Second Mantinea with Optio

[Justin Swanton]

Since nobody was prepared to pay my return airfare to the UK, I had to content myself with the consolation prize and do Mantinea in Durban on April 1. The game was between Noel and myself - Noel is a retired university law lecturer who has been involved in wargaming in Durban since Noah's ark.

I finally decided to resurrect my Optio site and post the battle report there. The site needs a lot of updating so don't pay too much attention to what you see there. Battle report here.

[Ian61]

Great Battle report Justin, a pity we couldn't get you here , yours would have been a worthy addition to the main event.

[Justin Swanton]

Thanks Ian.    The game definitely showed up a need for some balancing of troop numbers and capabilities. I hope to do a solo game with tweaks and post another AAR before too long.

[Imperial Dave]

really useful to see the workthrough...good luck with the tweaks

[dwkay57]

But were the troop numbers balanced in the real battle Justin? I had the feeling that the Theban side greatly outnumbered the M&S side. Also intrigued as to why your Athenian commander let his cavalry go wandering off to the other side of the battlefield and just rely on the "other" cavalry to support him. Surely he would have kept his own cavalry closer?

[Justin Swanton]

But were the troop numbers balanced in the real battle Justin? I had the feeling that the Theban side greatly outnumbered the M&S side. Also intrigued as to why your Athenian commander let his cavalry go wandering off to the other side of the battlefield and just rely on the "other" cavalry to support him. Surely he would have kept his own cavalry closer?

Epaminondas had more than the Spartan coalition, but I do pick up that he was worried about the efficacity of his troops, taking real pains to avoid a straight up frontal phalanx-on-phalanx assault which, if he outnumbered his opponents 3:2, he should have won. He used the oblique line with his column at the tip that was to do the real fighting, and he buffed up his cavalry opposite the Athenian cavalry with hamappoi which shouldn't have been necessary since he outnumbered them. Despite all his precautions he lost the battle on both flanks and won only in the centre-left. For a future game I'll downgrade the quality of his cavalry and non-Theban hoplites and see what that does to the game.

The sources affirm that the Athenian horse deployed on the right whilst the Athenian hoplites deployed on the left, which I replicated in the deployment. In the historical battle the Athenian horse pulled back through the hoplites behind them then engaged the enemy on the heights to the right of the line. The Spartan cavalry presumably covered the left since there were cavalry on both wings so I put them there, and the Euboean cavalry was in reserve behind the centre, ultimately going to the left to bolster the Athenian hoplites there under pressure from the Thessalian horse. The sources don't explicitly say what happened to the Spartan horse but one can presume they were routed off the field early on as there is no mention of them in the battle.

In the game my Athenian cav tried outflanking the Theban left to take pressure off the Spartans facing the Theban column. It didn't work. Historically it did, sort of.