"Battle of Magnesia 190 BC" Topic

After a series of test games with pikes we are ready to move to our long awaited project, the Battle of Magnesia.

At the blog are the composition of Seleucid and Roman forces scaled for the DBA big battle game. The month of May will be potted with a number of holidays, so we should have time to play this one out.

link
Cheers,
Robert

I see no evidence to distinguish between Roman and Allied Italian infantry at this late a date.

Tough battle for the Roman/Pergamenes just on numbers in DBA

True, the DBA army list (II/33) offer the Latin allies the option to field either 4Bd or 4Ax.

However, Livy in his coverage of the War in Hispania does mention independent operations in the mountainous regions conducted by the Latin allies and not Roman troops. It would seem they were better suited to that type of terrain. As Lucius Cornelius Scipio did serve with his brother in Hispania it is possible that experience may have served him when when he was expecting to fight Antiochus in Greece in 190 BC.

Secondly, both Livy and Appian describe the deployment of the Roman forces as both Roman legions were placed on the left and both Latin allied legions were deployed in the center, the latter being better postitioned to fight a limited number of pike and a host of lighter armed troops.

At first glance it would seem that the Seleucid would have everything in their favour, yet Rome and Pergamene do have some advantages.

They are flexible and the narrowness of the battleground, as it was fought between the Phrygius and Hermos rivers, would protect them from being outflanked.

There is no reason to think that Italian allies were better suited to conduct operations in mountainous regions than Roman troops. That is a surmise. Your logic is circular. They must have been better because the were chosen to do it. There maybe a whole host of reasons as to why they Italian allies were chosen and not Roman troops for that specific campaign. I think a broader overview of Punic War battles will show that any differentiation between Roman and Italian allies was nominal at the start of the war and disappeared over time. This is confirmed in the later Macedonian War so that by 190 BC. I see no evidence for the differences. Why only the Italian Hastati and not the Principes?

Having run Magnesia it is a challenge to get the right balance between the two forces using nominal lists. The Romans must have been better than average and the Selecuids worse. Also, perhaps reflecting command and control in DBA by giving the Romans more pips or making the Selecuid army more difficult to move would balance the game as well.

We can agree to disagree on the first point.
Secondly, I do not think Rome require any extra help with respect to command and control; their commands are smaller and with an average die cast can still be effective.

On the other hand, the Seleucid have a number of elements that require extra pip costs to move, so there will be moments in the game when the momentum is stalled. Allocating the pip scores (high to low) will be critical for the Seleucid player as he must anticipate what is needed beyond the opening moves.

Did you happen to take a look at Sabin's account of Magnesia in Lost Battles? It is an interesting reconstruction of the battle. It also shows one way of accounting for the numerical advantage of the Selecuids.

Your OOB seems to me to be too determined by the purported numbers and doesn't reflect the qualitative differences between the two sides. Unfortunately, DBA doesn't account for qualitative differences except perhaps through units representing different amounts of troops.

As it stands the Selecuids have a huge advantage in your game which goes against the historical result.

I agree with much of what Marcus Brutus says.

I have played Romans in this scenario against Seleucids in CoE/WAB style using the lists given in Wargames Illustrated, and it was brutal for the Romans. Not sure I ever stood a chance, being so outnumbered without the failure of command and control.

It was the Greek king of Pergamon, Eumenes, who was the hero of that day, routing the Seleucid left, while Antiochus left his army leaderless pursuing the Romans back to their camp. These things are very hard to capture in our omniscient view, hive-mind-control battles. And then the luck of what ROmans were left being able to panic the elephants and turn them on the phalanxes. That's also hard to replicate sometimes.

I laboured over the two lists in Impetus to find the right balance for my convention game at Cold Wars several years ago. I had to upgrade the Romans and down grade the Selecuids to pull it off. It wasn't easy to do this and stay faithful to the OOBs.

Interestingly, Phil Sabin's lists for Magnesia favours the Romans. I do find Sabin's logic a bit circular. The victors always get the benefit of the doubt in his system and are rated superior to the loser. That seems to beg the question however.

For me, Magnesia is more like a 50/50 battle with both sides fairly evenly matched. So the art of scenario design under these circumstances is to try find that sweet spot.

I agree with these points. To make a his battle flow to get more of a chance for historical results you need a way to factor in troop quality and command quality. Not to mention factoring in the triplex acies of the Republican Romans. Knowing that, I am more inclined to use Hail Caesar, Impetus, or Swordpoint for Magnesia. I like DBA for tournament games, but find its mechanics too general and lacking in detail to handle some historical battles. It also has no consideration of the triplex acies.

Most of the Successor battles are weighted in favor of the Successors over Rome in rules. This is because most rules do not factor in the strengths of Roman Legionary capabilities very well.

Stupid generalship or random factors are hard to simulate. Cynoscephalae a disaster that should not have happened, nobody wins when half the army gets lost in the fog.
That was the commander's ultimate fault.

Magnesia games do not seem to factor in the fog and heavy weather as well. Again half of the Seleucid army simply ran away when archers and cavalry popped out of the fog and routed scythed chariots and camel scouts into the main line troops – who simply boogied.

That can happen in a game- but the odds of a whole wing routing off like that at the very start is slim. Magnesia's result isn't possible if the whole Seleucid army actually plays within the rules- unless Rome is given a bonus for veterans, and the Seleucids are very much more brittle.

Still, looking at the evidence, Antiochus did not want a fight. He hoped his massed army of uncooperative and mostly raw troops would scare away the Romans.

The brittleness and poor leadership of the left wing troops is telling evidence that this portion his army was ready to run not fight.

The phalanx seemed to be leaderless and clueless, If it moves to support Antiochus the Romans are more at risk, but they were content to simply sit and wait and allow their position to become more untenable. The crowding factor of the worthless light troops driven off by the velites is another one of the intangibles. Routed troops that crowded the space and impeded the phalanx troops that were in the fight, or at least on the table, until the elephants were panicked.

Antiochus revealed that his elite right wing cataphracts were indeed a powerful shock cavalry force, but as he was constantly doing at the critical moment he rode off in pursuit forgetting that the rest of his army might need some attention.

In the end it is all on his head. He knew his army wasn't any good. He should not have fought at all, or he should have had a better plan such as at Banion- where he stayed back and generalled rather than stick himself into the fray.

I reckon the way I would play Magnesia as a game- you only need the right wing troops.

Part one: Antiochus over runs two legions fun!! If he wins- go to Part two! If he loses just go home.

Part two: Antiochus now has to capture the Roman camp with his cavalry alone. If he wins- he wins the battle! If he loses or draws go to part Three.

Part Three: Roman infantry and the Pergamene cavalry are attempting to surround Antiochus' tired cataphracts (who probably are riding "blown" horses by now).

If he wins- he wins gains a better than historical result! If he loses it isn't any worse than reality.

You dont need the phalanx or the left hand myriads to play.