The Battle of Panion, 200BC - The Set Up
I have always liked the DBx system, but always found the movement mechanics unbearably fiddly, and have already produced my own house-rules to run 15mm DBM games on a hex grid. But for some time now I have been participating in an Ancient campaign at my local club using a fellow member's heavily modified version of DBA run on a gridded table. As I have some gridded cloths that will accommodate 25mm troops, I thought it was about time I tried it out with my Hellenistic collection, when some friends come round for a few games next weekend.
I went for a refight of Panion, a Seleucid-Ptolemaic clash in the 5th Syrian War, mainly because it is split into two almost separate fights either side of a river (there are other interpretations available that see it differently). With no scheduled games in the way I thought I'd set the game up now just to see how it fitted on the table.
And here it is.
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| View from behind the Ptolemaic Right Wing |
Not a great photo, but I just can't get far enough away from the table as space is a bit tight in the cabin, a.k.a. HizHut, so now, a few closer-in shots.
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| View from the Ptolemaic Left |
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| The Ptolemaic Left Wing ... |
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| ... and the opposing Seleucid Right Wing |
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| View from the Ptolemaic Right |
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| The Ptolemaic Right Wing ... |
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| ... and the opposing Seleucid Left Wing |
Both sides' right wings have an advantage but the Seleucid army is larger overall, and on their right they've taken up an advanced position with their superior cavalry, including a large force of cataphracts.
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| The Seleucid Advance Guard |
I have still to work out how I will classify the river splitting the battlefield in two, such that it is very difficult, but not impossible, to cross. And also, before the game, I need to review the new gridded play rules to make sure that are no problems hidden in there; especially with the one allowing combined phalanx-elephant units.
How it all works out as a game, will be revealed in a later post, here.
That looks really interesting, if ever a game was destined ot run on a grid, it is DBA. What size grid are you using, I found it very hard to tell from the pictures. 12x12?
ReplyDeleteThe grid boxes are 150mm/6" square, and my table is 10' x 5'4", giving me a 19x10 array of grid squares, or boxes - I like a bit of a box spare around the edge to stop troops falling off the table. The armies are deployed 2 rows in (apart from the Seleucid advanced right wing, a scenario specific exception), meaning they start 6 boxes apart.
DeleteTo stop the side moving second being pinned to their table edge, the side which moves first has all its movement halved for their first turn.
The grid is marked out with faint crosshairs at the intersections so it's not very intrusive, but is easier to see than it appears in the photos.
An interesting battle, looking forward to see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, as bending rules in this way often creates unforeseen problems that only emerge when in play.
DeleteLooking good Rob…
ReplyDeleteAre these Hinchliffe figures?
All the best. Aly
Mostly Hinchliffe, but the elephants are all Minifigs, as are the mahouts, and I'm not sure who the cataphracts were made by, but they're definitely not Hinchliffe.
DeleteNot a battle I have ever heard of but seems a very interesting one, table and figures looks great. Be very interested to see how the game unfolds.
ReplyDeleteIf you've heard of Raphia, this is the re-match. The Seleucids (Antiochus III) lost at Raphia, and so lost Coelo-Syria / Palestine to Ptolemy IV, so Antiochus went off on his eastern anabasis, re-establishing Seleucid control over most of the eastern regions that were part of Alexander's empire.
DeleteThen Ptolemy IV died, which meant the peace between the two was no longer in force (Hellenistic peace agreements were personal between kings and not states) so he had another go and this time won at Panion. There's not much known about the battle which is why it's obscure, but the Seleucid army was even bigger than the one they fielded at Raphia, while the Ptolemaic army couldn't field an Egyptian phalanx owing to troubles brewing back in Egypt, so had to rely more on mercenaries.
This wouldn't be the end of it, as there were eventually 9 Syrian Wars between the two empires.
Thanks Rob, will try and do a bit of digging on it.
DeleteGood luck with the game. The tabletop setup looks good.
ReplyDeleteThanks Peter, I have actually just fiddled a bit with the deployments to make a tad more balanced.
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