Seleucids at KublaCon

I took my Seleucids up to Kublacon last weekend for the WAB tournament. Mark let me play the Seleucid Empire list from Jeff's new book for some playtest games. It happened to be a bad time for quite a few people so there was a total of 4 of us were there. This is what I took:

1 Successor King @ 158.0 Pt
Horse; Impact Modifier; Regal Impact; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armor; Horse; Drilled; Stubborn; General
0 Horse @ [0.0] Pt

1 Army Battle Standard @ 83.0 Pt
Horse; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armor; Horse; Drilled; Stubborn; General
0 Horse @ [0.0] Pt

10 Companions @ 285.0 Pt
Close Order; Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Xyston; Heavy Armor; Half Metal Barding; Stubborn; Wedge

24 Silver Shields @ 255.0 Pt
Light Armour; Shield; Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Pike; Macedonian Phalanx

28 Katoikoi Phalanx @ 267.0 Pt
Light Armour; Shield; Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Pike; Macedonian Phalanx

28 Katoikoi Phalanx @ 267.0 Pt
Light Armour; Shield; Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Pike; Macedonian Phalanx

10 Euzonoi @ 60.0 Pt
Hand Weapon; Javelins; Buckler; Skirmishers

10 Arab Cavalry @ 165.0 Pt
Leader; Mixed Weapons; Shield; Light Cavalry; Feigned Flight

9 Arab Tribesmen @ 54.0 Pt
Composite Bow; Open Order

18 Theureophoroi @ 141.0 Pt
Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Thrusting Spear; Shield

18 Thorakitai @ 177.0 Pt
Leader; Standard; Musician; Hand Weapon; Thrusting Spear; Light Armor; Shield

9 Thracian Peltasts @ 86.0 Pt
Leader; Hand Weapon; Rhomphaia; Javelins; Shield; Light Infantry

Total Army list Cost: 1998.0


GAME 1

My first game was against Mark and his Assyrians. He had 3 blocks of Assyrian infantry, 2 units of chariots, and some slingers and archers. My camera was on the wrong setting, so a lot of my pictures were blurred. Here are a few though.

Mark's setup.

Me trying to to wheel my phalanx to match up with the Assyrian infantry blocks. Half movement while wheeling really hurts. My companions ignore the archers in front of them and are able to march right past them to get into the rear. But there are some heavy chariots with the general and ASB there to meet them. My companions end up charging the chariots but can't break them. After a few turns of fighting they end up running off the table.

The Arab cavalry try to hold up the other chariots while my Thureophoroi get in position. The Thureophoroi place themselves directly in front of the chariots and get run down. The Arab cavalry swoop in behind the pursuing chariots and take one down with javelins which cause them to panic off the board.

One phalanx is going toe to toe with the Assyrian infantry. They win most of the combats but just can't get them to break (even after burning their stubborn). The Thracians charge the flank for one final push before the General's chariot army arrives. No luck though. The infantry hold.

My Thorakitai and Arab archers were run off by the red Assyrian infantry which are now getting back into the game. My Silver Shields try to hold them off until my other phalanx (which scared off some slingers) arrive. The Assyrian general's chariots plow into my flanking Thracians, killing them all. This causes my phalanx to break which panics my king, ASB and supporting phalanx. Game over for the Seleucids. It was a very good game which could of gone either way.

We had a few errors pop in since we were using WAB 2 and this is Mark's first run with his army. I screwed up when my wedge flattened out. I was thinking my frontage was as big as to cover the opponents front but it is actually only as wide as my widest rank in the wedge. Opps. Mark ran his Assyrian infantry as WS 4 / BS 4 but I think they are actually 3 after looking back at Chariot Wars. The killer was them being stubborn and causing fear. We goofed on a few morale checks too (we forgot the -1 for being half strength). Going to need a marker for that.

GAME 2

This was against Rob's Ancient Spanish. He had 4 infantry units with throwing spears and feigned flight. One was stubborn. A Celtiberians unit with heavy throwing spears and warband, some normal slingers and a unit of Baleric slingers rounded his army out. He also had a general and ASB. It was an all infantry force.

Rob's setup. Stubborn infantry on the his left by themselves and warband on the right. The Baleric slingers are actually next to stubborn unit but out of the picture.

I had a phalanx lined up against a Spanish unit and the Thorakitai and Thureophoroi had to handle the Celtiberians. My Companions were in the middle.

It went pretty bad for Rob from the beginning. His Baleric slingers couldn't hit anything and when my Euzonoi ran up to throw he charaged them. WS 3 Baleric's vs WS 2 Euzonoi, you'd think it would be over quick. But the Baleric's struck out again and were run down by my Euzonoi. The stubborn warband did a number on my Silver Shields. There were able to mass fire javelins on the hill and caused my phalanx to panic. It managed to rally but was then charged by the stubborn Iberians and swept my Silver Shields away.

My Companions charged the skirmishers in front of them which made their fear test and fiend flighted away, but not far enough away (I caught them by an inch). I blew through them and ended up in the rear of the Spanish line. I ended up sandwiching a Iberian unit between the cavalry and the phalanx. The new 2.0 rule where you automatically die if you are engaged to the front and rear worked out well here. We weren't sure if my units pursued or not after the broken unit is just picked up and if so where they would pursue.


Here is my Companions after running down the skirmishers and charging one Iberian unit to the rear. With our confusions of pursuing we rolled which direction they would go (left or right) and I ran them that way (I actually rolled to not pursue but no luck there).


The Celtiberians charged my Thureophoroi which ran away. This let my Thorkitai to get a charge in on them. With all the heavy throwing spears coming their way, the Thorakitai took a beating but made their break test. Their spears vs the warbands single fighting rank started to take a toll on the Celtiberians. During this time Rob's general joined a infantry unit and I put my King in the phalanx opposite it. When the Spanish charged the phalanx, the Spanish general challenged my King, who happened to roll +1 Wound on the kingly table this game. But otherwise he's a panzy with 2 attacks and 3 strength. The melee went for about 2 turns where my king took 3 wounds (and I was complaining about the extra wound roll at the beginning of the game) before my companions ended it all with a rear charge on the Spanish unit.

Tony with his Age of Arthur Civilized British army list and I played a quick game after this. Tony beat me on our practice game before we left to San Francisco but he had horrible luck on this one. After one charge and most of his units panicing we just called it.

So I'm glad I got a few WAB 2.0 games in with the new army list. All very fun games against great opponents.