Thermopylae 3 - The Battle

This battle gave me a number of alternatives. One was to try for an accurate portrayal of a three battle. As my Persian army is hardly the most accurate and neither is the terain I thought.. well, better to get the feel and the look of the battle right...

OK, first thing to change - Hollywood has a Spartan as the traitor who told Xerxes about the mountain path, the Greeks said he came from Trachinian... and Xerxes was on a throne, not in his chariot. So I used a spare Spartean figure as the traitor. The Immortal escort is one of the original type of Garrison Immortal - I don't really like this figure because the spear is very fragile and rarely lasts long.

This is the Phocian contingent guarding the Greek end of the mountain path. Never happy with this idea - if it was just a goat track then it should have been as guardable  as the original pass. So perhaps they simply had too many passes to cover. Or it was simply too late to stop the Persians because they were too far away from the exit when the Persians surprised them.

This is the Persian outflanking force heading for the path. They were in position by dawn of day 3 and would surprise the Phocians.

And here the Phocians finally see the Persians.

 

Told by a runner that the Persians were coming most of the Greek army retreated leaving behind a rearguard consisting of the Spartans, Thespians and a few others, including some Thebans.

Here the Spartans are holding off fresh Persians attacks while in the left rear you can see more Persians heading for the path.

The Greeks/Spartans retreated to a hill as the Persian outflanking force approached - here, Persians are starting to stream through the pass to continue attacks on the Spartans.

The main Greek army makes good it's escape.

While Persians from the pass start to encircle the Greek rearguard...

And the Greek army makes good it's escape...

And the Phocians retreat to a hill of their own expecting to be attacked...

But the Persians just fire a few arrows at them and continue towards the Spartans...

I have made a natural assumption that the Persians from the pass would start their encirclement before the Immortals arrived. So here the Spartans and other Greeks can be seen on their hill, while Persians coming through the pass gradually surround the hill. Meanwhile the Immortals can be seen in the background as can the Phocians on their hill!

Xerxes finally comes off his hill to watch the end.

The Immortals and a load of others from the outflanking force have now joined the encirclement while the Phocians have decided it might be a good idea to leave.

The Spartans and their friends are now completely surrounded. The Geeks had defended a wall in the pass and this hill is described as being behind the wall.

As Xerxes arrives.

Some Thebans were supposed to have stayed with the Spartans and then surrendered to the Persians. Xerxes ordered archers to shoot the rest of the Greeks down with arrows. Suppose I could have taken another picture with lots of Hoplite bases lying flat; decided against it.

There is something very satisfying about setting something like this up and then just moving figures - frankly, if I had tried to do it as an actual wargame it would have taken far too long and I doubt whether it would have been as enjoyable!

Thermopylae 2 - the Persians.

One of my 'more than one post a day ' features... never could hold stuff back so everything will be moved/photographed/posted, Thermoppylae 3 will probably appear later today!

If you follow the numbers given by Richard Nelson in the WRG book 'Armies of the Greek and Persian Wars' the Persian army could have been about 149,500 strong rather than the 1,275,000 from the list provided by Herodotus. This would equate to 7,475 figures at a 20:1 scale - not going to happen!

Overall view of the Persian army. I haven't tried an accurate count but it's about 900 infantry and 150 cavalry. Or  a mere 18,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry 20:1 - or about a seventh of the size it needs to be!

Xerxes watching from a hill with his Guard cavalry at his side and Immortals in front. This terrain board had a small stream running through it which I've just ignored!

The vast majority of the figures are Garrison but there are a few others lying around. The middle two units are Minifigs PB my original 70s Persian army. Actually, not sure about that - archers may have originally been from the Minifigs Fantasy range. It was a long time ago. The Persian javelins to their left are ex-Harry, the two bases to their right are Garrison conversions - lots of these on sand coloured bases are in the Egyptian army, these are dedicated Persian army for DBA. There are a lot of conversions in my Garrison Persian army.

This lot are mostly from Asia Minor - Carian hoplites to the front, backed by a 70s unit of Ionians, then a load of Garrison Phrygians. Camels in the army are supposed to be Arabs, this lot will just have to pretend. Keep thinking 'need more camels'. I don't, but not about to let that concern me.

Sakae/Scythians - all conversions though for some at least they are Gallic archers painted as Scythians. The Sparabara unit includes a few of the long gone Warrior Greek and Persian Wars range.

I admit some of these views are a bit random but - well, never mind. A view of the entire Persian army.

Technically the Thebans were still on the Greek side at this time but as I always associate Thebes with the Persians I thought I'd just include them anyway. The unit behind them is an original 70's Egyptian unit. The Egyptian horse archers are more recent conversions.

More conversions. All of these figures are conversions, even the Guard cavalry - I took the original rider and remade and cast it as a one piece casting to make casting easier. At some point I should do a few head swap conversions on this figure...

Another gratuitous 'most of the army' picture.

So that's the setup. Next thing is to start moving them around.

Thermopylae 1 - the Greeks and battlefield setup.

Been doing a lot of painting and casting recently but no battles. In fact, don't think I've done anything along those lines this year! Likewise, I've done virtually nothing with Ancients this year. On that basis I decided to do an Ancients battle, but not as a battle, more as a 'set up and tell the story'. It also gives me the chance to use some of the terrain I got off Robbie.

This picture shows the Spartans and Immortals fighting in the Pass.  The rest of the Greek army is in the background - about 170 figures all together. There are 16 Spartan figures - at 20:1, that represents 320 Spartans, close enough to the 300. The Greek army is probably about half the size of the historical army. All the Spartan hoplite figures are Garrison 20mm G3.

One thing about the terrain is that it was made for 6mm figures so hills are not very high - in this picture it's hard to tell that the Spartans and Immortals are fighting at the narrowest part of the Pass!

It's a bit clearer in this picture.

Again, although there were lots of hills on the board, to make it look impenetrable I added lots of trees. I've just used the smaller trees in my collection - they're already taller than the hills as it stands!

So that's the basic Greek force and terrain.  Later I'll start on the Persian setup.