Tanagra 457BC

Tim arranged the next in his series of chronological Ancient battles, this one being Tanagra in 457BC, so almost modern! We were off the Peleponnesian Wars, so no more Herodotus for us and instead it was Thucydides. Tim has also reported on this on his blog.

The Spartans under Nicomedes had been off duffing up Boatia for entirely reasonable and legitimate reasons when the wicked Athenians parked a fleet in the Gulf of Corinth to block their retreat and landed an army under Myronides. The Spartans had to fight their way out.

Here is the view from the Spartan side. Lots and lots of Hoplites, supplemented by light troops and auxiliaries. the Athenians also had some rather flaky Thracian cavalry, but who needs cavalry when you've got four units of Spartan Hoplites.

The Athenian command team, Robert, Tim C and John A, taking the Athenian right, centre and left respectively.

The brave Spartans. I had the left, Alan the centre and Jerry the right.

We had quite a few light troops command cards so pushed our light troops and auxilia up to throw javelins.

Over on the left we even managed ot drive the Thracians back a bit. Things were going very well.

Oh dear! Myronides got tired of the skirmishing and doubled timed his entire left flank forward, giving our Auxilia a very bloody nose.

Things went from bad to worse as the Athenians deployed card after card and although we had some isolated successes, in fairly short order our entire right wing was destroyed. Oops! The Athenians were three banners up at this point.

Well, what to do. After some debate we decided to press on rather than muck about trying to wheel, after all how many left section cards could they have? We had a line command, so the entire surviving Spartan line rolled forwards, contacting an unfortunate Athenian light infanty unit.

As we predicted, Myronides was left behind by our advance.

We engaged the Athenian centre and left clashed bloodily.

The superior quality of the Spartans and the extra General soon swung the battle our way, but we lost another unit in the process. We were now one banner away from defeat, as were the Athenians.

The Athenian right counterattacked against the light troops on our left.

Our light troops however deftly evaded away with moderate losses, while the rest of the line swung around to face the Athenian right.

And rolled forward with a lucky Line Command.

Despite a hard fought engagement (look at all those white crosses!), another Athenian unit bit the dust giving the Spartans six banners and victory.

Over on the Athenian left, Myronides could only look an helplessly as the rest of his army ran away.

Well, that was a real nail biter. The critical point was the Spartan decision to attack after their right flank collapsed, many thanks to Jerry for arguing the case so cogently. Once a again, a great CnC Ancients  game which went down to the wire.