It is 425 BC. A small force of Athenians led by Demosthenes is fortifying a position on the headland of Pylos. The Spartans respond by sending a fleet of 44 ships to block the harbour, occupy the island of Sphakteria and land troops to attack the incomplete fortifications on the seaward side. Demosthenes takes a body picked hoplites supported by archers from the fortifications to oppose a Spartan amphibious landing on the beach.
Our game, using ‘Alala! rules, starts with the Spartans on board ships at sea. The narrow Sikia channel only allows one ship at a time to enter the bay and then attempt to land.
Not being the best of sailors, the Spartans must trust Poseidon to land safely. Where they actually land will be determined by the god, the dice by the beach indicating the possible landing zones dependent on the dice rolls. This poses as much of a problem for the Athenians as they must be ready to move troops to wherever the Spartans land.
After consulting the gods, sacrificing to Poseidon and encouraging his men, Brasidias (leader of the Spartan landing party) jumps ashore together with a unit of Spartan citizens. Immediately the Athenians converge on them, showering the Spartans with arrows as Demosthenes leads his hoplites forward.
Taking casualties from archery, Brasidias’ Spartans send out their Ekdromoi to see off the Athenian sailors closing in on their rear (one of the Alala God Cards). The fates, however, are not on their side. Demosthenes’ Athenians get the better of the ensuing close combat — driving the Spartans back to the sea.
A second Spartan unit lands and, like its predecessor, it takes casualties from the Athenian archers. Advancing from the beach it is met by a unit of Athenian and Messenian hoplites drawn from the fortifications. Once again the fates favour the Athenians. Meanwhile Brasidias’ men are surrounded and die fighting to the last man.
So far is has not been going well for the Spartans — but more are sailing into the bay. A ship carrying Helot light infantry grounds before reaching the shore and the Helots are badly shot up before they can wade through the surf to reach dry land. As a result the Athenians maintain a clear skirmisher superiority. The Spartan Neodamodes (freed Helots serving as hoplites) also ground before reaching the shore.
The Spartan admiral Thrasymelidas takes control of the newly landed men. He is able to get them into fighting order before the Athenian hoplites — fresh from their victory over Brasidias are able to make it to the other side of the beach to oppose him. However the Spartans do take casualties from Athenian archery and javelins.
Thrasymelidas deploys the Neodamodes to hold off the advancing Athenian hoplites while he makes a dash to take the now undefended fortifications.
Although the Spartan Neodamodes succeed in holding their ground, the dash to the fortifications is doomed as Thrasymelidas’ men take further missile casualties with Demosthenes leading his picked hoplites towards their flank. So history is repeated with the Athenians winning the day.
The scenario worked well, providing is a different sort of game for ‘Alala! — one that needs only a few units and is a far cry from the usual line-‘em-up Greek hoplite battle. The complete scenario with maps, orders of battle and ship templates can be downloaded from the Classical Scenarios section of my website. Many thanks to Pete O’Toole who provided the inspiration (and ship templates) in his excellent War against the Spartans scenario book.
Absolutely agree with Demosthenes, it was a cracking game even if Brasidias (aka ME!) did lose and die in the attempt. At least it was a glorious death - well that's what's going to be written in the Spartan's history. I don't think we Spartans made too many bad decisions but we obviously didn't make the correct sacrifices to the dice gods. Great game, Simon, thank you for setting it all up.
Lovely models and excellent company.
It was a fun game with interesting decisions to be made. Playing Demosthenes, I decided I needed to try to overwhelm the arriving Spartan units as quickly as possible with what little forces I had and trust I could move/redeploy to cope with other developing threats, because there was no way I could predict or influence where the Spartan ships would land. As it was, the Spartans didn't make any particularly bad decisions, and I think I (just!) won due to a couple of ships grounding short of the beach, and some hesitation amongst uncommanded units, which together delayed them just sufficiently to enable me to deal with each in turn. Once again 'Alala!' delivered a good game :-)