The Battle of the Granicus River in May 334 BC was the first of three major battles fought between Alexander the Great and the Persian Empire. Fought in Northwestern Asia Minor, near the site of Troy, it was here that Alexander defeated the forces of the Persian satraps of Asia Minor, including a large force of Greek mercenaries led by Memnon of Rhodes.
The battle took place on the road from Abydos to Dascylium (near modern-day Ergili, Turkey), at the crossing of the Granicus River (modern-day Biga Çayı).
Using Table Battles from @Hollandspiele we can see what could have happened.
Which is hte scholarly accepted view of what transpired.
Game play note, each formation requires a certain number and type of dice in order to be activated from a pool of 6 dice. Which can be generally seen in image 2 below. Each unit activation consumes those dice and they then go back into the pool to rerolled at the appropriate time. Each formation card has one or more attributes for attack, defense, counter attack and or screening. This present the player with some interesting challenges and attempts to evoke the periodicity of the battle via those capabilities. On to the battle:
Persian action turn I. They roll for doubles.
Alexander’s force does likewise.
The Far Right formation attacks the Thessalians, they inflict one hit.
In the ‘roll phase’ they place doubles upon the Far Right again, seeking to quickly wear down Parmenion.
The Persians respond by waiting & rolling dice. But none are -earned-rrap!
.
Alex takes advantage of this by conducting an attack with his right flank phalanx upon the Persian left.
Persian right puts one more hit on the Thessalians.
Alexander uses the Left Phalanx to attack the Persian right [just right of Center]. 3 hits inflicted and they take one hit themselves. This is a ‘ahistorical move’ The opening move for Alexander was to lead his Right Wing Cav off to attack the Persian Left. I rather think however that this was the better move as we see below!
The Persians chip away at the left, now Alexander moves his right Phalanx forward.
His compact formation attacks and while taking a loss theemselves maintian good order, absolutely slapping the Persians around and dropping them to just 1 block. This is the equivalent of breaking up the formation and placing sever distress on the unit such that it is close to breaking
Back over on the Persian Far right the Thessalians are hanging in their. But lose another step. The Persians have rolled terribly for dice. I think I should have placed at least one die down then hoped for the matching double. It is very, difficult to get straight doubles even with the 5-6 dice!
Now Alexander leads his men forward on the Right. The entire Companions advance upon the Persian left. They force the withdrawal on the Persians and gain a Morale Block.
Seeing the danger he leads the Companions charge the Persian left flank! This finishes off the enemy and drops Persian morale block count by one. Memnon Reserve advances [rule].
Alex Companion hit the Persian left again, minus one hit.
Undeterred the Persians send in Reserves – Memnons Cavalry secures the center right. Clearly here, we have some ahistorical bits going on. That is assuming I have set up correctly. As the Persian Cav according to Arrian were of course arrayed on the “Front” versus being in reserve. I wonder how we could simulate that?
Dice become scarce…..
Once again the powerful Phalanxes really make themselves felt. They knock off 1 block per block in their formation, but lose one each time they attack. Plus they can be used to absorb hits on other formations.
They dominate the Persians.
The nimble Companions attack again!
While on Persia’s Right the they reitre, and Memnons fills the gap.
The retreat was tactical, displacing to the rear means Persia does not lose another morale block.
As you can see Persia still struggles to get doubles!
Now the stout Hypaspists launch a follow on attack after Alex’s charge!
This routs the enemy. Perisan side is now down to just one block.
Both sides allocate dice.
Alexander’s luck holds he get snake eyes which count for doubles. They attck the forces of Memnon.
The Far Right of the Persians struggles forward and ren news the clash. The knock off one more hit from Parmenions Thessalian’s holding the left flank secure.
They are in real strife now with the
Persians doubling down on the offense and hoping to finish off the Parmenion. It is looking grim however for the Satraps of Persia.
The Hypapists, Companions and Memnon all batter each other
This was a poor idea!
With Thessalian on the brink, they counter attack, and while losing a step they inflict one, wiping out another Persian formation, which routs.
Here – Thessalians should be off the board, as both rout. No blocks are exchanged. So the fight at this point could continue, but we have an early AM, and 2 hour drive followed by a monster flight home. Time to call it an Alexandrian win I think.