The Seleucid Successors at Beachhead 2024

In this game the The Seleucid army was immediately faced with having to dig an entrenched Indian army out of something of a corner, braving a barrage of shooting and taking on the fearsome Maiden Guard Death Star of Elite Elephant + Elite 2-handed sword-waving ladies to boot.

This would be an immediate test of how well I had painted and glued on the shields of my troops as they rush forward through a barrage of archery and try and get into contact as quickly as possible with an opponent made up of very old school Hinchcliffe figures of dubious fighting ability mixed in with a lower than usual number of powerful elephants.

The second battle sees the Successors take on the northern (OK, to them..) barbarians of the land where any visiting Australian would no doubt be uttering the phrase "strewth, that fella's got no strides on!" almost continually during their holiday or business trip. The Galatians are renowned for charging home hard and fast and winning spectacularly to boot.

This lot however also had a rather tasty Thracian ally which looked on paper as if it had the beating of much of the Seleucid army in it's own right - but will the rather devastating anti-pike potential of almost every element of this furiously charging army bring them victory, or are there enough other bits and bobs in the Seleucid lines to eke out a better result than being trampled by a stampede of irritated naturists from the shores of the Black Sea?

The third outing for Seleukos and his men sees the textbook reformated Romans turning out in their red splendour to text their new battle formation as they bring Hastati, Triarii and Principes to bear against the pikemen from the Levant in a battle with two armies both of whom lack any sort of decent cavalry worthy of the name and so are both committed to straight up frontal combat at the earliest opportunity

The Romans do however have a little trick up their sleeves in the form of a Samnite ally, giving them an extra dimension of rough-terrain capability which most pure-play Romans can lack - but will it be enough to take on the Seleukid war machine and its not that mighty elephant and smattering of Thracians?

It's Pike against Falx as the Dacians surge out of the woods and fall upon the Seleucids like farmers culling the wheat at harvest time - or at least that is their plan, but probably not Seleukus' idea of a good time on a Sunday morning.

There are more warriors than you can shake a stick at, all of whom are afraid of some parts of the enemy army but eager as little Dacian beavers to get their teeth into other parts of it - so in this game of paper-scissors-falx-pike-stone which side will end up with the most fingers still left?

It's Pike against Rome in a time-travelling rematch of Game 3, but this time they are super-proper Romans with square shields and over-engineered armour as well as every option in the book to make themselves tough as Roman marching boots. This does of course lead to a very small but hard as nails army which the Seleucids will be forced to assault in an unsubtle pile-on in which the Romans wedge themselves in terrain and ask the question "Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough?"

This of course massages almost all skill out of the game, suiting the simple-minded Seleucid army down to the ground, so if you want to see a frontal clash of the titans this is very much the ancient warfare video you have been waiting for!

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