This battle occurs twenty years after King Antiochus the Great defeated King Attalus of Pergamum. Attalus' gifted nephew, Dustinian, leads his armies against the power of the Seleucid, to again challenge their dominion of Asia Minor (each with 350 points worth of troops).

Leading the armies of Pergamum against the Seleucids offered a real challenge, and placed me in a quandary. The Seleucids enjoyed a good combined arms team of strong forces, while the mainstay of Pergamum was a mixed force of lancer cavalry and mercenary peltasts. Were I to employ the standard infantry center formation, his pikes would easily crush them.

My first concern was to force the enemy to fight on ground of my choosing. To accomplish this, I made certain that he was goaded into invading my territory by calling him names (I won the die roll). This gave me an edge I needed. I could select the terrain that would aid my battle plan. Now I needed a plan.

To place the peltasts in the center where he would presumably deploy his pikes would be suicide. His mounted forces, including cataphracts and an elephant, could presumably hold my mounted troops long enough for the phalanx to smash my center and turn against the wings. He certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to engage them in unfavorable terrain, so placing rough ground between us would just cause him to go around, to which side I could only guess. So the center would go to either the lancers and/or the Galatians. The Galatian warbands would be the most effective against the pikes, but they were too few, and a frontal assault would be to his advantage. The lancers were at more of a disadvantage, but there were more of them, and some would be generals. If they could overlap, they had a chance.

Putting the lancers in the center would leave my flanks open to the enemy's mobile troops. I would have to limit that mobility by the use of constricting and blocking terrain. On the rig.- placed a waterway. Beside this I set a thick wood on my side of the battlefield. On the enemy side, a wide swath of rough ground covered his left. Behind this I would place most of my peltasts to take u advantage of their strength in bad terrain. In the center would be the lancers with the three general's backing the main line. To their front would be psiloi, to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. On the left of these I placed a steep hill which ran to another large wood, extending into the enemy's right flank. Behind the hill I deployed some peltasts and psiloi who would move forward to cover the lancers flank. A few psiloi would remain behind to hold the hill. This seemingly weak flank was protected by the Galatians and a cavalry element stationed in ambush within the woods.

I could only hope the enemy would deploy in a manner which would allow the ambush to be effective. The best that could happen would be for him to deploy his bows on his open right flank rather than into the rough on his left. But I would still have to worry about his cataphracts, as they could seriously damage the undisciplined infantry of Galatia. Behind the center I deployed all my light cavalry, ready to reinforce wherever needed.

It was at this point the enemy commander made his biggest mistake. He opted to fight on the terrain I had chosen, attacking in the direction I desired. In doing so he violated the first rule of combat: NEVER fight on ground of the enemy's choosing.

His deployment was what I hoped. His center consisted of six pike blocks. In two gaps were a pair of light horse in tandem, and an escorted elephant. To their left were all his psiloi and auxilia facing the rough terrain. On their right were the bows. Behind each flank was a pair of cataphracts and light horse, with e army commander behind the center. We were ready to begin.

As he advanced all along his line, I quick marched the peltasts into the rough. He held back as I extended their line to the right, moving his reserve cavalry to keep his troops from being overlapped. Since I couldn't move the foot into the open against his cataphracts, I moved my light horse through the rough behind the line to further extend the right wing and have something that had a chance against the Seleucid heavies. This action elicited response that was my opponent's second biggest mistake. He ran half his right wing cavalry across the back of his army to bolster the left.

While this was happening, our centers slowly converged. I stopped the lancers halfway and let the psiloi swarm forward to slow the pikes and, hopefully, eliminate that elephant. The peltasts and psiloi on the hill moved forward to cover their flank. The Galatians lay in wait ... quiet and unseen.

As the psiloi were pushed inevitably back, I was kept busy tting those that fled back into the fray. Several times I tried to get that stupid elephant at a disadvantage, but couldn't get a sufficient result. A couple of elements were trampled.

At one point, as the phalanx moved adjacent to the rough going, I pulled a peltast out of line and attacked their flank. This action caused a pike block to be disjointed from the line in order to engage. That gave me some room on his left.

With his bows getting in range of my left, it was time to launch my ambush. The Galatians came out, their leaders on horseback went after and routed the light horse while the warbands fe11 upon and slaughtered the bows. His right wing was instantly demoralized and halted, causing the closure of the centers to cease and the reinforcements of the right flank to balk. The Galatian cavalry then made for the enemy baggage, only to be intercepted by the enemy commanding general. Two warbands went after the right wing commander with his cataphracts while the remainder fell on the flank of the phalanx along with the psiloi and peltasts.

Encouraged by these events, and too close to avoid them further, the lancers surged forward into contact. They dispatched the light horse, though some were broken by that stupid elephant. But with a general in front on the right, plus an overlap, the pikes adjacent to the gray beast collapsed.

Meanwhile, on the right flank, the psiloi and auxilia had whittled away at each other. Some of my peltasts chanced the cataphracts to support the line only to be ridden down. The light cavalry prepared to charge forth.

On the left, the Galatians rolled up the phalanx while their fellows overcame the cataphracts, then attempted to assist the cavalry in eliminating the enemy commander. I threw a psiloi at the elephant with overlap support, and again that stupid pachyderm refused to die! My light horse went forward in an attempt to turn the enemy left, clashing with cataphracts and tarantines.

Suddenly, the dice-gods frowned on the gifted nephew of Attalus. Up to this point I had lost six elements, my opponent had lost twenty-six. His right wing was annihilated, the other two commands were one element from demoralization, which would break the army and end the battle. I had three fifty-fifty chances to destroy his; CinC, a pike block, or that stupid elephant! I not only lost all three rolls, but my light horse decided it was a good day to die! Two of them bit the dust, exposing the flank of the peltasts.

On his next bound, my opponent took full advantage of his illgotten luck, his cataphracts running down and demoralizing my right wing. To top it off, his stupid elephant mashed another lancer troop. My center was now one element from running scared.

We were at the cusp of victory. I threw my knights and warbands in for all they were worth. Again I had a fifty-fifty chance at his commander and his elephant, with its back against two pike blocks which were surrounded.

I rolled against the CinC, and locked! I rolled against the elephant (whose loss would have destroyed nine elements) and lost another lancer! My army would be lost at the end of the bound if I did not win a single roll. The lancers plunged onto the pikes against which I was at a disadvantage and were thrown back! Disaster was at hand!

But wait! There were two psiloi at the back of the phalangites facing single ranks of pikemen who had turned to face them. There was no overlap here. I was at a disadvantage. We rolled... and I lost! One psiloi recoiled leaving the other overlapped!

I groaned as I picked up the die, feeling like a hunk of lead in my hand. I looked to the heavens in supplication, looked my opponent in the eye, looked at my hand as it shook, and dropped the stone. It tumbled an eternity across the table, each bounce reverberating in my ears like a bass drum, and came ever so slowly to a stop beside my antagonist's. Sitting side-by-side, the bones told the story of how history would record this day. My die showed a five, my opponent's a two. Victory was mine!!! (The orchestra breaks into a mighty fanfare!)

My adversary shook my hand and said, "Good game. You really out-generalled me." High praise from a fellow gamer! We reviewed the battle and rules to determine the final results. I had destroyed over half his army while losing only a quarter of my own. We added up points for demoralized commands according to the rules and the result was -- a tie!?!

My elation did not let me down, but I was confused. recalculated the results without change. What was clearly a decisive battle was reduced by the scoring system to a draw. Something was wrong. We hypothesized on this. What if his CinC had been on his right wing. Then he would have scored seven points to my three! We carried it further. Theoretically, I could have killed the elephant and the two pike blocks, Plus the center general, and some others, essentially obliterating two thirds of his forces. I could have lost a general and the CinC individually and had my commands become demoralized by die rolls on the last bound. The victory would be mine destroying forty elements for the loss of two. The score would be 3-7. Excuse me!?! (I'm sorry Phil and Richard, but after careful analysis we have concluded that your scoring system sucks!) I'll make you a deal. I won't say another word about dumb little things like Kn(I) so long as you fix this ludicrous format.

We went back to scoring as I did in multi-player DBA. Half a point for psiloi, two for elephants and generals, and one for all others. Our final tally was Pergamum-30: Seleucids-12 giving Pergamum an 18 point victory. (Now if you wanted to add the command scores to this, I would have no problem. It would be representative of the victorious army's ability to pursue.)

This was a fun battle, and very challenging. But next time I believe I will opt for some artillery. Perhaps then I can deal with that stupid elephant!