that other rulesets though could handle this problem more quickly without losing too much historical flavor.