Thebans vs Spartans - posted by Josh Barton, 8 May 2022

This weekend I managed to get a game of the traditional enemies- Greek on Greek, Thebes vs Sparta. Me vs Alastair Duncan.

I had planned on using a strategy similar to that of Hannibal at Cannae. Knowing that the bulk of my spear would not match the Spartans one to one, I planned on using my numbers to work the flanks. The psiloi would delay the spartan advance while the Sacred Band, led by Epimonandas and the Cavalry pushed forward, hopefully slowly enveloping the Spartan army.

However, the moment the battlefield was set this seemed like a more difficult prospect than hoped. The Spartan right was anchored against a sea, and the left against a Bua on a hill. Even worst, the two armies were quite similar in size and width, the Spartan general foregoing a command for extra troops. Even worse, the Spartans had galatians in their army, forcing the Thebans to split their phalanx in two to avoid the 4 elements of warband.

Mercifully however the Spartans were convinced that the Thebans had a flank march so deployed their cavalry against a force that didn't exist.

The battle turned out quite straight forward, the spartan phalanx advanced out of the cover of the BUA and attacked the psiloi covering the Theban line. However in the first bound the Spartans spent nearly half of the Theban psiloi.

On the flanks the sacred band and the cavalry attacked. Epimonandas killed the spartan element in front of him, but the Sacred band were unable to further exploit the victory. Meanwhile the cavalry failed to even dent the theuroporoi on the flanks (I couldn't win several 4 plays 1 hard flanks...).

In the middle the second line of psiloi were duly dispatched by the spartans who seemed unable to roll below a 4 at any point (except pips, which really didn't matter) while the Thebans couldn't roll above a 2.

Next the Spartans hit the Theban line, and the proper fight ensued.. well in theory. The Spartans continued rolling insane dice while the Thebans couldn't roll anything, meaning that the Spartans chewed through the entire Theban phalanx in 3 or 4 bounds.

On the flanks the Sacred band continued pushing the Spartans back, but high dice meant they were unable to kill any more elements. Meanwhile the Theban cavalry finally killed a couple of elements of auxilia.

The warband spent the psiloi in front of them and opened up the Theban line, but it turned out to be irrelevant. The Thebans had lost half of their spear in a few bounds and broke giving the Spartans a comfortable victory.

It was fun to play a proper phalanx on phalanx game, and I was reasonably happy with how the sacred band performed (one element was 6-1'd at the end, but buy that point the game was over). Really though, the game came down to dice, while I was getting much better pip die, this was irrelevant once the armies engaged, and I honestly couldn't roll a good combat dice to save my life. I feel the plan was still a passable one, draw the Spartans out and try to use the cavalry to work the flanks, but Al's placement of terrain made this much harder than expected.

There will be a rematch, and hopefully that will go better for the Theban defenders of democracy and freedom*

*democracy and freedom available for Greek speaking male citizens only. 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/824840264342234/posts/2062668527226062/

Alastair Duncan - Sparta!

Vincent Cholewa

I love the cheer leader among the hoplites

• Michail Woolf

  "*democracy and freedom available for Greek speaking male citizens only." Has it should be, we carry our swords and spears to battle. 

  

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  • Dirk Heinsius

    Michail Woolf or join the benevolent Persian Empire! Equal right for all, even the Greeks 

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  Vincent Cholewa

  Admin

  Group expert

  Great to see phalanx vs phalanx - thank you for the report