An Ancient Warfare Battle Report

Both sides had 650 points, but the Seleucids loaded up on elephants and scythed chariots while the Ptolemaics maxed out on light cavalry and light troops. Both sides locked shields in their phalanxes and had drifting problems. This was solved by wheeling slightly so as to drift toward the enemy. The only problem here was that the Ptolemaics managed to kill the Asian archers and to the Seleucid Commander's dismay got some light troops on the unshielded side of his Argyraspids and took out a stand before the CinC managed to drive them off.

While this was going on, the Ptolemaics tried to turn both flanks with light Cavalry. On the right (supported by two stands of elephants, they managed to kill two elephants before wedged Companions led by the Seleucid Wing Commander drove off the light cavalry with only half a stand out of four remaining. On the left the light cavalry bore down on the Thureophoroi and inflicted a couple of stands of damage but were also reduced to one stand in the process. Both sides recoiled at the blood bath - oh those unarmored troops, how quickly they die! On the far left the Seleucids had, a pair of Tarantine Cavalry, two stands of line cavalry, two more elephants and the other Companions led by the left wing commander. As they stalked for a flank attack, the Ptolemaics wanted to get their licks in first and charged the elephant and line cavalry units with a 4 stand unit of Cleruchs and sent their two elephants against the Companions.

The Companion counter charge broke the elephants and destroyed them in follow up, but the Ptolemaics threw in their own elite cavalry with a wing commander at its head and destroyed the Seleucid line cavalry. The Ptolemaics also went stalking the Seleucid scythed chariots with their camel archers and in that match up killed both of them but lost 5 figs in the process. The camels were ultimately destroyed by the Thureophoroi who managed to roll a 5 on charge distance while the camels only made a 2 on their withdraw roll and were hit in the rear. The Cleruchs did not fair well against the elephant and both sides lost two strength points The second round was brutal for the Cleruchs as the Tarantines hit them in the flank and they took a total of 6 hits to the elephant's one. Since both elite cavalry units had destroyed their opponents they had each other in the rear so they about faced an prepared for a general's show-down.

The elite cavalry battle took three rounds and ended with the Seleucid Wing Commander having one strength point left and a full strength Companion accompanying him. At about this time the phalanxes squared up and crashed together. The left most Seleucid phalanx had lost two stands out of 8 to missile fire and ran in disorder after the first close combat but the Argyraspids on the right held firm. On the second round of phalanx combat a Seleucid elephant crashed into the flank of the phalanx fighting the Argyraspids and that was the end of that unit (they surrendered). As it turned out, that was also the end of the battle.

The Ptolemaics had lost all of their Cavalry (6 stands of heavy, 8 light, 2 LACm, and 4 elephants) plus a general and some light units amounting to a third of their force point total. We had a great time and plan to try it again. Next time the palanxes will be in mixed armor units and should be able to stand up a bit longer.