Spartans loved to provide a terse "laconic" reply to any question. One of my favourite examples (from Wikipedia) is from the time of the invasion of Philip II of Macedon. With key Greek city-states in submission, Philip turned his attention to Sparta and sent a message: "If I win this war, you will be slaves
forever." In another version, Philip proclaims: "You are advised to
submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I
will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."
According to both accounts, the Spartan ephors sent back a one word reply: "If." Subsequently, both Philip and Alexander avoided Sparta entirely.
The above (clickable) photo is of a unit of Spartans I've just expanded and re-based. Most of the minis were excellently painted by my friend Nick Speller. Their previous basing (by me) never really worked; they proved very challenging to rank. I got around this by increasing base depths, and multi-basing into 8's. This unit includes all the miniatures in attacking poses, and will form the right hand unit of the phalanx.
I've now completed this mini-reorganisation of my Spartans, and now have three units of 36. Sometime post Raphia, I'll add another unit. Now I'll get back to the men with longer pointy sticks...










