Description
300 Spartans: The 9 Card Thermopylae is a solitaire micro wargame.
You will play the role of the Persians and try to eliminate the Greek blockade while losing as few of your troops as possible.
You will order archers, infantry, and your elite immortal troops while spending command points to use additional strategy.
Each turn, you must carefully choose how to spend your limited command points. Some actions can be used every turn and others only when luck allows it.
Spend your command points too quickly and you will gain short term victories while missing out on larger benefits.
Stockpile them and the Spartans will quickly destroy your troops. Your goal is to eliminate the Spartans from the board while trying to outperform the historic results.
Gameplay
The game uses a simplified Command and Colors system similar to C&C Ancients or The Great War.
Each turn you will draw two cards and choose one to use to command certain troops on the board and one to use for its tactical event.
Each card also has a Spartan Event, which will modify the way they fight and give them advantages against your troops.
The game is played using a total of 9 cards, 16 dice, and 2 cubes.
One card contains the map for the game, another the turn and status tracks, and the other seven cards contain the game’s activations and events.
Each of those card has three sections on it 1.) Persian Command 2.) Persian Tactics and 3.) Spartan Event.
You will only need to look at the relevant event for the current phase of the game.
Each turn is played out in a series of phases.
1. Card Draw Phase
2. Spartan Event Phase
3. Tactics Phase
4. Command Phase
5. Spartan Attack Phase
6. Victory or Loss Check Phase
7. End of Day Phase
Despite the small number of components and short playing time, the game presents a challenging experience and interesting historical narrative for this famous battle.
Can you beat the historical result and lead your Persian soldiers to victory over the Greeks with minimal Persian casualties?
Or will your soldiers get massacred by the Spartan war machine?
Files
A selection of files from BoardGameGeek. Links will open in a new window or tab.
300 Spartans – Rules
Rules of the game
>> Click to download PDF <<
300 Spartans – Cards
A low ink version of the cards to make printing a little easier.
>> Click to download PDF <<
300 Spartans – Card Backs
A low ink version of the card backs with artwork from the game. These were designed by Simon Hunt.
>> Click to download SVG <<