Lately I’ve developed a bit of an obsession about Macedonian bronze shields (chalkaspides). The Antigonids and Seleucids both had units named after these brazen shields and given the prevalence of artistic evidence, I suspect they were universal during the Hellenistic period. In this post I show 24 bronze shield designs, The Balagan Collection of Macedonian Bronze Shield Designs.
Macedonian Wars
In the Macedonian Wars Alexander’s successors carved up his empire into kingdoms with their own identity. After some vicious internal strife the Seleucids came to power in Asia, the Antigonids in Macedon and Greece, and the Ptolomies in Egypt. Then a new player on the scene, the Rising Power of Rome, challenged and defeated the Hellenistic states to conquer the eastern Mediterranean.
Armed in the Macedonian fashion
I’ve been re-reading all my books and articles on the Macedonian Wars. These covers the campaigns of Alexander through the Wars of the Successors (Diadochi), and ultimately to the wars against Rome. Fuelled with all that historical goodness, I want to write a series of posts on the Hellenistic armies with troops fighting “armed in the Macedonian fashion”. I start with, what does “armed in the Macedonian fashion” actually mean?
DBA 3 – Improving the Simulation – Some Comments
Joe Collins has highlighted a number of problems with DBA 3.0 and suggested ways to address these problems. Collin’s was part of the group that developed DBA 3.0 so he is both a fan and on the inside team. I really like Collin’s attempt to tackle some big problems with DBA. It would be great if more people did this, starting with Phil Barker. Unfortunately, Collin’s particular suggestions mostly leave the problems unsolved. I do like his solution for Bow but even that needs more.
Philip Sabin’s Analysis of Ancient Warfare in Lost Battles
I really like the analyse of Ancient Warfare in Lost Battles by Philip Sabin. So I’ve written up what captured my attention.
Pity Those Ancient Spanish in DBA – The Army Points Say It All
I’ve always felt the 12 element army size of DBA doesn’t give balanced games. Some folks have come up with points systems to deal with this. I thought I’d tally the points total for a few armies to see how they compare under a couple of the points systems. I’ve focussed on the Macedonian and Punic Wars and not too surprisingly the Ancient Spanish are the poor relatives.
Revised Pyrrhic DBA Army List
The official DBA II/27 Pyrrhic 300BC-272BC army list for DBA is okay but:
DBA II/18 Macedonian Early Successor 320BC-260BC
The II/18 Macedonian Early Successor DBA army list represents those Macedonians successor states based in Europe during in the Macedonian Wars. Just after Alexander died. This post is part of my series on Troop Identities in DBA Army Lists.
DBA II/33 Polybian Roman 275BC-105BC
The Roman army list for DBA during the Macedonian Wars, Punic Wars and Iberian Wars is II/33 Polybian Roman. This looks like a Consular army with two legions and two allied wings (ala). So roughly half of each troop type would be Roman and the other half Latin. This post is part of my series on Troop Identities in DBA Army Lists.
DBA II/19 Seleucid 320-83BC
I’ve got a Seleucid army for DBM but I don’t particularly like the DBA list (II/19). There are four variations (a to d) but the different DBA variants don’t align too well with the DBM lists. The first two variants (a and b) established the Seleucid empire. The latter two versions (c and d) fought the Romans in the Macedonian Wars. This post is part of my series on Troop Identities in DBA Army Lists.
DBA II/27 Pyrrhic 300BC-272BC
Pyrrhus, the King of Epiros, was the only Hellenistic general to defeat the Romans in battle. As far as I’m aware he is the only Hellenistic general to fight the Carthaginians. That means Pyrrhus is the point where the wars of Alexander successors met the Punic Wars. Pyrrhus campaigned in Epiros, Greece and Macedonia during 306-281 BC, in southern Italy against the Romans in 280-275 BC, against the Carthaginians in Sicily in 278-275 BC, against the Romans again in 275 BC, and back in Greece 275-272 BC. This post is part of my series on Troop Identities in DBA Army Lists.
Troop Identities in DBA Army Lists
I play DBA quite a lot and with my current enthusiasm for Big Bases I’m rebasing my ancients and medieval armies for Big Base DBA. To help with that process I wanted to know what nationalities the DBA elements correspond to.
DBA II/35 Later Macedonian 260BC-148BC
The II/35 Later Macedonian DBA army list represents those Macedonians who fought the Romans in Greece during in the Macedonian Wars. This post is part of my series on Troop Identities in DBA Army Lists.
DBA II/20 Ptolemaic 320BC-30BC
II/20 Ptolemaic DBA army list represents those Macedonians based in Egypt during in the Macedonian Wars. This post is part of my series on Troop Identities in DBA Army Lists.
DBA II/16 Asiatic Early Successor 320BC-285BC
The II/16 Asiatic Early Successor DBA army list represents those Macedonians successor states based in Asia (surprise, surprise) during in the Macedonian Wars. Just after Alexander died. It excludes the armies of Seluekos and Ptolemy. This post is part of my series on Troop Identities in DBA Army Lists.
Revised Polybian Roman DBA Army List
For a long time I’ve been disgruntled with how DBx, including DBA, handles the Macedonian and Punic Wars. I don’t like both the way the games play in this period nor the army lists. This post is about the Polybian Roman DBA Army List and how to make it more historical.