Mortal Gods – Plataians for demo games

After showing the Thebans for my upcoming demo table for Mortal Gods in my last article, today I can present the counterpart from Plataiai (pronounced Plataiah), the long-term vassal of Athens. As I had planned, I followed the setup of the Thebans one-to-one in order to be able to offer a balanced game experience for the demo games.

Visually, I wanted to create a clear distinction to the Thebans and yet show the connection to Athens. So I chose a grey-blue color as the base for the tunics (Sombre Grey from Vallejo Game Colors) and a more pronounced shade of blue as a spot color (Regal Blue from Army Painter).

I even tried to give the models their own character within their group, in case anyone wanted to take a closer look at the models between the demo games.

One of the Plataeans was given a rabbit as a shield emblem to show that he was the "young hothead" of the group. The older light hoplite, on the other hand, was given a fox as his emblem to show that he was more level-headed in battle.

The hoplite at the head of the group was eventually given a ram as his coat of arms - he would always be the first in the thick of battle, "head first" so to speak.

Although Plataiai was the scene of many battles, the Plataeans were of a rather modest nature. The polis, including the resident Athenians, could only muster around 500 men under arms, as it had suffered numerous losses in the Persian Wars.

With the slingers, I proceeded in a similar fashion to the hoplites, although these were done a lot quicker for me, as the models basically only consist of skin, tunic and a few leather parts - the wonderful side effect of minis in the classic 28mm scale. For reasons of better differentiation, I took the artistic liberty of giving the boys blonde hair, whereas most Greeks at the time had black hair.

Plataiai

Although the area around Plataiai heralded the final act and at the same time the end of the Persian War, the polis was under an ill omen. Although it had fought victoriously alongside the Spartans and Athenians, this unfortunately did not prevent Plataiai from becoming the first major victim of the Peloponnesian War. In 431 BC, the Thebans once again attempted to annex the polis by force and were once again defeated. When war broke out the following year between the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta, and the Attic League, led by Athens, the city was besieged by the Spartans in 429 BC.

The non-military population was evacuated to Athens before the fighting broke out. Of the 400 Plataeans and the 80 resident Athenians, just under half managed to escape during the siege over the following two years. The remaining defenders were finally executed by the Spartans and the city was destroyed entirely, finally sealing the end of the polis. It should be noted that Sparta did not manage to take the city by force, but eventually starved out the defenders.

After the war against the Persians, the Greek alliance had actually sworn to protect Plataiai at all times in order to preserve the independence of this polis. Thucydides, an Athenian aristocrat and historian, assumed that the Thebans were the cause of Sparta's behavior. It was very likely that Thebes had demanded the destruction of Plataea in return for support against the Attic League.

Next steps

Now that the two demo sections are ready, I will probably start building the demo panel. I'm still undecided as to whether it should be a fully designed board in 60x60cm format or four segments in 30x30cm format. I'm leaning towards the latter, as I can show the demo participants what a home project for a Mortal Gods table can look like and I can rearrange the terrain from time to time during the demo rounds.

Wishing everyone a successful start into 2024 - greetings from the Chaosbunker

Dino