"Magnesia with Lost Battles" Topic

Hello all,

A solo Magnesia refight if anyone is interested. A bit picture heavy once you get beyond the opening text.

More here:

link

Cheers,
Aaron

Wow, looks great!! Cant wait to see the pics when I get off my work's blog-blocking stupidity. Very nice!

great report

Phil Sabin did this one for the Society stand at SELWG in 2009 …

(photo courtesy Daivid Barnsdale – Ancients on the Move)

I thought you might appreciate a comparative picture, Aaron …

Good battle report … Magnesia is an interesting event (I have fought it with WRG 6th, Neil Thomas, Tactica II, DBM and Lost Battles … and the Seleucids often do well if numbers are translated too literally …) …

Phil

The only problem with Lost Battles is that the army points already stack the game in favour of the historical victor. Seems like a self fulfilling prophecy to my thinking.

The only problem with Lost Battles is that the army points already stack the game in favour of the historical victor. Seems like a self fulfilling prophecy to my thinking.

Isn't that the whole point? If the historical victor had significant advantages then it is more likely that they will win in Lost Battles.

In reality there is no such thing as a "balanced" battle.

Thanks for the comments, all! Nice to get some :)

Phil – thanks for that link. One problem with Phil S's games is that very seldom is there an online photographic record of it! Nice to get some visuals of his boards in action.

I do like Magnesia as a battle. With Strategos/Lost Battles I feel the Seleucids have a good show of getting the game victory, even if not quite a battlefield one. I'd love to play it under different systems for comparison's sake, but sadly there aren't too many that I'm keen to set up for just a solo play. Will have to chat to Luke U-S…

Marcus and MajorB,

The good thing about LB is that it's not the system that stacks the game, it's the scenarios. If you think Phil has misjudged the troop quality, he urges you to use LB as the toolkit it is and go ahead and change the scenario.

With Magnesia, for example, if you felt that Eumenes' success was a fluke rather than a true reflection of the troop quality on the Seleucid left, you would just make some of the levy troops on the Seleucid side average quality. Change the levy cataphracts to average quality (one levy unit then becomes two average ones), the Galatian horse could also be bumped up to average (again, one levy becomes two average) and the levy heavy infantry to average (you know how it goes…).

The Seleucid fighting value increases by 12 to 75, they have the same number of troops on table but 3 extra units, and Eumenes will really struggle to get anywhere near routing that wing!

Cheers,
Aaron

Isn't that the whole point? If the historical victor had significant advantages then it is more likely that they will win in Lost Battles.

In reality there is no such thing as a "balanced" battle.

Actually isn't the whole point of gaming being given the same forces as the original contestants and seeing if one could do better? If the scenario design bakes in the outcome the question becomes why replay it them?

Actually isn't the whole point of gaming being given the same forces as the original contestants and seeing if one could do better?

Absolutely. Provided you know what the forces (and their quality) were …

If the scenario design bakes in the outcome the question becomes why replay it them?

But you are presupoosing that there are only two outcomes – win or lose. Even if the scenario means that the Seleucids will probably lose, you can still do better if you don't lose so badly as they did historically.

Absolutely. Provided you know what the forces (and their quality) were …

But of course that is what anyone must do in order to replay any battle during history. Ancient battles are challenging because the OOB is sketchy at best. Which is exactly my point. We create a self fulfilling prophecy in design if we assign to the loser an army that cannot win (or has no reasonable prospect of winning.) I agree with Aaron however that it is fairly easy to upgrade the Selecuids in LB to rough parity with the Romans so that it becomes a real toss up. But the scenarios put together by Sabin in LB take the easy route of design by making the winner of the battle the strong favourite in the replay.

Phil Sabin is attempting to model what actually happened in 50 or so reasonably well documented ancient battles, not to design a 'game' per se. His methodology is fully explained in the book. It isn't an 'easy route' as MB somewhat snidely suggests.

It certainly doesn't encompass skewing the history to balance the game ('upgrade the Selecuids in LB to rough parity with the Romans so that it becomes a real toss up') which IMO would both be dishonest and a pointless exercise.

The joy of Lost Battles to the wargamer who wants to explore history is that the points system allows the players to compare their outcomes to the predictable outcome and achieve success without success being dependent upon altering with historically plausible narratives. In that sense it makes a whole raft of historical battles playable and compelling in a way traditional wargame approaches do not.

Of course that does not mean that you cannot get a different result with LB … and I have witnessed many a complete reversal – just they are unlikely and usually result from a cocktail of hindsight, shrewdness and better than average luck. Or if the enemy have a Brilliant Commander, killing him! (this is, of course, often an insightful exploration of history in itself) …

Phil
Ancients on the Move

I have read LB and know Sabin's methodology. Let's be clear that his methodology is highly subjective and is based on a series of surmises not facts. I say this without any disrespect to LB. Like all games certain assumptions need to be made about how ancient battles work.

One of Sabin's surmises is that the winner of the historical battle deserves to have a decisive advantage in the replay within his system. You may feel Phil that this is a reasonable point of view. I personally do not and feel that his reconstructions of many of the 50 battles are deeply flawed because of this. It seems to me that this is a short cut to a deeper analysis of ancient battle. Magnesia to my thinking was a close run affair between two relatively equal slides. Same with Cannae, Zama etc..

If you really care about 'even battles' then there is of course the victory point handicap system thingy, a rather more sensible approach than just beefing one side up to be as strong as the other.

I really don't think that e.g. the LB treatment of Cannae is a pushover for Hannibal however.

As ever, people want different things from their games with toy soldiers.

Sabin also says that his model of ancient warfare will allow the student to test various theories about the structure of the opposing forces and the terrain over which they fought.

As TLA says above:

With Magnesia, for example, if you felt that Eumenes' success was a fluke rather than a true reflection of the troop quality on the Seleucid left, you would just make some of the levy troops on the Seleucid side average quality. Change the levy cataphracts to average quality (one levy unit then becomes two average ones), the Galatian horse could also be bumped up to average (again, one levy becomes two average) and the levy heavy infantry to average (you know how it goes…).

Phil Sabin has constructed his scenarios based on the best available evidence of the numbers and quality of the troops involved. If you don't agree with him – fine. The model should still work with your interpretation of the opposing forces. Noone is FORCED to use his scenarios!

The other thing to say about Phil Sabin is that he does have a PhD in War Studies – so should know what he is talking about.

While Phil Sabin has weighted the scenarios to favor the historical victor, the victory point determination system offsets this. It is quite possible for the army that was defeated on the battlefield to win by scoring more points than the army that was victorious on the battlefield.

There was a recent post at the Lost Battles Yahoo Group about a refight of Issus where Alexander died on the second turn resulting in a Persian victor.

While Phil Sabin has weighted the scenarios to favor the historical victor, the victory point determination system offsets this. It is quite possible for the army that was defeated on the battlefield to win by scoring more points than the army that was victorious on the battlefield.

There was a recent post at the Lost Battles Yahoo Group about a refight of Issus where Alexander died on the second turn resulting in a Persian victory.