Pendraken Miniatures Forum

Wider Wargaming => Genre/Period Discussion => Ancients to Renaissance (3000BC - 1680) => Topic started by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 08:09:15 AM

Title: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 08:09:15 AM
Greece and Persia are finally at it. There are a lot of barbarians invading Greece (plus those Theban traitors!).
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 09:06:24 AM
Ai! A few lucky shooting rolls, some weak reactions, and the Athenian left is routing! Spartans going head-to-head with Persian heavy horse in the centre, with no losses on either side yet.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 10:31:22 AM
Ouch. NOTHING worked!
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: Bodvoc on 21 February 2016, 10:33:07 AM
Any chance of a photo or two as this is one of my favourite periods to game in?
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 10:39:27 AM
I'm eating dinner; pix after that. Promise.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: toxicpixie on 21 February 2016, 10:47:55 AM
From the sound of that the Greeks are going to be way to busy dying to get any photos taken!
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 11:07:17 AM
Pix, taken by the Persian commander. Here we see both armies marching onto the field (this wasn't a literal refight; no quarrels in Greek high command). Sorry it's skew.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 11:35:29 AM
Here the barbarian EHC should successfully be seeking annihilation from Spartans led by a king. You'd think.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 11:44:30 AM
The chariots charged through the Greek peltasts three times; by the rules they should have taken an average of 3.5 casualties to javelin fire en route. As it was, not a prick.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 11:47:42 AM
Plateans and Corinthians repel but fail to break some Immortals.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 11:54:27 AM
Thebans weren't deployed properly, and the Argives threw them back, but again without breaking them.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 11:59:18 AM
My right flank got tangled up. Thracians and Athenians beat off Medes and Saka rather effectively, but Cretans broke under Arab onslaught.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 12:01:55 PM
Blameless Ethiopians guarding the Persian camp.
Title: Re: Battle of Plate
Post by: Duke Speedy of Leighton on 21 February 2016, 12:02:57 PM
All very nice sir
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 12:09:31 PM
The wife is rather pleased with herself anyway.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: petercooman on 21 February 2016, 12:25:51 PM
Very nice pics!

Really like your spartans!
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 12:41:42 PM
I'll like 'em more if they deliver the bacon at the rematch.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: petercooman on 21 February 2016, 12:55:50 PM
Quote from: FierceKitty on 21 February 2016, 12:41:42 PM
I'll like 'em more if they deliver the bacon at the rematch.

Bacon? are they bringing fire pigs next time?
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: Bodvoc on 21 February 2016, 12:59:11 PM
Thanks for the photo's, that looks like a great game on a very big table.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 26 February 2016, 05:45:30 AM
Right. This evening, for one night only: The Revenge of the Greeks!
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 12:19:59 PM
Persians have just smashed the Greeks a second time. How DOES one guard the flanks of a heavy infantry army against a cavalry horde? ~X(
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: petercooman on 27 February 2016, 12:25:30 PM
Quote from: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 12:19:59 PM
Persians have just smashed the Greeks a second time. How DOES one guard the flanks of a heavy infantry army against a cavalry horde? ~X(

Well,broken ground is best for that.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 01:17:09 PM
Would have been useful. Alas, they got an almost featureless plain today.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 01:21:27 PM
(From a tombstone on the battlefield)

    If thou'rt at Lacedaemon, pause and say
   Forgetful of their laws, we ran away.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: Ithoriel on 27 February 2016, 01:50:24 PM
Poetry? From Spartans? Shouldn't it be something pithy like the message sent after Cyzicus:

"Ships gone. Mindarus dead. Men starving. What next?"

:)
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: petercooman on 27 February 2016, 02:09:45 PM
Quote from: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 01:17:09 PM
Would have been useful. Alas, they got an almost featureless plain today.

Hug the table edge and reinforce your open flank?
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 02:36:29 PM
The rules involve some weighty penalties to discourage using the edges as terrain.
I was parodying a Spartan verse which actually IS on a tombstone at Thermopylae. The Spartans weren't really what Athenian historians try to make them.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: Ithoriel on 27 February 2016, 03:49:09 PM
Quote from: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 02:36:29 PM
The rules involve some weighty penalties to discourage using the edges as terrain.
I was parodying a Spartan verse which actually IS on a tombstone at Thermopylae. The Spartans weren't really what Athenian historians try to make them.

I recognised the parody of Simonides, my point was that Simonides was not a Spartan and Lacadaemonian communications were noted for being more .... laconic :)
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: Lord Kermit of Birkenhead on 27 February 2016, 04:06:25 PM
Least you are getting the morally correct result.

IanS
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: petercooman on 27 February 2016, 05:17:13 PM
Quote from: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 02:36:29 PM
The rules involve some weighty penalties to discourage using the edges as terrain.

Make your battle line less wide and keep some units in reserve to flank charge the flanking cavalry?
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: d_Guy on 27 February 2016, 05:49:41 PM
Quote from: FierceKitty on 27 February 2016, 12:19:59 PM
Persians have just smashed the Greeks a second time. How DOES one guard the flanks of a heavy infantry army against a cavalry horde? ~X(

Throw rocks? Worked for Montrose at Tippermuir. Sorry just wandered in from the 17th century.
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: toxicpixie on 27 February 2016, 08:59:50 PM
Form in echelon with a unit stepped back on the flank? Or circle the wagons and form square?!
Title: Re: Battle of Platea
Post by: FierceKitty on 28 February 2016, 12:53:33 AM
Tried the echelon bit. I think part of the problem is that the hoplite phalanx had less of a charge intimidation effect against the weaker Asian troops than it should have. A new rule has been put in place which may solve that.
I'll see how the Macedonians fare at Gaugemela today.