Having received a number of 20mm plastic sets from various manufacturers I cast about for an army to recruit. I was looking for something unusual and did not want to settle for an Alexandrian or Successor army. So after perusing the army lists in DBA 2 I decided to go Spartan. The list I chose was II/31e Spartan 222-149 BC. This army comprised of the General's element (1x4Pk), 5 elements of 4Pk, 1x3Cv element, 1x2LH element, 2x4Ax elements and 2x2Ps elements. Finally I have included a camp followers element to be used when I don't wish to use one of my 12 elements to garrison the camp. A camp for this army can be found here, whilst the Spartan BUA is located here.
By this time the Spartans had experienced a significant period of population decline and unlike armies of earlier period Sparta has to rely upon greater numbers of mercenaries. Unlike other Hellenistic Greek forces the Spartans did not make the gradual change from hoplite to pike armed phalangite with an intermediate period of thureophoroi. Thureophoroi were peltasts armed with a long spear and carrying an oval shaped shield called a thureos. Rather the Spartan citizens converted directly from hoplite to pike armed phalanx. Spartiates, periocoi and emancipated helots by this time only contributed about 50% of a Spartan army. The rest were made up of mercenaries with subsidies supplied by Ptolemy Euergetes II.