Fantastic Battles - Seleukid Sunset campaign (part 1)

Andrew and I finally sat down this week to play a Dissolution Campaign for Fantastic Battles. This is a two-player campaign variant that we've been working on for a while, but never managed to get on the table. Until now.

With both of us having Seleukid armies in both 6mm and 28mm, it was only right that we chose Seleukid Syria in the early 1st century BC as our theatre. The campaign plays out in years, each with two campaigning seasons. The map is broken up into four peripheral regions and one central region, each with four 'zones' (in this case, major cities). Players start fully in control of one peripheral region and raise armies based on points values extracted from the zones - 250 points per zone.

The victor is the first player to control all four zones of the central region, or mare that half the zones in any three peripheral regions, or the most zones at the end of a fixed number of years. Every season, there is a chance that an external threat will enter the map and annex zones, or that subject zones will rebel.

Starting positions

At the start of our campaign, King Nikator (yellow), the true and legitimate heir to the House of Seleukos, started in control of Kilikia in the north, holding Soli, Tarsos, Aigeai and Kastabala. That vile pretender, King Andriochos lorded over Koile Syria, tyrannising the city-zones of Emesa, Heliopolis, Damascus and Bostra. Each having 1,000 points to build armies, Nikator split his forces into a larger (750) and a smaller (250) army, while Andriochos maintained four small armies each of 250 points. 

The scene was set for Year 1.

Year 1, spring

Nikator led his larger army from Aigeai straight to Seleukeia where the citizens recognised their legitimate monarch and opened the gates to admit him. A smaller force was dispatched from Kastabala to Zeugma to try to secure the Euphrates frontier, but there the gates refused to open, and the army settled down to besiege the city.

Andriochos' armies swarmed into Phoenicia, bribing discontents and corrupt magistrates to take possession of Arados, Sidon and Tyre. Only Ptolemais in the far south resisted his false promises and threats alike, forcing the army there to besiege the city.

Year 1, autumn

As summer gave way to autumn, the rebels at Zeugma continued to resist the forces of Nikator's general, while the king himself proceeded from Seleukeia to Antioch, entering the Syrian metropolis with great ceremony and establishing his headquarters in the fleshpots of the suburb of Daphne.

Andriochos' persistence at Ptolemais paid off, and the city fell to his forces. His other armies made use of threat, bribery and treachery to gain entry to Laodikeia,  Apameia and Beroia.

As year 2 started, Andriochos' tactic of using swarms of smaller divisions had paid off and his recruitment power was greatly increased. With 11 cities under his control, he could now recruit  2750 points worth of armies. Each ruler needed to start a year with at least one army in each region where they control zones, so he needed at least four armies. Nikator only had access to 1750 points of armies, divided between three regions.

Year 2, spring

As the spring season began, Andriochos continued his march north, as welcome as a plague of locusts. His forces attacked Hierapolis, Kyrrhos and were even so bold as to march on Nikator himself in Antioch. 

Nikator's armies made a play for Kyrrhos as well, meeting their rivals in the plain outside the city. The king himself marched out of Antioch to confront the invaders, and sent a sea-borne expedition from Soli, straight down the coast to successfully liberate Tyre.

Having taken some time to get ourselves organised and carry out the first campaign moves, we decided to reconcile the battle of Kyrrhos this week, and meet again in a couple of weeks' time to decide the battle of Antioch.

***

The Battle of Kyrrhos

Battle is a strong word. It was more of a skirmish really! It transpired that both kings had dispatched little more than a raiding force to Kyrrhos, each consisting of a mere 250 points. According to the campaign rules, and army doubling the size of their opponent automatically destroys them, so it was a risk by both kings to employ such small forces!

The general of Nikator commanded a single company of companion cavalry, supported by Arab auxiliaries - two companies of camelry and two companies of skirmishing archers. Andriochos' general commanded four companies of Galatian mercenaries (split into two units) and two companies of skirmishing archers. Neither force employed any captains or priests.

Armies that march further before a battle face a higher risk of mishaps, and sure enough the Andriachenes saw one unit of Galatians and their archers both arrive late, while one company of Galatians deserted before that battle. Not to be out done, one company of Arab camelry also treacherously deserted in the night, meaning both armies started even smaller than they began.

Aiming to maximise on their mobility and archery, the Nikatorian army angles right, putting pressure on the Andriachene skirmishers and forcing them back. They then turned their archery on the single company of Andriachene Galatians led by the general. The shooting was so successful that the Galatians would have routed if they were not held in place by the presence of their commander.

In what turned out to be the final turn of the battle, the Nikatorian commander charged his companions into the enemy skirmishers, scattering them easily, but was in turn charged in the rear by the Andirochene general and his Galatian bodyguard. 

The Nikatorian general fell in the melee and his bodyguard lost hope, but as they scattered, the Galatians caught sight of their own fleeing archers' cowardice and themselves lost all resolve, fleeing from the plain and taking their general with them. 

Thus, the leaderless units remaining on the table withdrew. A battle that might have seen one side or the others as masters of Kyrrhos was a bloody draw to be consigned as a footnote in history.

In the post-battle sequence, both generals recovered from their ignominy, and their bodyguard units rallied bloodied (-1 Res next season), but unbroken.

***

Take aways from the evening:

1) The campaign works well, but it was perhaps too easy to take cities when armies were unopposed. We'll play out this campaign as written, but might amend the target dice rolls for the release of the rules.

2) While the treat of external invasion was there, it hasn't happened yet. I'd like to see a higher likelihood of it happening in future. Especially if the external enemy annexes Andrew's cities...

3) A 250 point battle is really quite fun; certainly very fast to play out, but with some interesting decisions to resolve that feel less important in larger games but crucial when you have so few units to move around.