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!