Magnesia 190BC Colours Newbury 2022

Saturday 10th September saw a small group of us travelling up from Hastings to Newbury Racecourse to attend Colours 2022 We were presenting the Battle of Magnesia 190 BC on behalf of the Society of Ancients. A well known clash of Republican Rome under Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus with the help of Eumenes of Pergamon against the mighty Seleucid Empire under Antiochus III the Great.

We were fighting the battle using Impetus 2 Rules our favoured rule set. The game and armies were organised based on details from Phil Sabin's book 'Lost Battles'.

The battlefield saw the Roman left flank resting on the River Phrygios whilst Eumenes Pergmenes overlapped the weaker Seleucid left flank. Historically both right flanks prevailed, causing the often seen swing door effect in Ancient battles, but here the more controlled Roman flank being able to return and impact decisively in the centre.

There is quite a lot of conjecture over numbers with some huge quotes for the Seleucids particularly in light troops, but in reality both sides effective troops were probably fairly similar. Phil Sabin' book 'Lost Battles' evaluates some of the thoughts on this well.

In our game the Seleucids began by pushing forward their centre and right flank the thinking being they needed to force the engagement here before the Romans could exploit their superior right flank. The scythed chariot on the Seleucid left alone advanced, but as in history were decimated by the Roman/Greek light troops.

Turn 3 saw the Seleucid right cataphracts charge home and in the centre the pike and elephants. They both achieved this in their separate initiatives without disorder despite multiple moves, so the omens were favourable. But then disaster, first devastating pilum throwing by the romans, they then closed ranks negating much of the Impetus particularly from the Cataphracts and finally overwhelming dice superiority in both hitting and cohesion tests. You never win if you fail to hit and then role high in cohesion tests! Even Antiochus throwing himself in at the head of his agema failed to hit with a LOT of dice! So the whole Seleucid line was thrown back with the Romans applying scorn and ridicule, before they took their initiative to stick the Roman boot in! At this point even though still early in the game it looked only a matter of time before the Seleucids were seen off.

Eumenes seeing his fellow commanders having so much fun decided he did not want to miss out and attacked aggressively with his cavalry, however they turned out not to be so inclined as he, failing their multiple move tests in disorder before being able to hit home.


The following turn (4) saw the outnumbered Seleucid left take the initiative and manage to inflict some damage on the Roman heavy cavalry blunting their effectiveness and making them pause in hesitation. Eumenes lancers also failed to remove their disorder, so again any outcome was delayed. In the centre the Elephant was all but destroyed and the pike again losing and taking losses, but the Romans being unable to exploit much further due to failed pursuits. The Seleucid right also managed to stabelize mainly down to drawn combats.

Turn 5 It still looked bleak for the Seleucids the dead pile was mounting worryingly whilst the Romans had lost one velite unit. This turnsaw a small change with the damaged seleucid centre finally managing to destroy a couple of Hastati/Principes units. On the right, again the Seleucids started to inflict some damage with the so far uncommitted Galatian warband striking home with devastating effect. They could almost have swung the day but after a couple of combat wins failed to pursue despite the 2 attempts for impetuous troops. However the outcome had at least been prolonged. Eumenes on the Roman right was still trying to fight his way through the complicated position on the Seleucid left flank the Galatian Cavalry putting up frustrating resistance without actually doing much damage themselves. They finally circumbed but the had exhausted Eumenes for a while longer.

Turn 6 was the clincher. Eumenes finally saw off the Seleucid left flank, but without being able to furhter exploit his position. The Seleucid right then had a moment of glory breaking the Roman left the dice goods deserting the Romans at last. However
they did have the last say as their Triarii rearguard managed to destroy the final Cataphract unit taking out the Seleucid right command and thus the arrmy.
In the centre the pike managed to inclict further damage but it was all too late and the Romans had one a marginal victory. They themselves were only a couple of points off their break point, so very close to a draw.

So what at first looked like a walk over game turned into a hard fought enjoyable fight. We had looked to try and do two games, but only just managed the one. We had much interest and social interaction with passers by, so the whole day was a very stimulating event.

We will be attending SELWG on 16th October for a refight of GAZA, more successors, so if anyone wants to pop by you are more than welcome.

I will try and post a few pictures. However will post separtely as lost my whole report before could upload last time!!

Sorry i couldn't make it this time sounds like a good game suspect plenty of jawing as only played once!!! Plan to be there for Selwg.

Great report, sounds like a great game.

How did you handle the Roman line relief? My regular opponent and I have used both the 'large unit' and the 'FP interpenetration' option. We have tended to come down to the 'large unit' as being the simplest and quickest method of representing it, albeit a bit of an abstraction.

thank you for the report!

When I ran Magnesia at Cold Wars a few years back I had to raise all the Kataphracts to VBU7 for them to have any chance at breaking the Roman right flank. VBU6 cavalry against Legion infantry just doesn't have enough punch to it.

With regard to line relief. With most rule sets this is always going to be a bit of an abstraction. In this game it did not really apply as the Romans were intentionally portrayed in just a single line apart from the Triarii and they did not really have a chance in this game to perform relief other than fill gaps of lost units. In other games we have utilised both methods but as yourself probably lean towards large units, mainly because Romans are expensive and it is cheaper to do this. The other option is more flexible but all units then have the higher VD value and cost.
Cataphract and similar type units are always going to struggle against fresh formed FP nfantry, particularly if they are able to close ranks. In this game we purposely chose single roman units rather than large otherwise there would have been no hope. Cataphracts are quite brittle and once stopped generally lose, but that is probably how it should be. They were never super troops on the battlefield at least not in this period. In this game they had very bad dice at the beginning and the Romans had very good dice, with these parameters you are always going to be on the back foot. However ultimately they were able to break the Roman command albeit at their own expense. But the game overall panned out quite historically.
One of the reasons we like Impetus is it gives a good game, there is always a buzz factor on how things are going to go. The reaction interaction means everyone is involved in a multiperson game and it seems to always feel and look like a proper ancient battle, whatever that is?

Sounds like it was a great game. Thank you for the excellent report.