Yuezhi units. [Archive]

Fondor_Yards

08-03-2008, 22:04

Well they do only have 2 units.

Yuezhi Nobles
These mounted nobles represent a lightly armoured medium cavalry, able to skirmish with their bows and equipped with lances also able to mount a desperate charge. They wield their bows with skill, and are able to handle their lances; However their chief virtue lies in their supportive nature, as horse-archers but also as flankers, a diversionary force as well as nobles who may lead but also inspire their troops. They will not perform very well in melee due to their light defences, so care must be taken to use these nobles wisely. This is offset by their great skill in archery, allowing them to out-range their adversaries and to out-power other archers thanks to their asymmetrical bows.

Historically, these nobles represent the upper end cavalry of the Yuezhi or Tocharians before they came into contact with the “Haoma-drinking Scythians” (Sakâ Haomâvargâ) who fielded heavily armed and armoured horsemen. As such they are a far cry from the later feared Kushan cataphracts. Nevertheless the rationale of the Yuezhi nobles may merely have been authoritative, and “aristocratic”, in the sense of that their exquisite garments ordained them a rallying point in battle, far rather than being proven for battle themselves. As the Yuezhi began to interact with the Saka, Tocharian influences reached the Graeco-Bactrians and the Hellenistic colonies along the Indus river, the Indians and subsequently the Parthians who became their western nemesis during the height of the Kushan hegemony. The Yuezhi cavalry must have been numerous, for Chinese sources though possibly exaggerated mention herds of horses numbering upwards hundreds of thousands of animals of riding quality. The asymmetrical bow was most likely proliferated by them; A representation of Eros from the 1st century CE Gandhara (Back then firmly in Tocharian/Yuezhi rule) shows the deity wielding an asymmetrical bow, now lost from the eyes of scholars.

Yuezhi Riders
These horsemen make up the backbone of the Yuezhi cavalry, as horse-archers. As such they are armed with extremely powerful composite bows of the asymmetrical or otherwise known as the Hunnic style. Thus able to out-range other horsemen and fire off their missiles with greater power, they are at an advantage compared to other horse-archers; The greater penetrative power also make them valuable for taking out heavily armed horsemen though these bows also require greater skill to wield and to use due to their greater size and asymmetry compared to the more popular Scythian-style composite bow used by mounted archers to the west. Their qualities as archers is offset by their performance in melee as they are lightly armed and bear little to no armour. Used wisely, these mounted archers are a danger to any ill-prepared enemy.

Historically, Yuezhi or Tocharian horse-archers were often significant elements in the armies of the Parthians, Indo-Parthians, Saka and the later Indo-Scythians where the latter was a pivotal period in shaping the Kushan Empire in which Tocharians came to dominate the political and military scene of India for centuries. Nevertheless their historical presence in foreign armies, including that of the Seleucids as mercenaries during the campaign of Antiochus VII Sidetes against Parthian king Phraates II, was offset by their liability; As notorious as the case was in the aftermath of the Parthian victory at Ecbatana, the Tocharians (Popularly dubbed in the ethnically ambiguous term “Scythians”) demanded compensation for their services, an event which lead to the death of Phraates as he was handed over by his Hellenic captives. In another case at 124 BCE, the Tocharians had invaded the Parthians and succeeded to such a degree that during battle King Artabanus I of Parthia was mortally wounded. Mithradates II The Great of the Parthian empire however eliminated the Yuezhi threat which would only reappear by the rise of the Kushan hegemony, starting with Kujula Kadphises who succeeded in wresting Paropamisos and parts of Arachosia and Drangiana away from Parthian possession.