User blog:Laquearius/Ajax the Greater (Mythology) vs Xerxes (300)



Ajax the Greater, the Achaean warrior who honored his oath and fought to bring about Troy's destruction...

Xerxes I, the god-king who led the hordes of Persia in a war to conquer Greece...

Who is DEADLIEST?

The Leader and Company: Ajax the Greater, Teucer, and Ajax the Lesser
(Note: To avoid confusion, Ajax the Greater will be referred to as simply Ajax, and Ajax the Lesser will be referred to as Locrian Ajax.) Ajax the Greater was one of the greatest warriors in the Achaean army during the Trojan War, usually considered second only to Achilles. When Achilles withdrew from the fighting, Ajax was chosen to fight Hector in his place. Ajax defeated Hector, but the fight was ended by Zeus. Later, Ajax made a valiant effort to defend the Greek ships from the Trojans, but he was disarmed by Hector and forced to retreat. When Achilles was killed, it was decided that Ajax and Odysseus would compete to determine who would receive Achilles's god-forged armor. The physical tests ended in a draw, but Odysseus proved himself the better speaker, and he received the armor. Fueled by a combination of anger at the lack of respect he was shown after all his efforts and the wiles of Athena, Ajax went mad. He slaughtered the Achaeans' livestock, believing them to be his fellow soldiers. When he came to his senses, he committed suicide.

Ajax is a man of great stature and superhuman strength, called "the bulwark of the Achaeans" by Homer. He uses a massive tower shield made of seven layers of hide and one layer of bronze. His weapon is a spear meant for fighting at sea, which is long enough to be considered a pike, but the weight and length does not phase Ajax. He is covered from head to toe in heavy bronze plate armor, further cementing his status as an indomitable defensive fighter.

--- Teucer was Ajax's half-brother, the son of Ajax's father and his second wife. He was a close friend of Ajax, and fought alongside him in the Trojan War. He displayed notable combat prowess during the defense of the ships, in which he fought against Hector himself. After Ajax's suicide, he guarded his brother's body until Agamemnon allowed it to be cremated. When the war ended, Teucer was disowned by his father, who was furious at him for not returning Ajax's body and arms. Teucer left for a life of wandering, and eventually found a new home on Cyprus.

Teucer is a crack archer, and he uses his skills in conjunction with those of Ajax, firing arrows from behind the safety of Ajax's shield. As such, he primarily uses a recurve bow in battle. He is also reasonably skilled with the dory, as he showed after Zeus destroyed his bow at the battle at the ships. He wears scaled bronze armor.

--- Ajax the Lesser was the son of King Oileus of Locris and the captain of the Locrian division in the Trojan War. His mother was a nymph named Rhene, making Locrian Ajax a demigod. Although of short stature, he is known among the Greeks as the greatest in speed, next to Achilles himself. Despite his feats in combat, he is best known for antagonizing the Olympians, enraging Athena with his rape of the prophetess Cassandra and boastfully defying Poseidon, which leads to his death.

Making the most of his swiftness, Locrian Ajax wears only a linen linothorax breastplate as armor. He wields both a dory spear, and a double-edged Mycenaean shortsword, striking powerfully and quickly.

The Mooks: Achaean Light Infantry
Most of Ajax's army will be made up of light infantry, sparsely equipped soldiers which formed the majority of Mycenaean armies. There is no standard for equipment for light infantry, but most will be carrying a dory spear for thrusting, and three-to-four javelins for throwing. They wear no armor, because of the importance of movement, excluding a leather helmet and a crescent-shaped wicker pelte shield. The light infantry also include archers, wielding recurve bows. The archers wear body armor to make up for their lack of shields, but it is still relatively minimal: usually just leather curiasses and leather helmets. There will be thirty-thousand light infantry in Ajax's army, half of which will be archers.

The Elite Mooks: Achaean Heavy Infantry
The light infantry covers the advance of the more heavily armed and armored heavy infantry. They are similarly equipped and use similar tactics to their successors, the hoplites. Each heavy infantryman is clad in either bronze plate armor or bronze scale armor, with an accompanying hide, bodylength tower shield. For weapons, they have the classic dory spear and a Mycenaean shortsword. There will be forty-thousand heavy infantry in Ajax's army.

The Minibosses: Achaean Chariots
The backbone of Mycenaean armies were the noblemen of the society, mounted in chariots. Being the most powerful and influential people in Mycenaean society, they were given the most effective weaponry and armor whenever the state went to war. They ride their two-horse chariots, which are manned by lightly armored servants. They wear heavy bronze plate armor, protecting almost every part of the body. For further protection, they carry bodylength, multi-layered, hide figure-eight shields. They wield two dory spears, one for throwing and one for melee combat. In the world of Greek myths and Homeric epics, the noblemen are somewhat superhuman fighters, capable of fighting multiple mundane opponents at once and able to quickly affect the tide of battle with their presence. There will be five-thousand chariots in Ajax's army.

The Leader and Company: Xerxes, Artemisia, and the Immortal Guard
Xerxes is the king of the Persian Empire, having inherited the title from his father Darius. After Darius's disastrous defeat at the Battle of Marathon, he proclaimed with his dying breath that only the gods could defeat the Greeks. Artemisia, Darius's admiral, convinced Xerxes that his words were in fact a challenge. Xerxes wandered through the desert on a pilgrimage, and arrived at a cave filled with an otherworldly liquid. He bathed in the pool, and emerged as an eight-foot-tall "god-king". He returned to Persia, and launched a campaign to subdue Greece and avenge his father.

The magical liquid that Xerxes bathed in transformed him into a superhuman, with much greater strength than that of any ordinary man. Even with all his power, Xerxes is more than content to allow his massive hordes of minions do his fighting for him. He is seen using an oversized double-bitted battle axe to decapitate the corpse of Leonidas, which he will carry with him in this battle.

--- Artemisia is Xerxes's admiral and his premier adviser. Her family was killed by Greeks when she was a child, who then abused Artemisia and left her for dead. She was taken in by a Persian emissary, and was raised in the Persian court. When Darius died, she saw her opportunity to manipulate Xerxes into a instrument of vengeance against Greece. She murdered most of the Persian politicians when Xerxes was on his pilgrimage, ensuring that he would only hear her voice. She was again made commander of the Persian fleet when Xerxes returned and declared war against the Greeks.

Artemisia is clever, brutal, and an excellent fighter, making use of both a recurve bow to pick off Greek soldiers from range, and a pair of xiphos-like swords for close combat. She wears a complex armor made of metal plates and mail.

--- The Immortals are a unit of Persian soldiers that serve as Xerxes's personal guard. Dilios describes them as the deadliest fighting force in Asia, and they quickly earned their title at the Battle of Thermopylae, where they were one of the few of Xerxes's minions capable of killing the superhuman Spartans. They are not actually humans, and are revealed to be humanoid goblin-like creatures.

Immortals are all equipped and armed identically. They wear armor made of layered metal plates and metal masks similar to those worn by samurai, and wield a pair of curved swords comparable to the Japanese tachi. For the purposes of this match, Xerxes and Artemisia will be accompanied by thirty immortals.

The Mooks: Persian Footmen
The size of the Persian Empire allows its armies to conscript a massive amount of soldiers to fight their wars. The vast majority of these soldiers become ordinary footmen, lightly armed and armored, that sent in massive human wave attacks, relying on sheer numbers to overwhelm the enemy. They wield simple spears, not too dissimilar from their Greek opponents, xiphos-like swords, and Boeotian-esque shields. The only armor they wear is made of cloth. There will be sixty-thousand footmen in Xerxes's army.

The Elite Mooks: Persian Cavalry
When the footmen fail, the Persian army sends its cavalry. Their equipment is almost identical to that of the infantry, excluding the fact that they are much better armored, wearing very simplistic spangenhelm-like helmet, and metal body armor similar to a musculata. Just like their horseless counterparts, they are rarely used for any tactics other than the classic head-on charge. There will be ten-thousand cavalry in Xerxes's army.

The Minibosses: War Elephants and the Uber-Immortal
The Persian Empire stretches from India to Africa, and Xerxes makes use of the many strange creatures within his borders in his armies. Among them are the war elephants. These creatures are much larger than their real-life counterparts, and charge into battle with towers atop their backs, filled with Persian soldiers armed with recurve bows to rain down arrows as the elephants tear apart the ranks of the enemy. However, the elephants are easily spooked, and may act unpredictably. Unlike some real civilizations, the Persian do not equip their elephants with any kind of armor. There will be sixty war elephants in Xerxes's army.

--- Among their ranks, the Immortals bring a gigantic monster of a man called the Uber-Immortal, to serve as a shock unit. Due to it's unpredictably nature, it is kept in chains by the Immortals until they are ready to unleash it on the enemy. It has inhuman strength, durability, is nigh immune to pain, and wields a large machete-like sword. It is also rather quick, and surprisingly accurate when wielding throwing weapons. Like the elephants, it is extremely unpredictable, and might even turn on its own allies. At the Battle of Thermopylae, it was capable of fighting one-on-one with Leonidas himself for a decent amount of time, before being killed by decapitation.

Statistics
Brutality

Some of the Achaeans and Trojans show extreme brutality over the course of the war, but Ajax is not one of them. He and his army are no more brutal than any other army was at the time, with all the same pillage, rape, and enslavement. Xerxes leads his army and defeats his enemies largely through fear. He executes generals who have failed him without question, and makes a mockery out of fallen enemies. He burns and sacks towns, and slaughters their inhabitants without mercy. He whips his soldiers as they march into battle, intent on making them fear him more than the enemy.

Experience

The Trojan War was the first real taste of battle for Ajax and his companions. The war lasted ten years, and it saw Ajax and his army facing off against Hector and the Trojan army, the armies of the Dardanian allies, Penthesilea's Amazons, and many others. Despite Xerxes's reputation, the second Greek campaign is the first war he has waged by himself. He was involved with his father's failed invasion years earlier, and due to his presence at the Battle of Marathon, was likely actively involved. But for his army, Persia has conquered most of the known world, so those lucky enough to have survived will certainly be significantly experienced. On a more personal scale, Ajax and Teucer has gone up against the likes of Hector multiple times, and survived. Xerxes himself has never been but into a situation where he was forced to fight, but Artemisia is the opposite, clearly enjoying any opportunity to kill Greeks.

Leadership

Although not as much of a natural leader as some of the other Greek heroes, Ajax is definitely a man many are willing to follow. He is quite the eloquent speaker, and demonstrates this when he rallies his men at the battle at the ships. His reputation as a great warrior also helps to encourage his troops to fight their hardest. On the Persian side, Xerxes's soldiers follow him solely out of fear and reverence. Most of them truly believe he is a god, and see no choice but to serve him. Xerxes enforces his will among his people by installing harsh punishments, having his men whipped when they underperform, and executing generals when they fail him.

Metallurgy

The mythological world that Ajax originates from is based off of Greece's Mycenaean period, which took place during the last phase of the Bronze Age. Bronze was the strongest metal available to the Greeks at the time, so it is what Ajax's army will be equipped with. 300 takes place in 481 BC, after the end of the Near East's Iron Age, so the metal of Xerxes's army will iron.

Strategy

Neither warrior shines in this category. Ajax left most of the planning and strategics to names like Agamemnon and Odysseus, but being the leader of the Salaminean division at Troy means he still knows a thing or two about commanding an army. However, war in Ajax's world is very honorable and idealized, with many engagements being decided by champion warfare, while normal troops take on a minor role. Xerxes tends to rely on fear and overwhelming force to claim victory, knowing that the sheer size and frightening strangeness of his army will be enough to scare most of his enemies in submission. He seems to have wised up since Thermopylae, no longer underestimating the Greeks' prowess for battle, and favoring more cautious tactics, much to the displeasure of Artemisia.