Sunday 2 April 2023

Early Achaemenid Persian vs Spartans - posted by Dirk Heinsius, 28 March 2023

Darius Remains Undefeated (That was Sparta)
Saturday 25th March, Darius took on Craig Mabon's new Spartans at the Hutt Club.
The Persians have bad memories of facing Spartans, the sound of some northerner shouting "Sparta!" in a loud voice as Spartiates, went through the Persian foot, like the proverbial hot knife through butter, still sends chills up a Persian's spine.
So past experience has shown that there is no way of taking on the Spartans frontally, bow fire won't stop them, Sparabara, will die in droves in close combat, and whilst the Cavalry will hold them, that is just not a battle winning strategy.
In the end Darius decided on a simple strategy, hold the centre well back, with the Cavalry behind, to redeploy to either wing, or to advance through the Sparabara in the centre, and skirmishers to the front to annoy and delay the Spartan foot.
At this point I owe Craig an apology. I got my army list wrong, and had the Mylian Javelinmen in the main command when they should have been in the Cavalry command, and I didn't realise that Psiloi can repulse through other foot, which means the Spartan hoplites could have attacked a bound earlier.
The Spartans were of the "Platea" variety, with a huge command of Sp(S/O), and smaller command of Spartiates in reserve, and two allies, being Corinthians, and Athenians respectively.
The field was such that the Spartans had an excellent defensive position, with one flank secured by a river and the other by a large marsh. On the Persian side, there were a couple of small marshes, and a vineyard. It was very obvious that there was no way that Darius could assult the Spartan position, and would have to rely on the Spartans coming forwar to assult the Persian centre.
As the battle opened and the Spartans advanced, Darius quickly moved the cavalry command out to the left, with some supporting Psiloi. The hope was that there would be gaps between the Spartiate line, and the supporting Corinthians on the left, and that the Persian cavalry could exploit this, especially with the Corinthians, being irregular and difficult to manouvre. On the right, the Athenians had a narrow gap between the river and a marsh to advance through, so a couple of intrepid Bactrian Auxilleries, advanced to cover this gap, and held up the entire Athenian command for most of the game, before they were eventually surrounded and destroyed, so on the Persian right, nothing else happened for most of the game
The Persian left was another matter, the Lybian javelinmen took on the Greek Psiloi in the marsh (Ps(I) vs Ps(I)) combat. Someone was going to die, and eventually the Lybians prevailed.
The Persian Cavalry advanced out with the Immortals to form a flanking attack on the Spartiates as they advanced. The Corinthians advanced to cover the gap, and were caught in a long column, by a lone Lybian javalinman. This "plucky" fellow not only held the column of Corinthians, but with the help of the Persian cavalry providing a hard flank, in 3 bounds took out 5 hoplites, and a hoplite general, thus breaking the Corinthian command.
Meanwhile in the centre, the Kaspian archers, had fought a delaying action against the Spartiates, but were eventually all spent, and the Spartiates finally crashed into the Persian centre, immediately causing damage. The Sparabara were giving way, but the Babylonian Chariots and the Assyrian Spearmen were covering the gaps.
At this point after 5 hours of play, time was called. The Spartans had lost 20% and the Persians 10%. The game could still have gone either way with the 64K question being, "would the Persian Centre have held on long enough for the cavalry to sweep into the rear of the Spartiates?" I like to think so but of course I have my prejudices 🙂
This was a really enjoyable game, and only Craig's second game with the Spartans. I suspect that given a bit more practice with them, and Darius would have had his first defeat. That being said, with the Spartiate command being over 60ME, and the Persian forces being mainly 1/2 ME troops, this was never going to be a quick game, and very difficult for either side to get a result.
Unit of the match has to be the Lybian javelinmen, the one in particular who took on the Corinthians.

Thanks very much to Craig, for a most enjoyable game.https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2320884118071167/ 

The Persian Deployment, definitely not my best work.

The Persian Camp


Opening Persian moves, as the Cavalry and the Immortals move out to cover the Persian left.

The delaying Auxilia on the Persian right, finally succumb


The Immortals facing off against even more hoplites, however there are finally Persian Cavalry in the greek rear.


The initial Spartan Advance, terrifying to behold.


That is a 60ME command of Sp(S) backed by Sp(O)


The Spartans finally manage to contact the Persian centre.


A nice gap starting to appear between the Spartan commands

The Corinthians fleeing, whilst the Persian cavalry start to harass the remaining hoplites

The Persian horde deployed in the Marsh facing off more Spartiates, who decided not to come and play in the difficult ðŸ™‚


The Spartan initial deployment. There was no way that I'd be attacking that!


The lone Lybian facing off against the Corinthian column


    • Kelly Gay
      Undefeated!!
      suspense GIF
      GIPHY
      3
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    • Vincent Cholewa
      Admin
      Group expert
      Well done both, and many thanks for the report, oh Dirkses. The delaying power of psiloi against heavy foot? I think there is an island somewhere Spartans don’t like to talk about!
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  • Bob Smith
    Personally don't think spartans should be SpS anyway. They never really crunched though any other hoplite armies in frontal battles. Just being regular would account for many of their victories.
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  • Gavin Pearson
    The terrain looks like it made a straight forward attack in the centre a bit tougher than the Spartans wanted.
    In DBM spears into horde in a marsh is still a win for the spears (though riskier than in open) - don’t know if same applies in DBMM.
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    • Dirk Heinsius
      Author
      Gavin Pearson The terrain on the Persian side of the board, was largely my doing, precisely to disrupt a wall of hoplites. Spear vs Horde in the difficult is slightly in the Spears favour, esp. when S. Of course the risks are higher, with the horde being 1/2 ME and Sp(S) being 2 ME
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