Antigonid versus Eumenid Successors - To the Strongest Game

 

Antigonus’ forces left, Eumenes’ forces right

Opposite end

Satrapal cavalry charge on Eumenes’ left flank

Demetrius’ xystophoroi don’t last long

Flank charge on Antigonus’pike

Last Sunday I played a solo To the Strongest game out in the shed. This was my first game and I chose small Antigonid versus Eumenid Successor forces, to get used to the rules and because I wanted to use some commanders I’d painted recently. Antigonus out scouted Eumenes and moved first. The two sides had very similar armies but the game proved to be very one sided.

Antigonus' forces destroyed a unit of Persian slingers by shooting in the first turn, but it was all downhill from there. Eumenes’ satrapal cavaly on the left flank quickly accounted for Demetrius’s xystophoroi and horse archers destroyed the Antigonid Tarentines. Eumenes’ xystophoroi routed Antigonus’ cavalry on the left flank and the single remaining Antigonid unit of horse archers was in trouble facing two formed units. Antigonus' forces continued the fight, counter attacking in the centre but it all came unraveled when Antigonus' veteran pike was routed. An easy and very decisive victory for Eumenes who had all the luck in this game.

Antigonus’ cavalry on the left flank are in trouble 

Antigonus’ forces fight on

Antigonus’ veteran pike counter attack

It all comes unraveled 

An easy and decisive victory for Eumenes

Antigonus One-Eyed

 

Here's Antigonus One-Eyed trying to rally the troops at the Battle of Ipsus. The Antigonus figure is from the Gripping Beast Polemarch Successors range and the phalangite command are by Warlord Games with a LBM banner.

Plutarch (c.46-c.119 AD) in his life of Demetrius describes Antigonus shortly before his death at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC:

Antigonus was almost eighty years old and by this time it was his corpulence and weight even more than his age which incapacitated him for an active part in military operations. He therefore made more and more use of his son, for Demetrius with the help of experience combined with good luck was now conducting the greatest enterprises with some success, and neither his luxury nor his extravagance nor his drinking habits troubled his father.

Plutarch Demetrius 19, The Age of Alexander, translated by Ian-Scott Kilvert, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, p.350.

Xyston Miniatures make an excellent corpulent Antigonus on a palanquin with bearers in 15mm:

Antigonus on a Pallanquin

Plutarch describes his end at the battle:

Then as great numbers of the enemy bore down Antigonus, one of his attendants cried out, 'They are making for you, sire,' to which the king replied,'Yes, what other object could they have? But Demetrius will come to our rescue.' In this hope he persisted to the last and kept looking on every side, until the enemy overwhelmed him with a cloud of javelins and he fell. The rest of his friends and attendants abandoned him, and only Thorax of Larissa remained by his body.

Plutarch Demetrius 29, The Age of Alexander, translated by Ian-Scott Kilvert, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1973, p.360.