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Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)



Herodotus tells us a great deal about the Ionian Revolt. Ionia was Greek colonies along the coast and edges of Turkey that had been captured and absorbed into the Persian Empire around 540 B.C.E. In 499 B.C.E the Tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras; failed to capture the island of Naxos. This left him in a bad political position with his Persian overlords. In a desperate bid, he decided to stir revolt amongst his people against the Persians. This led many other local cities to cast off their Persian based Tyrants and replace them with Democracies.

The Ionian Revolt had initial success in 498 B.C.E. when the allied Greek forces (including Athens, Eretria, and Ionians) managed to successfully attack Sardis. Sardis was the seat of a Persian Satrap and one of the personal enemies of Aristagoras. However, this minor victory was soon off-set by the Battle of Ephesus where Persian cavalry chased down and defeated the Greek forces.

Despite the loss, the revolt spread further. It spread to the Hellespont and Propontis. The city of the Carians also joined the revolt. In addition, Cyprus also revolted. Persian rule was in danger across the region, it was only a matter of time before the might of the Persian army would respond.

In 497 B.C.E., The Persian King had three generals appointed to put down the revolt. The three Persians (Daurises, Hymaees, and Otanes) divided the area into three partitions and attacked. Their attacks spread across the region. The battles and sieges for this period are largely unknown, with only a few details of the battles coming down to us from archeology and Herodotus.

Today’s battle will be one of those lost battles. Hymaees marched to the Propontis and attacked the city of Cius. Historically, he took the city. However, no details remain. Below I will be fighting a battle between the Persian general Hymaees and the defenders of the City of Cius. For the purposes of this battle, the citizen militia has come out of the city to fight off the Persian force.


The Forces
No details remain for the fall of the city of Cius. We only know that Hymaees took the city with his army while his fellow Persians attacked in other areas. Therefore, I will be using some standard armies from the Greek and Persian lists. The exact details of the true armies are not available.

Greeks
3 Militia Hoplites
2 Peltasts
1 Archer Unit
1 Psiloi

Persians
3 Archer Units
3 Drilled Infantry Unit
1 Psiloi

This is equal points in the system and should prove an interesting game.



Deployment
This battle will be on a 6x4 board with both forces deployed on the long table edges. The Greeks on the North side with the Persians coming from the South. The Western edge of the battlefield is anchored on a river. The Eastern edge has the ruins of a temple sacked by the marauding Persian recon troops. The river is Dangerous terrain while the temple is Difficult.



The Greeks of Cius to the North have anchored there right flank to the river. They deployed across the battlefield in a battle line 6 base widths in. From right to left the units are; psiloi, archers, the 3 militia hoplites in phalanx are the core, then the 2 peltast units deployed across from the temple. The Persians face off against the Greeks also anchoring their left flank on the river banks. They are deployed alternating archers and drilled infantry, with the Persian right being anchored by Psiloi light troops across from the temple.



You can read the full details and final results of the battle here:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2018/03/battle-report-men-of-bronze-battle-of.html

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/19 15:35:20


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Made in gb
[MOD]
Villanous Scum







Interesting game. The Hoplites breaking formation was quite a surprise and I am glad they got punished for it!

Were your concluding thoughts solely based upon game play or also upon the likely historical outcome? Ancient foot archers never struck me as being really up to snuff (bar the Cretans) except as harrasment/skirmishers.

Would love to see a rematch with some Greek cavalry.

On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire. 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

My comments were more about this particular game itself.

Historically, Archers are given short shrift. I am prone to believe that this is a Bias of the writers. Pretty much anythign that wasn't shock infantry (even cavalry) gets pretty short shrift in ancient accounts or Greek and early Roman warfare.

I think if we looked at it with a more objective eye, Archers must prove to be somewhat effective, at least in the "Near East" like modern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc. The Archamaenid Persians used large numbers of archers, and they maintained a vast empire.

Edit: The first Militia Phalanx had to go into Open Order as they failed to successfully charge. When that happens, they automatically go into open as they are disorganized from the failed attack. Once that unit was engaged, the other Phalanx had to break into open order to manuever for a flank attack. They could have waited and reformed next turn, but the player opted to attack on the flank instead and try to get the bonus quicker and eliminate his Persian foes. It turned out to be a bad idea!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/03/22 22:58:52


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Made in gb
[MOD]
Villanous Scum







It would be interesting to see just how much the bias of the authors influenced their accounts. We know from later accounts that the Persian foot really struggled against the heavy armour of the Hoplite phalanx (Marathon for example) and against charging cavalry. You are quite right that the Greeks certainly loved to write adoringly of their heavy infantry, like all the ancient sources we have for Alexander go on at great length about the Shieldbearing guard/silver shields/foot companions etc. ad nauseam.

Although unknowable it is interesting to theorize how much of the early Persian success under Cyrus and Darius the Great were due to their foot and how much the horse. I think the foot tends to get a little too much attention due to the friezes showing the Immortals equipped with shield, spear and bow and this tends to get conflated into meaning that all infantry were equipped this way. As well as mentioned that being an elite they get a lot of the press.

I read a theory that file leaders and closers would have been equipped this way whilst the bulk only had bows, which makes a certain sense. Of course the environment that they fought in also makes it unlikely that normal levy were equipped this way ( besides can you imagine the sheer cost?) as heavy equipment performs poorly in arid areas as well as broken terrain, whereas light bowmen are perfect for such environs.

Going to have read Xenophon and Herodotus again now!

What sources have you been using? I am right in thinking that this is your own ruleset arnt I? Have you tried to lean more towards historical plausability or gameplay?

On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire. 
   
Made in de
Primus





Palmerston North

Interesting topic.

How many of the Persian archers had Iron tipped Arrows?
Was Iron cheap enough for everyone to have Iron tipped arrows, or did a large component have to bring Bone or Horn Arrows?
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

 ingtaer wrote:


What sources have you been using? I am right in thinking that this is your own ruleset arnt I? Have you tried to lean more towards historical plausability or gameplay?


I read a lot of Xenophon. I will admit, I like Xenophon a lot and am contemplating another non-wargame project around applying his writings to the business sector.

However, I also used Herodotus and Thucydides. These were all primary sources and few scraped here and there from other sources that I could find. From there, I leaned on a number of secondary sources like V.D. Hanson, Kagan, Christopher Matthew, Crecy, and John Warry. That is just on the history side. On the game side, I leaned pretty heavily on Daniel Mersey, Rick Priestley, and the various authors of the Osprey Wargaming Series. If all goes well, this game should be published in late 2019 by Osprey.

I had read similar things as you allude to about the Persian Sparabara infantry formations where the front soldier had the shield and spear while the rest were armed with bows and formed up behind the front ranks shield wall. I agree that the wall art in Persepolis probably only showed the "best" equipped warriors in the Persian army and not the standard levy. They probably fought with whatever they used at home, so weapons were probably of a wide variety of materials. Regarding the arrowheads, I am guess most of the levy were not iron/bronze, but other easier to acquire materials. This would also help explain their inability to crack Hoplite armor very easily.

I also agree with your statement about Persian Cavalry potentially being their decisive arm while the archers were used to "pin" the enemy. You see this in Xenophon and the Anabasis clearly at Cunaxa. Reading up on the Ionaina revolt, you see this again at the Battle of Ephesus. The Cavalry's absence at Marathon is noted by Herodotus as well. I would gather their speed and ability to appear and disrupt opponents quickly was a more decisive element than the masses of levy light infantry. However, we just do not really know enough and the sources are.... vague.

Thanks for the discussion guys. I am enjoying it greatly.

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Made in gb
[MOD]
Villanous Scum







Interesting mix of sources there, Warry is one of my favourite overview type writers for the Ancient period and his warfare in the classical world was required reading for me. Xenophon is also a favourite, not so much for the Hellenica but for his Anabasis which is one of the clearest sources for the evolution of combined arms combat that one can find!

I was thinking about this earlier and wondered how does your ruleset cope if a player goes full on Iphicrates? It should be a pretty hard counter to a Phalanx (it was after all) and having played a few different rules in the past that struggled to cope with such min/maxing, I would be interested to see your solution? How about chariots/elephants or pikes?

On arrowheads; For the levy likely to be knapped stone, bone or even fire hardened wood for the poorest, with metals becoming more common the richer the troops (or their sponsors) were.


On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire. 
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Well, there is a good deal of discussion about what Iphicratian actually is!

My ruleset use them as a type of Hoplite that can use a "Pursue" move not normally available to Hoplite units. This can counter lighter units with the "Evade" ability. They have slightly less hitting power than Elite or Drilled Hoplite units as well.

I do not use them as a type of Peltast like some authors believe was the case with Iphicratian tactics. .

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Made in gb
[MOD]
Villanous Scum







Good stuff.

I think the confusion comes from the term Peltast, as generally it seems to be taken to mean a javelin equipped troop as opposed to everyone equipped with the pelte. As these were often synonymous it doesnt cause any confusion but of course Iphicrates reequipped his phalanx troops with the pelte and linen armour (as well as a longer spear) making them no longer Hoplites but Peltasts, just not ones with javelins!
Made a little more confusing of course because he also made heavier javelin armed peltasts as well!

Hence my question because his phalanx had both more maneuverability and longer reach than the Hoplite phalanx of his enemies at the cost of worse protection. Your solution if I read you right seems to be a simple and elegant one.

On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire. 
   
 
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