Wednesday 29 December 2010

Magnesia: Dramatis Personae (Seleucids)

Here we have Antiochus "The Great" (played by Willie) parading safely in front of his cataphracts.  At the right of the picture you can see some Galatians, trying to pretend they are as fierce as their ancestors so long as Antiochus is looking.
Philip (Ian Kerr) leads the Argyraspides, supposed cream of the infantry.  They're really just a shadow of their glorious predecessors, but they are still of better quality than the deep mass of tremblers to the right of the photo.
And leading the first batch of trembling phalangites, above, we have Mendis, played by Dave in his first battle.  Antiochus has drawn up the phalanx even more deeply than usual, because he doesn't trust them against the legions.  Note the interspersed elephants, another attempt to shore up the infantry against the expected onslaught.
The second phalanx commander, Zeuxis (another Ian!).  The phalanx is so deep that they won't all be able to fight.  Antiochus expects this won't be a problem, because the Romans will crush the first few ranks anyway.  Slingers are out front.
Antiochus' nephew Seleucus leads the Cataphracts that are just to the left of the photo above.  I started playing them, and then Ewen took over.  The guys you can see in the centre are Galatian horse with some flanking lights off to the right of the photo.  In front are the expendable scythed chariots.  They are in exactly the right position to rout back into all those cavalry.  The general figure at the very top is Antipater (Gus), lurking as far out of the way as he possibly can.  Maybe he isn't too pleased with the deployment devised by Antiochus.

2 comments:

  1. Cast of thousands! Very nice (And a belated Merry Xmas, too).

    Simon

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  2. Cheers Simon, and season's greetings to you and yours as well.

    Paul

    ReplyDelete