Battle of Paraitakene 317BC refight. Part Two: AAR

Battle of Paraitakene 317bc refight - Part One: Planning

With over 1500 points on the table this was ideal for three people per side; I took control as Eumenes with Steve Matthews (Steve 1) on my right flank to whom I gave all the light cavalry plus a unit of Mediums along with some Persian archers and the light infantry. On my left was Steve Land (Steve 3) who commanded all the remaining Battle cavalry supported by some more Persian archers. I positioned myself in the centre with all the Heavy infantry, what remained of the Persian archers and the majority of the skirmishers.

My opponent as Antigonos was Steve Huntsman (Steve 4) with all the infantry under his command, on his right was Nick with the Battle cavalry whilst across on the left flank was Ian with eight units of Light cavalry. 

I knew that as Eumenes I was outnumbered in both Heavy infantry and Battle cavalry so this was going to be tricky, in theory the infantry fight should be relatively indecisive given the Phalanx rule or at the very worst drag on for at least three or four turns once it got going. My best hope therefore was to stack my left with supporting troops to help the cavalry melee and try to win on the right where we had both heavier and more units, then it could turn in on to the enemy centre which would hopefully still be busily engaged in the infantry melee. 

Our side collectively hung back and I just sent out the skirmishers to see what damage they could do, Antigonos meanwhile was throwing for three moves every chance he got but with little success especially in the centre. Ian’s light cavalry did quickly get into range but upon arrival he was unsure whether he should be skirmishing or getting stuck in, so he did a bit of both. On this flank the sides were relatively similar however weight of numbers in support eventually swung the fighting our way helped by the Light infantry and the Medium cavalry I had given Steve1. With his cavalry now racing past him rapidly towards their storage boxes, Ian started to try and avoid any further hand to hand but Steve destroyed the fifth unit of Light cavalry or we had them all Shaken, I don’t remember which, anyway it meant that Ian’s cavalry division broke. Now it was time to save the centre.

Unfortunately on my left things weren't going so well. Nick’s line of Heavy cavalry charged into their opponents, both sides consisting of the cream of their armies forces; unfortunately our cream was rather runny.

Steve 3’s un-canny ability to continually throw a 2 and a 1 for any morale roll didn't help our cause and it immediately became known in the club from that moment on as “throwing a Land “. In fact he got worse and started throwing double Land‘s. It got to the stage were I was even considering having him executed so as to inspire the troops, unfortunately it wouldn't have had any beneficial effect as there weren't any troops left around to inspire. 

His wing broke faster than things that break very fast leaving me to split off whatever I could scrape together from my reserve lines to try and block Nick’s cavalry.

Fortunately Steve 3 had caused some casualties prior to immortalising himself in club legend so Nick didn't have a great deal immediately available to exploit his victory, he could only throw in two units of Medium cavalry against my hastily formed scrapings.  Finally some of those copious Persian archers actually did something positive by shooting Nick's charge to a halt and the cavalry decided to hurriedly rejoin their comrades currently rallying off the effects of smashing our left wing.

The centre fight went as I expected, my greater quantity of skirmishers successfully managed to drive off their opponents and then tried to slow up the oncoming juggernaut, however I too started throwing Lands and double Lands for my shooting and it was pretty derisory.

The two lines clashed together but the more numerous Antigonids couldn’t break through my more experienced troops and in some cases were even starting to lose the melee. Four rounds of fighting only resulted in the casualties piling up but on the extreme right of my phalanx some of the weaker light infantry broke, Steve 1 wasn't quite near enough yet to save me from having my line turned so I desperately threw in an Elephant to buy time and which promptly stampeded, the Antigonids seeing that things were going their way now ordered their infantry to close ranks across most of their line so as to prolong the fight which would then allow Nick extra time to reform his cavalry and to charge into my left.  

Steve 1’s victorious forces were however being blocked off by some of the Antigonids left centre preventing him from intervening in the infantry bash and it was now time for me to be sending for my fastest horse so as to get the hell out of Dodge. I knew that once Nick’s heavy cavalry had reformed enough for it to be of use then the game was up and that would be probably the next turn, so I conceded.

Fortunately it was only a game as I cannot actually ride a horse and therefore would have had to die with my men, which would have really ruined my day. 

In the Historical battle the result on the day was a draw, both sides centres slugged it out with Eumenes Silver Shields getting an advantage, the light cavalry flank got broken and Antigonus cavalry defeated their opponents as well (probably commanded by Stefanos Landinopolis) causing Eumenes infantry to fall back. All very similar to our game apart from the falling back bit of course, which I definitely would have done and not been horribly slaughtered like Mr Huntsman says. Like they say, history is written by the winners, well, most of the time.

Both sides met up again a short time later at the Battle of Gabiene where the Silver Shields ended up by handing over Eumenes in exchange for their captured baggage. If we do ever get around to re-fighting this battle then remind me to strengthen the guards around the baggage.

Hail Caesar forces:

Eumenes: 715 points

2 x	Asiatic Phalangite	Phalanx , Pikes , Levy
2 x	Guard Phalangite	Phalanx , Pikes, Drilled , Elite , Stubborn
1 x	Mercenary Hoplite Infantry	Long Spears , Elite , Phalanx
1 x	Mercenary Hoplite Infantry	Long Spears , Phalanx
2 x	Light Infantry Peltasts
5 x	Persian Light Infantry  Archers
4 x	Skirmishers with Javs	small
3 x	Skirmishers with Slings	Sling
1 x	Agema Heavy Cavalry	Drilled , Elite
1 x	Companion Heavy Cavalry	Lances , Drilled , Elite
3 x	Line Medium Cavalry	Drilled
3 x	Light Cavalry with javelins	small
2 x	Elephants
2 x	Light Infantry Elephant Guards	small , sub-unit

Antigonus : 790 points

2 x	Asiatic Phalangite	Phalanx , Pikes , Levy
2 x	Veteran Phalangite	Phalanx , Pikes , Drilled
1 x	Phalangite	Phalanx , Pikes
1 x	Lycians/Pamphylians Hoplites	Long Spears , Phalanx
2 x	Mercenary Hoplite Infantry	Long Spears , Elite , Phalanx
1 x	Mercenary Hoplite Infantry	Long Spears , Phalanx
2 x	Light Infantry Peltasts
2 x	Light Infantry Archers
2 x	Skirmishers with Javs
2 x	Skirmishers with Slings	slings
1 x	Agema Heavy Cavalry	Drilled , Elite
1 x	Companion Heavy Cavalry	Drilled , Elite, Lance
3 x	Line Medium Cavalry	Drilled
1 x	Macedonian Medium Cavalry	Drilled , Lance
8 x	Light Cavalry with javelins	small
1 x	Elephants
1 x	Light Infantry Elephant Guards	small , sub-unit

This has been a Mr Steve presentation

Battle of Paraitakene 317BC refight. Part One: Planning

I was asked to organize one of the games to be played at the August club meeting and the request was for it to be an Ancients game using Hail Caesar and if possible for it to be between two Seleucid type armies. Fortunately I have a couple of suitable armies that could go some way towards this and with the addition of Steve Huntsman’s collection as well then I reckoned that between us it was doable.

I thought that rather than just doing the usual equal point’s battle which would look very "samey" with two identical forces, I would try instead to find an actual battle which we could refight. So the first thing I did when I got back home was to call up Wikipedia and go though all the Successor battles and try and find something suitable. I decided on the Battle of Paraitakene between Eumenes and Antigonos in 317BC because it was one I hadn't previously played, also the two sides were relatively even and there was a reasonable amount of information regarding the forces involved.

Obviously the next step was to then search the web for someone else’s re-fight of this battle, rip off their work and then organize my figures accordingly for our particular game and rule set. Unfortunately I couldn't find a re-fight that showed me anything useful on how to convert this battle onto the tabletop and instead of doing the normal thing of giving up immediately and trying to find another battle that did have the forces broken down for wargaming , I thought that I would actually try and work it out for myself.

First step then was to tie down a source for the numbers involved, fortunately I have a reasonable library built up over the years of suitable books for this period and combined with another trawl through the Net I ended up with two sources that had good enough details to allow me to have the confidence that I had the forces involved reasonably right rather than just copy off whatever was on the Wiki page.

I used the excellent book by Richard A. Billows “ Antigonus the One-Eyed”

Antigonos the One Eyed

from my collection and combined it with some on-line pages from Lost Battles: Reconstructing the Great Clashes of the Ancient World  by Philip Sabin.

Lost Battles 

Between these two sources I settled on the following armies:

Eumenes		Antigonos
17000	Heavy Infantry	28000
6000	Cavalry	10500
125	Elephants	65
18000	Light infantry	10000

These then had to be split down into their relevant troop types which using the above sources came out as:

Eumenes					Antigonos
Silver Shields 6000					Macedonians 8000
Mercenaries 6000					Mercenaries 9000
Levy Asiatic Pikes 5000					Lycians/Pamphilians 3000
					Levy Asiatic Pikes 8000
Companions 900
Light Horse 1500					Companions 1000
Agema 900					Agema 600
Other Cavalry 2700					Light Horse 4500
					Other Cavalry 4400
Persian archers 10000
Assorted other types 8000					Bowmen, Slingers ,Javelins 10000

Next was to convert everything into wargame figures and into also HC units. After several beers I decided that the best way to do this was to work with ratios/percentages and as long as I kept them as close to the actual battle then I could work around units straight away rather than the normal one man = 500 etc. method . This would then allow me to draw up two armies out of the units.

It’s probably easier if I show you.

The result of that calculating made real

In the actual battle the percentage ratio in heavy infantry was 38:62 in Antigonus favour so for the game I had 15 units of HI, 6 v 9 which works out as 40:60 , close enough.

The rest worked out as:

	Eumenes			Antigonos
game		actual		actual		game
40%		38%	Infantry ratio	62%		60%
36.4		36.4	Cavalry ratio	63.6		63.6
66.7		65.8	Elephants	34.2		33.3
64		64.3	Light Infantry	35.7		36

At the same time I did still have to come up with some rough split of troops–to-units ratio and rather than impress you with my genius I have to admit I just guessed on what looked about right and fitted them into the game and rules.

HI were therefore 3000 men per unit

Cavalry were 1000 per unit

Light Infantry were 2000 per unit.

Skirmishers as small units 500 per

Don’t go looking for any rationality behind these figures as there isn't one.

I still had additional unused information from the above mentioned two sources on the actual make up of both armies so I allocated them all as best I could into the various sub groups and then with a bit of subtle rounding up/down to the nearest figure plus combining a few similar units together, it all worked out very nicely in the end.

The one thing I didn't do was work out the ratio between all the various types to each other but that’s frankly taking thinks too far plus my curry was getting cold.

After that it was a matter of getting out the HC Army lists and making up two armies from the Alexander’s Successors List to match my deductions . I don’t plan at the moment to include the HC armies but they are available if requested however as there isn't going to be much I can write for the re-fight that puts me in a good light then I might find myself with a bit of unexpected space in part two that needs filling .

Terrain was easy in that it was fought on a plain and had some hills on two sides that didn't come into play.

Next up: part two, which will cover the re-fight, how I lost and the creation of a new club phrase.

This has been a Mr Steve presentation.