Here we have my Spartan Hoplite army. It covers a wide timespan and several DBA lists. The figures best represent the later hoplite armies from 448-223 BCE (DBA II/5a, the Spartan Army in Greece 448-276 BC and DBA II/31cd, the Hellenistic Spartan Army 278-223 BC).
However it also works as a DBA I/52b Early Spartan Hoplite Army - just ignore those lambdas.
Here is the entire army. The camp - a Spartan Dokana - is on display as well.
First to the heart of the army: the Spartiates, males with full citizenship. The Spartans had very restrictive citizenship rules which meant the number of folk with full citizenship steadily reduced over the years. It's upon these that the Spartan reputation was built.
These guys are mainly Mini Figs along with Museum Miniatures officers - the ones with the transverse crests. I've played to the Spartan stereotype with these guys by giving them all identical lambdas on their shields, red tunics as well as pilos helmets.
The CinC's element has the banner. It's probably quite unhistorical but useful for wargames use; those hoplites all look kinda the same. I've added a patch of red flowers on each of these elements to differentiate them from the perioikoi hoplites below (those hoplites all look kinda the same).
The next few pictures are more Spartiates but are from the later Hellenistic period army (DBA II/31d). In this period the Spartans were converting to Macedonian style pikemen - Museum Miniatures except for the banner man who is Mini Figs.
Finally, we have the allied hoplites. These guys fought with varying degrees of enthusiasm for the Spartans. I got to express myself a bit more with these guys. I made them a whole lot lot less uniform and went to town on the shields. The designs are all historical, either from known shield designs or coins from their region.
Cavalry was not a Spartan strength but they fielded a small number of them. These are Museum Miniatures.
And here are some light horsemen, also Museum Miniatures. Together with the cavalry element, the provide a bit of tactical flexibility for the Spartans
The guys below are called skiritai in the DBA II/5a list, and thureophoroi (after their thyreos style shield) in the DBA II/31cd lists. The are basically mercenary peltasts - 4Ax in DBA-speak. The figures are from Tin Soldier.
At the lowest end of the Spartan (indeed all Greek hoplite) strata were the skirmishers. They are rarely mentioned in texts but such mentions as there are indicate they played important battle roles. The models are Tin Soldier.
The final part of this Spartan army is the camp. I decided a good old pre-battle animal sacrifice would be just the ticket. To Spartan it up a bit, I scratchbuilt a Dokana (the Beams of Castor & Pollux) based on a famous Laconian grave relief.
So, there we have my Spartan army in 15mm. I'm certainly happy with the results.
Featherstone Factor 32 - The Greeks? Fine if vanilla excites you. Feel free to add a couple of points for the Spartan army.
Donald says that while the ordinary Greek citizen soldier hoplites were well armoured but dull, unimaginative, inflexible and un-manoeuvrable; the Spartans were menacing Uber-professionals of immense morale, strength and endurance. All Greeks were good at thrashing Persians.
What’s this Featherstone Factor all about?
