Hellenistic Spartan army

[Darthvegeta800]

Waiting for the arrival of my 15mm Dark Ages Kickstarter this summer I'm a bit 'in between' projects atm.
I have a backlog of 40K Arbites and my Space Hulk set i'm painting up but I feel the itch to do a little ancients sideproject.


Since the move I'm not fully deployed 'hobby material'-wise but I did dig up my huge box of 1/72 ancients I collected the last 2 years.
I finished already my multiple 1/72 Hoplite forces. (Sparta, Thebes, Athens) DBX based. Despite me being a bit iffy about DBA. But it's a good basing convention.

In the box there's a ton of Punic War stuff for the future but... I found some Macedonians/Successor kits.
I had been daydreaming for many months now about doing an atypical Spartan list.
Late Hellenistic Sparta. (so the reformed Sparta trying and failing a final revival)
This army was seemingly Pike heavy.
But I find little info on it. I plan to make a dozen or so DBX bases for 'fun'. To use in simpler wargames. (Neil Thomas One Hour Wargames perhaps?)

Are there any books that delve deep into the army organisation? I ordered "In the Name of Lykourgos: The Rise and Fall of the Spartan Revolutionary Movement" but I suspect it'll mostly be fascinating history.
And are there any sources for visual aids? (potential uniforms/colors etc)

When it comes to Sparta and Classical Greece I have plenty in my collection.
But about this era I have very little, almost nothing.


From what little info I dug up: (mostly from army lists in rulebooks)
1) A lot of Pike Phalanx (same uniform as the other Hellenistic states?)
2) Some light cav.
3) A little bit of Heavy Cav.
4) some skirmishers.

But above all... tons of Pike.
Is this correct?

Any pointers would be a lot of help!

[Duncan Head]

In the Name of Lykourgos is very good, and you will find a lot of strictly military information therein. Otherwise I can't recommend all that much except for paging through Polybios, who is the main narrative source (and Livy, and Plutarch's Lives of Agis and Kleomenes) or Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars. Cartledge & Spawforth's Hellenistic and Roman Sparta is good, but doesn't have much military information.

The key difference from other Greek armies of the time is probably that the Spartan kings and especially the later "tyrants" relied more on their mercenaries.

Nothing, as far as I know, on appearance or colours. The various threads on this site on pike-phalanxes and their shields include some discussion of whether the Spartan shield was different from the "Macedonian", in being a hoplite shield fitted with an ochanon instead of a porpax.

[Darthvegeta800]

In the Name of Lykourgos is very good, and you will find a lot of strictly military information therein. Otherwise I can't recommend all that much except for paging through Polybios, who is the main narrative source (and Livy, and Plutarch's Lives of Agis and Kleomenes) or Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars. Cartledge & Spawforth's Hellenistic and Roman Sparta is good, but doesn't have much military information.

The key difference from other Greek armies of the time is probably that the Spartan kings and especially the later "tyrants" relied more on their mercenaries.

Nothing, as far as I know, on appearance or colours. The various threads on this site on pike-phalanxes and their shields include some discussion of whether the Spartan shield was different from the "Macedonian", in being a hoplite shield fitted with an ochanon instead of a porpax.

Many thanks for the feedback. This response gave me food for thought.

Do you think I could get away with using the Spartan lambda?

[Duncan Head]

No real reason why not. Alternatively, lambda + alpha as on coins of Kleomenes III  - https://www.alphapolitismos.gr/en/02-Numismatic-Collection/collection/details/7 - though that's obviously not a shield-pattern.

[Darthvegeta800]

Thanks!!!