Micro Marathon

I've been on a LARP kick recently but that hobby will have to go on hiatus for a while, as South Florida is battening down the hatches against the coronavirus. My company, for example, has now gone to full-time telecommuting for the time being. Given that I am a high-risk individual, I am social distancing, which means no more LARP. Well, that gives me more time for miniatures at least.

I saw a post on the Wargames Website featuring an Athens vs. Sparta battle. It whet my appetite for some ancients battles. I decided to dig out my MicroBattle rules. They are very simple rules for big battles in small spaces. They may not be the pinnacle of historical accuracy, but they give me short, fun games.

I decided to play out some historical battles using my rules. I pulled out Philip Sabin's Lost Battles and started with the first battle - Marathon. I modified his scenario for my smaller armies.

The Persian Empire (blue) has invaded Greece. The Greek city-states (red) have allied to drive out the invader. The Greeks field 5 units of hoplites (Heavy Infantry) while the Persians have 5 units of bow-armed massed infantry (classified as Missile Infantry) and a unit of Heavy Cavalry. I had to borrow some infantry from my all-black army of evil to fill out the Persians.

The armies line up on the plain.

The Greek left wing advances. Persian cavalry sets up a flank attack.

The Greeks advance. The Persian horse attacks the hoplites. They cause some casualties but the infantry holds.

The battle lines clash.

The Greeks rout Persian infantry in the center and on their left.

After an extended melee, the hoplites on the left drive off the cavalry.

The victorious center unit of hoplites hits the flank of the Persian bows. The Persian unit breaks.

This puts the Persians over 50% losses. The Persian army loses heart and routs from the field. Despite suffering some heavy casualties (3 of 5 units suffered serious casualties), the Greek infantry refused to leave the field. A hard won victory!