Introduction

I have been gaming ancients for most of the last 17 years, dating from a few weeks before the birth of my daughter Kate, a now rising junior in High School. That was the first Historicon I attended, which must have been the second or third occasion of the event. Regardless, it is the date of my first metal miniatures purchases -- approximately 8 packs of 25mm Ral Partha hoplites, perhaps 48 castings in all -- which laid the foundation of a collection that currently numbers thousands. Over the years, despite forays into other eras and other scales, I've always returned to my wargaming roots in classical warfare, hoplites and peltasts, Athenians and Spartans, Macedonians and Persians.

What I propose to inaugurate with the following piece on the Achaemenid Persians is a series of SAGA articles on selected army lists in Terry Gore and Bruce Taylor's Ancient Warfare. Initially, I intended these notes for the eyes of AW's redoubtable list editor, Perry Gray, but they quickly mushroomed in scope to a fair sized article of (it is hoped) general interest to ancients players. Please note, all dates in the text are BC.

The Achaemenid Persian lists (47 and 49) in pre-Foundry AW are good starting points for a gamer wishing to undertake the daunting task of projecting the Great King's interests on the gaming table, but they would benefit from some clarification and some additional chrome. I have taken the liberty of splitting both lists into two: (i.) for the Early Achaemenids, “Rise of Persia” and “Attack On The West” lists; (ii.) for the Late Achaemenids, “Civil War” and “The End” lists.

Numbers

The total number of stands is the key to designing an army list. One could use figure counts, but the feeling here is that they are more daunting to use; besides, AW was written to appeal to a wide range of gamers, regardless their figure basing schemes, so using the stand as the benchmark is the best way to calibrate armies. Although it is not apparent what this parameter is for the average AW army, it is approximately 206 for the Early Achaemenid Persian (list 47), and 182 for the Late Achaemenid Persian (list 49), in both cases ignoring artillery, generals, supply units, scythed chariots, elephants and ships.

If the army to be modelled is assumed to number 100,000 in the extreme (a good number for the Achaemenids), then the nominal scale per stand is 485 for the former, and 549 for the latter. These imply figure scales, for stands of strength 4, of approximately 121 and 137, respectively, which are right on target for AW.

It is known that the Achaemenid army was organized on a decimal system, with 10 men to a squad, 100 per company, 1,000 per regiment (hazarabam) and 10,000 in a division (baivarabam). In the following lists, 20 stands are equated to a division of 10,000 (500 men per stand, or 125 men per figure for close order infantry).

More Achaemenid Persians

Introduction
A Persian Primer
A Great Power Emerges 550 - 500BC
Attack on the West 500 - 400BC
Civil War 400-338BC
The End 338-329BC
Sparabara House Rule