Battle of Tanagra, 457BC - lots of hoplites!

[Happy Wanderer]

Gents,

Back to Ancient Greece.

In this encounter we see the Athenians and Spartans duke it out on the plains of Tanagra, 457BC in a classic hoplite v hoplite encounter.

Will the duplicitous Thessalian cavalry change sides?

Check out the battle report here - a lovely 500+ hoplites on-table.

Cheers

Happy Wanderer

https://agrabbagofgames.wordpress.com/2022/03/03/battle-of-tanagra-457-bc/

[armchairgeneral]

Great looking game with nicely painted figures. Just a bit surprised at the scarcity of light troops/peltasts for this period in your game?

[Happy Wanderer]

Those were the forces for the historical battle of Tanagra as we understand them to be from Thucydides, Plato and Pausanius.

The Spartans had about 1,000 Psiloi and a small contingent of about 300 Boeotians horsemen (to small to be represented in this scenario). The Athenians had similar numbers of light troops plus the addition of the (notable) Thessalian horse contingent.

It was an 85-90%+ hoplite affair for both sides…a classic hoplite encounter before light troops started to become more prominent in the Second Peloponnesian War thirty or so years later.

[Easy E]

Considering the date, I am not surprised to see so many Hoplites.  Nice and chunky units to boot! 

Thanks for sharing! I knew you had been working on some big units sizes, so great to see them in action.

   

[Jjonas]

Nice looking game. The system preserves some linearity, but still the battle becomes a bit fractured- but at least without the wild wheeling of some games.
I like your dot pattern for hexes- but I also thought that if you truncate depth to width ratio you would maintain a more linear look with miniatures which are wider than blocks in the board game version. Interesting post thanks.

Truncated for flatter linear look?

[Happy Wanderer]

@Easy E- have been working on other stuff like LOTS of Greek cavalry and light troops. My next big hoplite additions will be a couple of hundred Theban hoplites when I get to them and scads of single mounted figures for Men of Bronze, et .

@JJonas - good thinking…as I had the same thought! Actually, the mat is truncated as you say! A standard CCA mat is 9 hexes deep. My mat is 11 hexes deep for the later games that have more cavalry. The limiting factor is the depth of the figure base which is 90mm. Each unit in a hex is 180mm x 90mm ie 7.5” x 4”. Thus I made each hex 7.5” wide by 5” deep to get a 13 x 11 grid on the mat on a 9’x5’ table. When laid out, as you can see, it has a very linear look to it.

Whilst I’ve made my own mat Tiny Wargame mats does a nice selection of hex based mats in the standard hex layout to illustrate the different sizes.

https://www.tinywargames.co.uk/commands

Here is the same game, minus light troops, on a traditional game mat. Essentially the same effect.

[VonAkers]

Happy
Cant believe how good the pics come up , and how nice the Mat is .., Well done Old boy ..
Very Nice Battle Report as well...
Cheers

Ps I think the Superior Athenian Strategos mostly helped gain the decisive Victory .....

[Happy Wanderer]

"I think the Superior Athenian Strategos mostly helped gain the decisive Victory "

I do believe the dice gods were with the Athenians on this day...

[Cacique Caribe]

I thought this was going to be about Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. 

Dan

[Happy Wanderer]

I hope that 'thing' has his SPF1000 to hand...he'll need it 

[Cacique Caribe]

LOL.  He sure looks red.

Dan