Megalopolis 330 BC

[Tim]

(Taking account of no-one's preference other than my own...)

Today I set up a game to introduce someone to the DBMM ruleset (they are an experienced wargamer - we both started with WRG 3rd Edition).  We chose to refight a historical approximation of the battle of Megalopolis in 330 BC.

The Spartans were deployed with rough ground and light troops (largely mercenaries) covering the flanks.  King Agis led the solid core of Hoplites in the centre.  The mounted had a largely secondary role.

Antipater waited until he saw how the Spartans deployed, reacting by placing one huge Phalanx in the centre, flanked by mercenary light troops.  Antipater himself led a wide sweep of Companions, Light Horse, and lightly armed skirmishers to try to find a weakness on the Spartan right.  He also sent the Thessalian allied horsemen and Hamippoi to try and work an opening on the Spartan left.

The Phalanx demonstrated in front of the Spartates, questioning their manhood as they sat there skulking amongst the rocks like Athenians.  Eventually the Spartans proved their mettle and took the battle to the Macedonians - the Macedonian mounted attacks were finding openings on the flanks so sitting static was no longer an option.  The clash of Spartates, perioikoi, and Greek Mercenaries willing to work for Persian gold, against the shields of the Phalangites was bloody and hardfought, raging for over 5 hours.  Losses were heavy on both sides when night fell.  Having fought for so long in hand-to-hand combat, Agis will need to decide either to renew the fight the next day or slip away while Antipater allows his army to recover from the heavy losses taken.

DBMM worked OK for many aspects of the battle but while the Spartans were being steadily pressed back, they were able to maintain a line.  Even though DBMM version 2.1 is much more clearly written set of rules it still gives me a headache like I used to get playing 6th Edition (though, thankfully, the 6th edition games were much quicker to complete).  It gave a fair approximation of the battle but we could have played for another 5 hours and not have been certain of a result.

[Imperial Dave]

thanks for the report Tim and a shrewd observation about 2.1 vs 6th. Sometimes the lack of 'resolution' can manifest itself although I found that with 6th a fair amount to be honest. My 6th battles were either short or really long. I havent played enough 2.1 to be able to compare well enough

[Patrick Waterson]

Although even as a 6th Edition user I would quail at the thought of fighting Megalopolis in 6th ...

... but were one to muster the resolution and the figures for this 'battle of mice', would there be a battle of such duration?  The heavy infantry clash would be on level ground, with charge and countercharge, involving one and a half ranks of Spartans and three ranks (well, two ranks and two half-ranks) of phalangites.  The Spartans would also have a -1 for facing pikes and would thus need to be impetuous and/or favoured by the random factor to stay even.  An early Spartan loss seems likely.

Assuming the Laconians survive initial contact, things look better for them: two ranks of pikes fight 1.5 ranks of long spears, so again the Spartans need to be fortunate with random factors to stay level, although here they have the advantage that as high-quality troops their own random factor cannot be worse than -1.  They can also sustain more push-backs before breaking.  If they survive the initial shock, they could hold out for some time and conceivably even turn the tide.

The main Spartan problem is that each round (or bound) they are going to be losing men at about the same rate as the Macedonians, but have only half the depth.  Hence from the start the disappearing Spartan second rank will be causing a loss of formation effectiveness at twice the rate of that of the vanishing Macedonian fourth rank.  This will manifest in an increasing Spartan loss rate vis a vis their opponents with all this implies for their eventual demise.

Putting this together, under WRG 6th the Spartans are almost certainly going to lose, either quickly in the opening clash or slowly in the subsequent battle of attrition.  But under 6th, they would be doing this on a 12-foot tabletop frontage (or, more probably, the floor) - and that is in 15mm!

The historical battle was of course a Spartan loss, but the historical Agis did not have the option to attempt a renewal, as he was intercepted while being carried wounded off the field and died fighting his pursuers.  He thus got the worst of the 'Risk to the General' rule - twice!

[Andreas Johansson]

Roughly how many points did you use? If one goes by the numbers in the WP article, this was a very large battle in DBMM terms (over 100 elements on the Spartan side and at least twice that on the Macedonian ones).

[Imperial Dave]

Putting this together, under WRG 6th the Spartans are almost certainly going to lose, either quickly in the opening clash or slowly in the subsequent battle of attrition.  But under 6th, they would be doing this on a 12-foot tabletop frontage (or, more probably, the floor) - and that is in 15mm!

!!!!

[Tim]

Patrick

Agreed.  12' table in 6th editon 15mm would be fun... provided one had loads of analgesics to hand.

Andreas

As this was Paul's first game of DBMM (and my first under 2.n) we limited it to 400 points as side.  (That is still two fullish boxes of dollies.)

Regards
Tim