Gamer's Guild

Battle of Leuctra  , July 6 371 BC.




                                                      Theban cavalry prepares to advance

Outside Leuctra, a crucial defeat of the Theban cavalry by the Spartan cavalry well supported by Hordes and Spears

     With the death of their general Epaminondas ,the Thebans, outflanked and outfought prepare to flee to the safety of Thebes

Unlike the historical battle, Sparta continues as the top City State of Greece awaiting the next opponent to challenge it.  

The blog is back.  Working on a set of basic rules that covers several periods of warfare. Wednesday night, we began with play testing a hoplite subset of the Ancient rules. Our combatants:

The Spartans

The Athenians

These 4 mm "miniatures" were made with Needlepoint mesh, punched card stock and craft wire. The battle was the Battle of Mantinea in 418 B.C. 


Initial play test resulted in a historically accurate re-creation of the battle. The Athenian general Laches was slain early in the fight and the battle turned into a major route of the Athenians. However, the rules while accurate were not fun to play. After a rules review, some changes in the rules were made. And the battle re-fought.  


This time it was an extremely close battle in which the Athenians won a narrow victory and we agreed the hour long rematch was fun and played much better. A few more tweaks and we may have a set of hoplite and ancient rules for the future.