Heroic Stand: Thermopylae - The Hot Gates

From DVG:

Welcome to DVG's Heroic Stand Series !

All the games, (“Rorke's Drift”, “The Alamo” and “Thermopylae”) from the “Heroic Stand” series are Solitaire games and share the same basic game mechanics. Hand management and deck depletion. The rules let you go easily from one game to the other without a lot of extra rules. With quick and easy to learn rules the game has a fast pace, either played solo or multi player. When playing a co-operative game helping each other out will be the way to win. With a clutter free game board and cards, a game is easily played in 30 minutes.

Game rules are easy to learn, but the game play is very strategic with every decision you make being key to winning the game. Which card to play and when, are just a couple of them. With several difficulty levels of play and a random difficulty level option, the games have great replay value.

What card will you attack with? Will you use one of your special cards to increase your attack? Will your location give you a bonus? Defeating the second unknown enemy card is the constant gamble you will need to take with the cards you hold.

Each game has its own feel to it and aims to capture the key elements of the battles.

Thermopylae

Commonly known as the Stand of the 300, Thermopylae was an amazing battle. The Persian Empire troops, led by Xerxes I, faced 300 Greek forces, led by the Spartans, led by Leonidas. Are you able to hold off the Persians? Are you able to defeat them before the flanking forces attack from the surrounding hills? Stand and become the object of legends!

Background:

(480 BC) The Battle of Thermopylae was fought between the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Xerxes I and an alliance of Greek city-states led by Sparta under Leonidas I.The engagement at Thermopylae occurred simultaneously with the Battle of Artemisium: between July and September 480 BC.  Lasting over the course of three days, it was one of the most prominent battles of both the second Persian invasion of Greece which, under Xerxes I was a delayed response to the failure of the first Persian invasion which had been initiated by Darius I and ended in 490 BC by an Athenian-led Greek victory at the Battle of Marathon.  Xerxes had amassed a massive land and naval force, and set out to conquer all of Greece. The Athenian politician and general Themistocles proposed that the allied Greeks block the advance of the Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae.

Around the start of the invasion, a Greek force of approximately 7,000 men led by Leonidas marched north to block the pass of Thermopylae against the Persian army, with between 120,000 and 300,000 soldiers. The outnumbered Greeks held them off for seven days (including three of direct battle) before their rear-guard was annihilated in one of history's most famous last stands. The Greeks blocked the only road by which the massive Persian army could traverse the narrow pass for two full days of battle.