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This shouldn't be too terribly difficult. But there are three questions here for those folks who play and follow the mod:
1. What is the unit depicted?
2. What faction does it belong to? (It is a faction variant skin)
3. Who skinned/modelled it?
Enjoy! There will be a little reward if it's figured out. :2thumbsup:
I'm going to assume Seleucid's (because I'm biased against the color grey)
Its some sort of Medium Peltast.
I have no idea.
It's a Baktrian medium peltast. As to who skinned it, no earthly idea.
I'll take a wild guess though, the indian peltast reskinned for saka?
RTR has something like this on their forums too, it's a fun way of releasing some cool new skins. Ok, lemme think...
is it a medium peltast? heavier than antakotai (sp) but less armoured than peltastai
It looks pretty Eastern Seleukid or Baktrian to me.
uh...I have NO clue as to who skinned it.
EDIT: dang- Olaf beat me to it. alright, never mind I don't know what that beauty is- is it in .81?
Hm, medium peltast, Ptolemy, Spirit_of_Rob?
Some kind of peltast for the Saka Rauka; I'd also guess Spirt of Rob.
Two of the the three answers have been guessed correctly, but by no one together yet. :grin:
Indo-greek peltast, Bactria, Spirit of Rob?
Edit: The lack of shield is strange. I thought skirmishers usually had small shields. I guess the armour makes up for it...
A small hint perhaps? At least for the faction...
Someone will get the 1 of the 3 that hasn't been guessed yet, but we picked this one because we knew it would be fun to watch the guesses, so no more hints! :grin:
1. Medium or heavy peltast.
2. Very much Eastern Greek because of the scales and helmet. Since they are iron scales I am going to say Seleukid, but if they were bronze it would be a Baktrian unit.
3. Style looks similar to Spartan Warrior's others so I am going to say that he did the unit.
You wouldnt be so mean and show us a mounted unit without the horse, would you?
Hippoakontistai , Arche Seleukia, Spirit_of_rob?
Edit:Changed from Baktria to Seleukia
1)Medium-Heavy skirmisher cavarly
2)Seleukids
3) ???
PS: is the gift the release of the 0.81 patch??:2thumbsup:
It's actually brand new - it won't be in the 0.81 patch, but the next one. Cut off on new units for 0.81 has been made already.
Baktrian, Some sort of Peltast, and oh god how are we suppost to know this....guys should really put their name somewhere on their skins........um antiochus epiphanes?
Kugutsu is closer than anyone so far. He's got the faction and the artist right. And he's even on track - at least puzzled by the right thing - with his questions about the unit itself.
maybe it is some sort of a theuroperoi(sp?) type unit?
Light infantry? :laugh4: Bactria, Spirit of Rob
Candlestick, Drawing Room, Colonel Mustard? :clown:
I must say:
Skirmisher, Bactria, Spirit of Rob
HAHAHA! It's a bit like that... :grin:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kull
Saka, Saka-Greek Peltast, Spirit_of_Rob (Great man, love his work :2thumbsup: )
Hm, if i remember correctly the peltasts on elephants normally dont have shield... so javelin-throwing-guy-on-elephant (please translate into ancient greek ~D), Baktria, S_o_R?
But i think Kull already won ( he is supposed to know it, right?)...
Xaxiphaxiphrataxi, Bartix, God.
Umm.. I mean:
Ekdromoi hoplitai, Bactria, Spirit_of_Rob
ding-ding-dingQuote:
Originally Posted by Bavarian Barbarian
We have a winner. :2thumbsup: "javelin-throwing-guy-on-elephant" is ok, because the unit doesn't have a name by itself, it is part of the elephant unit (which is named already). They keys were the fact that it doesn't have a shield, and that it has no greaves (since they will be protected). Rob has done some great variants, for Mercenary, Baktria, Seleukid, Carthage, Epeiros, Macedon, and Ptolemies.
Here is another one of the variants, whose faction you can easily figure out:
https://img163.imageshack.us/img163/...lecarthjn7.png
Those who said spartan warrior are also sort of right as it set of as one of his models and textures altered where it was needed :)
Oh, so it's an elephantakontistes then! If that is a valid compound word.
:beam: :beam: :beam:Quote:
Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou
Are you saying that EB team is planning to introduce javelineers-on-elephants in 0.82 and there would be different textures for every elephant-breeding nation?
elephant-killer_elephant... with, perhaps, TWENTY javelins...
:dizzy2: :dizzy2: :dizzy2:
fantastic news!!!
Are you going to replace unarmoured_elephants_with_archers with these or you are going to add a third specie?
Those archers will be gone I believe. We won't have two sets of elephants like that (arches in one and javs in the other).
The second "javelin-throwing-guy-on-elephant" posted that should belong to Chartage it's awesome!
His shoulder guards seem to sport that Carthie illuminati-triangle symbol thing, so I figure it does.
'S hot.:biker:
Will the elephant rider javelins have greater range and/or attack than infantry-thrown javelins (due to the elevated position)? What about the number of volleys they can throw? One would think that a lot of javelines could be carried in a howdah...
Anyway, that's an awesome skin and a unit I'll want to experiment with :elephant:
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Originally Posted by Caesar Vastator
It does, look at the symbol on his shoulder pad thing.
A good point, but they also don't get to run and throw too, so that would limit them to balance it out maybe. If someone with some real knowledge on the subject could speak up it might be good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Conqueror
Wow, cool idea guys. Beautiful texture too. Keep up the great work.
EDIT: nevermind
Gah, waste of space, waste of words, stop reading!
My question was answered, this is meaningless, why are you reading!
:inquisitive:Quote:
Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou
awesome skin and a unit..:2thumbsup:
Cheers
Carthage, definitely: I recognise the symbols which were also used for African (elite?, memory...) Pikemen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou
Not real knowledge, but throwing spears is part of 'athletics' at school: main reason why javelimen on foot can hurl their spears so far away would be because they can move their limbs in such a way that they can max out the momentum of their javelins. Elephant riders on the other hand would fall of their elephant, or get teribbly seasick if they tried to do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou
On a side note: didn't greek skirmishers use some kind of device which allowed for even more accelaration of their javelins?
A looped thong tied to the shaft, yes. Acts as a sort of lever for the throw if I've understood correctly. Not quite a real spear-thrower, but helps a bit and easier to handle I'd imagine (since the "aid" isn't a separate device).
They used a sort of Atl Atl but instead of a stick, used a leather strap.
Edit: Watchmen got it.
Plz forgive me, but I am confused now. There are no elephant with tower and archers in EB? We are only going to have elephants with towers and javalins? Or both?
By the way I once rode an Indian elephant when I went to Bush Gardens. I think that being inside one of those elephant towers can be a more stable base for archers and javelin throwers. So I think in my conclusion that at least it gives you a longer range and power with arrows thanks to the height of the beast. I dont know with javalines because I have never thrown one, but I think you need more body movement to make a good shot.
Thanks =)
The javelineers, will they get substantially more javelins than their foot cousings? To be honest, I would love that they get a lot more.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou
1º Because they can`t do the usual procedure of skirmishers, that is to pick up an already used javelin ,and throw it back. So, they cannot replenish themselves of proyectiles
2º The size on the towers. They can carry a lot :grin:
An also, try to put the max number on their towers please (well, if it`s an african foreste elephant, then there`s no much more to do). They look cool!!! :grin:
Cheers!
Are there going to be any more previews like this?
Maybe. That was a sort of cool one though since it had no greaves, no shield, and an interesting helmet. A harder one to guess.
There is no evidence that any Seleukid or Baktrian units beyond kataphraktoi wore scale armour.Quote:
Originally Posted by abou
I'm under the very strong impression scale armour was loved to death out East. Plus the Greeks had been using similar techniques for reinforcing and/or decorating the linothoraxes for quite a while as well, hadn't they ?
And why not ? Scale is good. As metal armour goes it's pretty cheap and cheerful to make and easy to maintain, and gives good protection. Plus you can make it out of quite a few other materials as well.
Given the extant local infrastructure and workforce skilled in making that sort of armour, the Seleucids and Bactrians would have had to be crazy to not make use of it as well.
Your impression would be incorrect. Some Greeks had been wearing composite cuirasses (linen or leather and scale or lamellar together in the same cuirass), but that was very uncommon in the east and was mostly favoured around the Italian peninsula. Alexander famously wears a composite cuirass on the Alexander Mosaic, of course, but this is the latest and farthest eastern example known to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
Why not? Because the wearing of scale cuirasses in the east is not borne out by the archaeological evidence. Linen or leather cuirasses were cheaper to make than metal armour of any kind, and even then it's very apparent that Greek artisans preferred metal muscled cuirasses to any other kind.Quote:
And why not ? Scale is good. As metal armour goes it's pretty cheap and cheerful to make and easy to maintain, and gives good protection. Plus you can make it out of quite a few other materials as well.
You'll have to provide some evidence for the "infrastructure and workforce skilled in making that sort of armour."Quote:
Given the extant local infrastructure and workforce skilled in making that sort of armour, the Seleucids and Bactrians would have had to be crazy to not make use of it as well.
Umm, they were using scale armor in Egypt as early as 1500, and it was of course very popular with the steppe people (although not always of metal obviously). There's scale armor for charioteers in Syria by about 1400. To quote Albert E. Dien "Scale armor had a long history in the Near East and was almost exclusively the armor of the steppeland nomads." Scale armor had a very long history in the east and the steppes.
You're right, and to continue, Assyrians made widespread use of scale armour, as did numerous other Near Eastern peoples (including the Achaemenid Persians to a limited extent). But the Seleukids did not.Quote:
Originally Posted by QwertyMIDX
That's quite a statement for such short posts. I sugest you do better.
If you think that I am wrong, I invite you to present evidence to the contrary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarcasm
Don't worry.
It's coming.
The same bunch who'd been making the stuff for the Persians and whoever else for millenia. Duhhh. They didn't exactly disappear into thin air upon Alexander taking over the place now did they ?Quote:
Originally Posted by MeinPanzer
And they still needed to sell their wares to eat. And the Seleucids and Bactrians and sundry needed armour for their soldiery.
Do the math.
I've also been told the linothorax composite cuirass had a nasty habit of getting close to the sale prices of monolith bronze plate in the more intricate versions. Something about some fairly difficult and time-consuming construction phases, and presumably messing around with all those glues and fabric layers could get kind of complicated as well.
It was lighter and rather more comfortable though (which is what it developed for in Egypt, back in the day).
But particularly given the proliferation of massed archery there something tad more solid was likely quite welcome out East, and solid bronze plate was pretty heavy and expensive (reads as For Elite Guys Mostly). The local patterns of scale armour had for fairly obvious reasons been thoroughly tested in the conditions and were both cheaper and lighter, and were used by local auxiliaries in any case.
To fail to make use of them as appropriate would have been quite idiotic, and both the Seleucids and Bactrians lasted a tad too long to have been rank idiots.
It was pretty much the standard wear for Hetairoi in some variation by what I understand, as well as extremely popular among the various Greeks for both infantry and cavalry use (shows up a lot in vase paintings for example). Alexander's pezhetairoi likely wore something similar - there's a mention in the sources of the men burning their old cuirasses upon receiving new ones, and that's obviously only doable with fabric ones.Quote:
Your impression would be incorrect. Some Greeks had been wearing composite cuirasses (linen or leather and scale or lamellar together in the same cuirass), but that was very uncommon in the east and was mostly favoured around the Italian peninsula. Alexander famously wears a composite cuirass on the Alexander Mosaic, of course, but this is the latest and farthest eastern example known to me.
One Seleucid cuirass shown among the spoils in the Pergamon reliefs incidentally looks an awful lot like a linothorax BTW. And Magnesia was a fairly late event in Seleucid history.
I don't quite grasp the point of that whole segment anyway, though. You seem to be suggesting the Eastern Greeks wore neither derivations of local scale armour nor the Hellenic linothorax - surely you're not claiming they all traipsed around in solid bronze plate ?
And why would only the Cataphracts use scale armour anyway ? And why did scale cuirasses rather akin to linothoraxes in overall cut and appereance remain so common in former Seleucid territories and nearby regions then ?
There are those irksome Indo-Greek coins of Menader too, with the king himself in scale and then the one with athena in scale.
Evidence for Achaemenid Persian scale armour is very slight, based largely on about a dozen pieces or clusters of scale found within the entire expanse of the empire. It seems that the Macedonians probably would have been aware of scale armour well before the time of Alexander, but they simply preferred metal muscle or linen/leather cuirasses. Smiths are have to be flexible in their skill by nature, and I doubt that any one smith could only produce scale or lamellar armour. It seems likely that suits of scale armour were very rare in amongst the Achaemenid Persians, being reserved for very elite soldiers or officers, and that they simply started making types of armour favoured by the Seleukids when they took over. Smiths could create many different types of armour, and it's very apparent given the archaeological record that the Seleukids did not make use of lamellar or scale armour.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
I've honestly never seen sources for prices of ancient armour, at least not in the Hellenistic period. Could you provide a source for that?Quote:
I've also been told the linothorax composite cuirass had a nasty habit of getting close to the sale prices of monolith bronze plate in the more intricate versions.
I would imagine so, but that still didn't stop many, many Etruscan soldiers from buying and wearing them.Quote:
Something about some fairly difficult and time-consuming construction phases, and presumably messing around with all those glues and fabric layers could get kind of complicated as well.
[quote]It was lighter and rather more comfortable though (which is what it developed for in Egypt, back in the day).[.quote]
And the linothorax was even lighter and more comfortable still.
Bezalel Bar-Kochva and numerous others have argued this, but the simple matter of fact is that if archery was so common in the east that it required men to wear such armour, traces of it would survive in the archaeological record one way or another.Quote:
But particularly given the proliferation of massed archery there something tad more solid was likely quite welcome out East, and solid bronze plate was pretty heavy and expensive (reads as For Elite Guys Mostly).
Again, this is pure speculation without evidence.Quote:
The local patterns of scale armour had for fairly obvious reasons been thoroughly tested in the conditions and were both cheaper and lighter, and were used by local auxiliaries in any case.
It's very clear that the other forms of armour employed by the eastern Hellenistic armies suited them just fine.Quote:
To fail to make use of them as appropriate would have been quite idiotic, and both the Seleucids and Bactrians lasted a tad too long to have been rank idiots.
There is not a single piece of evidence other than the Alexander mosaic to suggest that Hetairoi wore armour composite or scale armour. The reason it shows up in lots of vase paintings is: A) It was favoured by early (i.e. Classical) Greek soldiers, and so appears in Attic vase paintings and B) It was still favoured in Italy into the 4th C. BC, and so continued to be depicted on Italian pottery after the tradition of Attic pottery painting largely ceased.Quote:
It was pretty much the standard wear for Hetairoi in some variation by what I understand, as well as extremely popular among the various Greeks for both infantry and cavalry use (shows up a lot in vase paintings for example).
Exactly, meaning they wore linothoraxes. There's no evidence they ever wore composite cuirasses.Quote:
Alexander's pezhetairoi likely wore something similar - there's a mention in the sources of the men burning their old cuirasses upon receiving new ones, and that's obviously only doable with fabric ones.
Of course- dozens of Seleukid sources illustrate the linothorax. It was commonly worn- just not the composite cuirass.Quote:
One Seleucid cuirass shown among the spoils in the Pergamon reliefs incidentally looks an awful lot like a linothorax BTW. And Magnesia was a fairly late event in Seleucid history.
No, I said that eastern Greeks didn't wear scale armour or composite (that is, armour made from linen or leather and scales or lamellar). They definitely wore linothoraxes.Quote:
I don't quite grasp the point of that whole segment anyway, though. You seem to be suggesting the Eastern Greeks wore neither derivations of local scale armour nor the Hellenic linothorax - surely you're not claiming they all traipsed around in solid bronze plate ?
Probably because the kataphrakt was probably adopted wholesale from the Parthians, who clearly did make use of scale armour. Besides this, though, the only evidence for Seleukid soldiers of any kind wearing scale armour comes from a 1st C. BC terracotta figurine from Seleukeia-on-the-Tigris thought to show a kataphrakt.Quote:
And why would only the Cataphracts use scale armour anyway?
Because they were commonly worn.Quote:
And why did scale cuirasses rather akin to linothoraxes in overall cut and appereance remain so common in former Seleucid territories and nearby regions then ?
What, there's a meaningful difference between "composite cuirass" and linothorax ? I was under the impression the former was just the latter with more metal bits added for improved protection (with due increase in cost and weight) as per customer request, and fell under the same term ?
Anyway, the Acheamenids took over the old Asyrian and Babylonian haunts wholesale back in the day. Would you like to provide a logical explanation as to why exactly they wouldn't have drawn up on the existing pool of skilled armourers for their own use, all the more so given the missile-heavy part of the world they were operating in ? Troops protected from the weapons of their enemies are more confident and aggressive, and obviously don't die as fast; while the mass levies were disposable enough the Persians had considerable bodies of regular troops and warrior aristocracy as well, both having both means and a reason to be armoured.
You might also want to try explaining away Xenophon's lenghty discussions about the armour of Persian cavalry and their mounts in his Peri Hippikes, occasional references to too flimsy Greek cavalry javelins breaking upon striking armoured Persian troops in melee, the repeated references to Persian (and some Scythian/Massagetae) armoured shock cavalry in the sources on Alexander's campaigns...
The point being ? Solid bronze plate was damn expensive too, but that didn't keep the Greek farmer-soldiers from commonly wearing it during certain periods.Quote:
I would imagine so, but that still didn't stop many, many Etruscan soldiers from buying and wearing them.
Kept the poorer folks out of the hoplite phalanxes though, but them's the breaks.
Which is what I was talking about. The Egyptians didn't invent scale armour, but they did develop the linothorax from their old fabric cuirasses for the use of the Greek mercenaries who through somwhat complicated developements ended up as military settlers there in the centuries before the rise of the Achaemenids.Quote:
And the linothorax was even lighter and more comfortable still.
Says you. As armour goes scale is relatively simple to construct and maintain, and judging by the regions it's been popular in (albeit lamellar usually sidelined it later on) it performed well enough against missiles. Feel like explaining the Bactrian and Massagetae proto-cataphracts that gave Alex's cavalry trouble at Gaugamela then ?Quote:
Again, this is pure speculation without evidence.
And those were ?Quote:
It's very clear that the other forms of armour employed by the eastern Hellenistic armies suited them just fine.
But if the linothorax was so good it was used instead of scale, why didn't they wear that instead ? Or bronze plate armour, which gave better protection than either scale or layered fabric ? Certainly given that the kataphraktoi were without the slightest doubt mind-bogglingly expensive ot equip in any case, and already seriously loaded down with protective gear, quibbling about the greater weight and expense would have been rather odd...Quote:
Probably because the kataphrakt was probably adopted wholesale from the Parthians, who clearly did make use of scale armour.
There also seems to be a bit of a logic hole here. If the characteristically Hellenic types of armour - solid bronze and linothorax not covered with scales - were so good and readily enough available that the Eastern Greek armies had no need for the "intermediate level" provided by scale armour, why did the Parthians keep wearing scale despite taking over the Seleukid production centers...? Or the post-Seleukid principalities like Palmyra and the Herodians add thorough scale coverings to their cuirasses ? It's not like either of the two was excessively difficult to make, and skilled armourers could always find employement; nevermind that the Parthians certainly dealt with Hellenic armour enough to be fully aware of its capabilities and it is difficult to see why they would not have picked up useful pieces of war gear when they met them...
Scale armour was also commonly used by the heavy cavalry of the steppe nomads whom the Persians, Armenians and various Central Asian nations had close contacts with (related languages didn't exactly hurt the cultural and technological exchange); I'd really like to see a logically tenable explanation why the Persians, with their far greater manufacturing capabilities, wouldn't have happily copied that along with the early saddle and other useful stuff from their nomad cousins if we now assume they for some incomprehensible reason hadn't been using it nonstop since when the Achaemenids were but a little mountain principality between the Assyrians, Medes and Elamites...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
What, there's a meaningful difference between "composite cuirass" and linothorax ? I was under the impression the former was just the latter with more metal bits added for improved protection (with due increase in cost and weight) as per customer request, and fell under the same term ?
Yes, you've got it right. Composite cuirasses are linothoraxes with scale or lamellar bits added to them.
Quote:
Anyway, the Acheamenids took over the old Asyrian and Babylonian haunts wholesale back in the day. Would you like to provide a logical explanation as to why exactly they wouldn't have drawn up on the existing pool of skilled armourers for their own use, all the more so given the missile-heavy part of the world they were operating in ?
Perhaps because, like the Greek tendency over time towards lightening the armour of the Hoplite, the Persians tended towards lighter types of armour to achieve greater mobility? It seems very clear from all the evidence concerning Achaemenid Persian warfare that they preferred to use lighter-equipped troops, even when they were familiar with, as you say, both previous Near Eastern and Scythian styles of armour as well as Greek styles.
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Troops protected from the weapons of their enemies are more confident and aggressive, and obviously don't die as fast;
This is true, but armour also weighs down the warrior.
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while the mass levies were disposable enough the Persians had considerable bodies of regular troops and warrior aristocracy as well, both having both means and a reason to be armoured.
True, yet in the main they chose not to wear armour heavier than the linothorax.
Quote:
You might also want to try explaining away Xenophon's lenghty discussions about the armour of Persian cavalry and their mounts in his Peri Hippikes, occasional references to too flimsy Greek cavalry javelins breaking upon striking armoured Persian troops in melee, the repeated references to Persian (and some Scythian/Massagetae) armoured shock cavalry in the sources on Alexander's campaigns...
Some later Persian cavalry did certainly wear limited elements of scale armour, such as parapleuridia, but those are akin to the kataphrakts in the Hellenistic armies in that they constituted only a very tiny part of the overall forces. Massagetic cavalry were also clearly armoured, but they are an entirely different subject altogether.
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The point being ? Solid bronze plate was damn expensive too, but that didn't keep the Greek farmer-soldiers from commonly wearing it during certain periods.
Exactly my point... it wasn't a matter of cost, but of taste.
Quote:
Says you.
No, says the archaeological record!
Quote:
As armour goes scale is relatively simple to construct and maintain, and judging by the regions it's been popular in (albeit lamellar usually sidelined it later on) it performed well enough against missiles. Feel like explaining the Bactrian and Massagetae proto-cataphracts that gave Alex's cavalry trouble at Gaugamela then ?
No need to explain, because as I said before, there is clear evidence of use of scale or lamellar armour for kataphraktoi by Achaemenid, Baktrian, Massagetic, Sakae, Seleukid, and Parthian armies. They still only constituted a tiny portion of the armies, though.
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And those were ?
Linothorax, metal muscled cuirass, the plain metal cuirass.
Quote:
But if the linothorax was so good it was used instead of scale, why didn't they wear that instead ?
There is an overall trend, from the 6th down to the 3rd C. BC, towards lighter armed soldiers in almost all arms of Greek militaries bar the cavalry. Metal armour was heavy, and, at least according to our sources, soldiers operating in a phalanx did so just fine without heavy armour. The only two depictions of phalangites operating in a phalanx in combat are Seleukid, from the 2nd C. BC, and both show soldiers wearing only chitons, wearing only pilos helmets, and carrying the large Macedonian shield and sarissa.
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Or bronze plate armour, which gave better protection than either scale or layered fabric ?
They still sometimes did wear bronze plate armour.
Quote:
Certainly given that the kataphraktoi were without the slightest doubt mind-bogglingly expensive ot equip in any case, and already seriously loaded down with protective gear, quibbling about the greater weight and expense would have been rather odd...
For kataphraktoi, at least, mounted on sturdy Nisaean horses. Not so for your average cavalry- or infantrymen, such as the above peltast/akontiste.
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There also seems to be a bit of a logic hole here. If the characteristically Hellenic types of armour - solid bronze and linothorax not covered with scales - were so good and readily enough available that the Eastern Greek armies had no need for the "intermediate level" provided by scale armour, why did the Parthians keep wearing scale despite taking over the Seleukid production centers...?
We don't even know that the Parthian's didn't adopt solid plate. Some of the figurines found in the Parthian east which are attributed to Seleukid cataphracts (for those of you with the Sekunda Montvert title on the Seleucid army, you can see two examples in figures 32-34) could just as easily be Parthian. Evidence for Parthian soldiers before the 1st C. AD or so is very sparse, and oftentimes ambiguous in nature.
Even so, it seems simply that Macedonians preferred certain types of armour for combat- despite some adoption of enemy weaponry and equipment by the Hellenistic armies, they still stayed very much "Macedonian" in equipment until the end. Perhaps this was nationalistic, or maybe it was just tradition.
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Or the post-Seleukid principalities like Palmyra and the Herodians add thorough scale coverings to their cuirasses ?
Keep in mind that there is a sizeable gap- mid 1st C. BC to 1st C. AD- in which the Romans also adopted various types of metallic armour. I'm not saying the tradition of wearing scale or lamellar armour died out in all areas- it seems to have persisted amongst the Parthians, Sakae, and numerous others- but it just fell out of widespread favour in this period.
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It's not like either of the two was excessively difficult to make, and skilled armourers could always find employement; nevermind that the Parthians certainly dealt with Hellenic armour enough to be fully aware of its capabilities and it is difficult to see why they would not have picked up useful pieces of war gear when they met them...
And see my comments before that they might have. Those heads from Old Nisa that clearly wear Hellenistic helmets and the fact that Parthians are said to have incorporated some Seleukid soldiers into their army after conquering Mesopotamia could indicate that Parthians did make use of a lot of Greek equipment.
The early saddle postdates the Achaemenid Persians by a little bit, so they couldn't really have adopted it, but as I wrote earlier, the Persians did have a very small portion of their cavalry armed in scale armour. Still, it was but a tiny portion a massive amount of troops that appear to have been equipped with linothorax or no armour at all.Quote:
Scale armour was also commonly used by the heavy cavalry of the steppe nomads whom the Persians, Armenians and various Central Asian nations had close contacts with (related languages didn't exactly hurt the cultural and technological exchange); I'd really like to see a logically tenable explanation why the Persians, with their far greater manufacturing capabilities, wouldn't have happily copied that along with the early saddle and other useful stuff from their nomad cousins if we now assume they for some incomprehensible reason hadn't been using it nonstop since when the Achaemenids were but a little mountain principality between the Assyrians, Medes and Elamites...
I don't think I've seen scale armour being represented as widespread in EB, so I can't really see what the issue is. And besides, wouldn't elephant riders A) be extremely rare and B) consist of native troops armed in native rather than Greek fashion?
There's tons of scale in EB, not on the Seleukids outside their catas though. This is a Baktrian/Indo-Greek fellow, and they did wear scale according to the coins I mentioned.
EDIT: Oh a few regional eastern cav units the seleukids get have scale too.
Sorry, I meant not widespread on Greek units outside of Baktria, which is the subject on which the discussion originated. Should have made myself clearer.
I hardly think we have scale on akontistai. There's no need to exaggerate our argument that much to strengthen your own. This is also not just an average peltast. The point that scale armor weighs light units down so they can't run isn't really at issue with this unit - as they aren't running anywhere but are stationary atop a moving object.Quote:
For kataphraktoi, at least, mounted on sturdy Nisaean horses. Not so for your average cavalry- or infantrymen, such as the above peltast/akontiste.
Well, even if only a few units within the Seleukid army are depicted with scale armour, they are historically inaccurate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S
First of all, there's no real indication that "elephant riders" would be differently equipped than any other kind of akontistai in the Seleukid army. Secondly, they would simply be regular troops from within the army, and so would be equipped most likely in the Greek fashion.
Yeah, that's exactly what you want to do with an Elite part of your army, filling it with substandard javelinmen.
Plus that's a Baktrian elephant rider, not a seleukid one. I think our Seleukid one might have chainmail on, but definatly not scale.Quote:
Originally Posted by MeinPanzer
We're talking about Baktrian elephants here, not Seleukid. So how would Baktrian elephant riders be armed/armored? The only thing we know for sure (or that we have direct evidence for) is the helmets. We got that right (the famous plate with Baktrian elephants and soldiers). The rest has got to be up in the air somewhat. If they were armored with helmets like they are depicted on the plate, then it would be absolutely bizarre to depict them as akontistai, with fancy helmets. So how would they be depicted then? Nikonorov doesn't give any hints in his text. This is all he says about them:
So were they Iranian/Greek/Indian soldiers? What type of equipment did they use (outside of the helmet)? All of that is really unknown. We went with what we felt was a good guess at this. You say "First of all, there's no real indication that "elephant riders" would be differently equipped than any other kind of akontistai in the Seleukid army." Again, we are talking about Bactria here but still this is something almost all our members would disagree with I think. You hold an extreme view here. We did not even depict them as armored as Nikonorov does (who has a plate of a Greek, with a helmet much like the one we show, a very long spear, metal cuirass, greaves, heavy ptyrges, and a long sword). We think that a bit much, and don't have them as elite as that individual, but in between the two, with more local influence when it comes to the armor. I really don't see what is so crazy about our rendering of this unit. It seems quite moderate to me.Quote:
Elephants: The third fighting force in the composition of the Graeco-Bactrian army was the elephants which, as I have already argued, may have appeared in Bactria under Seleucid rule. War-elephants were definitely possessed by Euthydemus I, for elephants are referred to by Polybius (XI, 34,10) as being transferred by this king to the Seleucid, Antiochus III, according to terms of their peace treaty concluded in 206 BC after the latter's two year siege of the Bactrian capital Bactra/Zariaspa. In this connection, especially worthy of note are two silver phalerae, now kept in the Hermitage collection and convincingly identified by K V Trever (1940, pp. 45-48) as pieces of Graeco-Bactrian workmanship, which depict war-elephants, each carrying a mahout and a tower (thorakion) with two soldiers inside (Fig 16a,b and PI 2). After Euthydemus' son, Demetrius 1, began to conquer lands lying in northwestern India, the military employment of elephants by the Greeks settled on either side of the Hindukush was bound to increase. It must be more than mere chance that Demetrius portrayed himself as crowned with elephant-scalp headgear (Fig 16c,d). The Milindapanha mentions war-elephants in the army of Menander. In addition, iron hook-like goads, by means of which the mahouts drove the animals, were found at Ai Khanum and in an Indo-Greek (?) deposit of Bhir Mound at Taxila (Fig 14c,d).
Is the soldier in the first post the driver or one of the two chaps in the tower? What MeinPanzer seems to be arguing, and he may have a point, is that while the driver could be armoured in the manner of the depicted unit the javelinmen in the tower could be simple akontistai.
These are the guys in turribus. Just like the phalera depicts - with these helmets.
Nikonorov's book (like an Osprey) depicts a non-armored/non-weapon-bearing Iranian or Indian (I can't tell really) driver with the spur to steer the elephant, then a very heavily armored and armed greek in the tower, with an Iranian or Indian archer/javelin-thrower (no armor or helmet at all) behind him. He shows two units that way. We can't have the variation - if we have units in the towers they have to be the same, and they have to share models with all the other factions, so we have them armored in different ways for all the factions, but all armored somewhere slightly above what you might find in a peltast (that's not the rule, but an observation of the units). It's not akontistai/toxotai, but it's not Baktrion Agema either. People can get really unhappy about it if they like, but it seems reasonable to us.
No, that makes sense. Thanks for making things clearer.
They wouldn't need to be heavily armoured because they were provided a lot of protection by the howdah itself. And if you're going to follow that logic, why not just armour them with metal muscled cuirasses? If they don't have to move, that provides them with the greatest defense.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou
Okay, that I didn't realize, but even so, Baktrian elephant riders should not have scale armour either. Seleukid elephant riders should not be armoured in mail either. I'm guessing you got that from the passage in 1 Maccabees 35 which says:Quote:
Plus that's a Baktrian elephant rider, not a seleukid one. I think our Seleukid one might have chainmail on, but definatly not scale.
Note that they mean a contingent of infantry stationed around the elephants, not riding them. The only mention of the elephant riders is in 1 Macc. 38:Quote:
And they distributed the beasts among the phalanxes; with each elephant they stationed a thousand men armed with coats of mail, and with brass helmets on their heads; and five hundred picked horsemen were assigned to each beast.
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And upon the elephants were wooden towers, strong and covered; they were fastened upon each beast by special harness, and upon each were four armed men who fought from there, and also its Indian driver.
Their helmets are by no means fancy (being a variant of Boeotian) and there are other depictions of akontistai in wearing helmets in the Hellenistic period.Quote:
If they were armored with helmets like they are depicted on the plate, then it would be absolutely bizarre to depict them as akontistai, with fancy helmets.
It should be noted that Nikonorov's reconstructions were incredibly poor in hsi Montvert title, and should not be trusted at all (and I'm glad you haven't).Quote:
So were they Iranian/Greek/Indian soldiers? What type of equipment did they use (outside of the helmet)? All of that is really unknown. We went with what we felt was a good guess at this. You say "First of all, there's no real indication that "elephant riders" would be differently equipped than any other kind of akontistai in the Seleukid army." Again, we are talking about Bactria here but still this is something almost all our members would disagree with I think. You hold an extreme view here. We did not even depict them as armored as Nikonorov does (who has a plate of a Greek, with a helmet much like the one we show, a very long spear, metal cuirass, greaves, heavy ptyrges, and a long sword).
Again, I'm guessing you are going to point to the Indo-Greek coins for evidence of scale armour being worn. Indo-Greeks had, in the latter centuries of the Hellenistic age, increasing contact with Indo-Saka groups, and it's clear from Indo-Saka coins that they (like most nomads) employed heavy cavalrymen wearing plate armour. Any Indo-Greek kings wearing scale or plate armour would inevitably be cavalrymen, as was traditional for kings in most ancient armies. The wearing of scale or plate armour by kataphraktoi is no secret, and I said so earlier (see the armour from Ai-Khanoum, for instance). However, only people as rich as a king or his philoi would be able to afford such armour. There is absolitely no evidence for any other kind of scale armour being worn, and there is not a single piece of evidence to support composite cuirasses being worn at any point in time in the Hellenistic period as far east as Baktria.Quote:
We think that a bit much, and don't have them as elite as that individual, but in between the two, with more local influence when it comes to the armor.
It's quite accurate except for the composite cuirass, that's all. If you changed it to a linothorax it would be much more accurate.Quote:
I really don't see what is so crazy about our rendering of this unit. It seems quite moderate to me.
As was apparently commonplace with all war elephants. The most heavily armed the drivers seem to have got was wearing a helmet.Quote:
Nikonorov's book (like an Osprey) depicts a non-armored/non-weapon-bearing Iranian or Indian (I can't tell really) driver with the spur to steer the elephant,
All we know is that he wears a helmet and carries a javelin. We have no other indication that he is armoured at all.Quote:
then a very heavily armored and armed greek in the tower,
And we have no indication that this guy is an Iranian or Indian at all, either. The hairstyle is indicative of some eastern Greeks, and so we can't say for sure whether he's a local or a Greek.Quote:
with an Iranian or Indian archer/javelin-thrower (no armor or helmet at all) behind him.
It just seems really strange to choose a type of armour- a composite cuirass- which has no archaeological basis for existing within hundreds of miles of that area at that time and to assign it to that figure.Quote:
He shows two units that way. We can't have the variation - if we have units in the towers they have to be the same, and they have to share models with all the other factions, so we have them armored in different ways for all the factions, but all armored somewhere slightly above what you might find in a peltast (that's not the rule, but an observation of the units). It's not akontistai/toxotai, but it's not Baktrion Agema either. People can get really unhappy about it if they like, but it seems reasonable to us.
I have a couple of questions (more about the actual nature of the unit than EBs interpretation of it):
1) Why did they put javelineers on elephants? Surely archers are far better suited to working from a small enclosed space like the tower. Pull your arm back too far with a javelin and you're going to impale your buddy. Also without a run up you cant really put that much force behind a javelin, whereas a bow doesnt rely on momentum.
2) Why didnt they give the driver armour? Surely of all the people on the elephant, he's the important one. The skirmishers on top are a nice add-on, but the whole point of using elephants is to use the beast itself. Leaving the bloke who tells it where to go perched out front with virtually no protection seems a little silly...
3) Is that plate pic the main source for the unit? Because I cant see how you can draw any conclusions about the guys on the tower, except for the helmet. They could be naked in there for all we can see. I didnt even realise the weapons they were holding were supposed to be javelins, I thought they were swords - but then whats the point of having a sword when you are a good six feet above the heads of the people you are fighting.
Because the evidence shows men with javelins sitting in the howdahs of war elephants. I don't think it would be too hard to use them without killing the other riders. And a lot of evidence seems to indicate that many armies made use of javelins without run ups, as you seem to think. For instance, look at the effectiveness of Roman use of pila while standing stationary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kugutsu
This comes directly from the archaeological evidence. The most armour drivers are ever depicted as wearing is a helmet.Quote:
2) Why didnt they give the driver armour? Surely of all the people on the elephant, he's the important one. The skirmishers on top are a nice add-on, but the whole point of using elephants is to use the beast itself. Leaving the bloke who tells it where to go perched out front with virtually no protection seems a little silly...
There are two of these silver phalerai, both showing very similar war elephants, and yes they are pretty much the only evidence for Baktrian war elephants. And you are right that we can't tell how they are armoured at all beyond the one man wearing a helmet, but those are definitely javelins by their sides.Quote:
3) Is that plate pic the main source for the unit? Because I cant see how you can draw any conclusions about the guys on the tower, except for the helmet. They could be naked in there for all we can see. I didnt even realise the weapons they were holding were supposed to be javelins, I thought they were swords - but then whats the point of having a sword when you are a good six feet above the heads of the people you are fighting.
I don't think Kugutsu is asking after evidence or if it was done, he's wondering about the why.
Which I do as well at times. For example much later Mughal war elephants might for example carry a well-armoured arquebusieur in the howdah - but the mahout still wore about loinclotch. Given how important the guy was for the continued functioning of the war elephant team it seems very counterintuitive he was left so vulnerable in such an exposed position, and one can only assume there were valid reasons for doing so because pretty much everyone seems to have done it.
Armouring the fighting-crew in the howdah/tower makes perfect sense though. The sides of the structure obviously protect their legs and lower body, but in order to use their weapons - whatever those now happened to be; javelins appear to have been extremely common, even among "archer" peoples, which is another question mark - they'd have to expose their upper bodies, arms and heads to enemy missiles and on occasion probably also sufficiently long spears.
One suspects the elephant-riders were trained specialists and in any case they were both important for the continued effectiveness of the elephant team (since their job included keeping infantry trying to swarm the beast preoccupied) and far as one can tell virtually impossible to replace in battlefield conditions in the case of casualties, ergo minimizing losses among them would come across as solid military thinking. Moreover, given the expenses incurred by a single battle-trained elephant to its owner the cost of providing the fighting crew with decent body armour would obviously be so low in copmarision as to be nigh irrelevant, and any beast large enough to be able to carry both the fighting-platform and its occupants on its back would presumably not even notice the weight added by body armour.
There's no reason to think they required any more training, or were any harder to replace, than other akontistai. There wasn't a whole lot to firing from the back of an elephant, other than as you say trying to keep enemies as far away from the beasts as possible, but they almost always had special guards of dozens or hundreds of men to help with that anyway. They would be far easier to replace than, say, a heavy cavalryman. The minimization reason for the heavy defense (which often included hanging shields on the sides of the howdahs) was simply to keep the men up top operating as long as possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
Both of these points are true, but you also have to think of some other problems. When you have heavy armour on, or armour at all for that matter, your flexibility is greatly reduced. Even the linothorax would have reduced flexibility and made actions within a howdah turret more awkward. When you have four men crammed into a tiny box on the back of an elephant along with all the weaponry they will need, and they all have to be throwing javelins or firing arrows, armour would limit their range of movement, and probably wouldn't provide an amount of defence proportional to their limited mobility (considering the already heavily protected turret walls).Quote:
Moreover, given the expenses incurred by a single battle-trained elephant to its owner the cost of providing the fighting crew with decent body armour would obviously be so low in copmarision as to be nigh irrelevant, and any beast large enough to be able to carry both the fighting-platform and its occupants on its back would presumably not even notice the weight added by body armour.
Well, we disagree then about the body armor for this unit I guess. Worse things happen at sea, I always say. :laugh4:
We are using a type of body armor that is common for some types of units for this faction, but there is no direct evidence that elephant riders wore them (we certainly admit this). You think it's too much of a stretch, while we think it's speculative but possible, especially given our lack of certain knowledge of the unit. You say Nikonorov's reconstructions were incredibly poor, and you say that it's impossible to have this armor for this unit. You apparently know more about the unit than the only peson who has ever published widely on the matter and more than any of us. Entirely possible, but keep in mind that in reconstructing all the units we have, that we do the best job we think we can, and we certainly do have to speculate on some, like this one.
Have you gotten a chance to play a campaign in EB yet MP? Hope so and hope you've gotten some enjoyment from it.
Please provide me with a single shred of evidence that composite scale cuirasses were worn by any units within the Seleukid army.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou
I don't say that it's impossible, but I think it's unlikely- and I think if they wore any armour, it was a linothorax, like almost every other light element of almost every other Hellenistic army in existence at this time.Quote:
You think it's too much of a stretch, while we think it's speculative but possible, especially given our lack of certain knowledge of the unit. You say Nikonorov's reconstructions were incredibly poor, and you say that it's impossible to have this armor for this unit.
I think having armour on this unit is fine. Any speculation on my part about whether they wore armour or not is just speculation. However, having this unit wear a composite cuirass is just entirely inaccurate and illogical.Quote:
You apparently know more about the unit than the only peson who has ever published widely on the matter and more than any of us. Entirely possible, but keep in mind that in reconstructing all the units we have, that we do the best job we think we can, and we certainly do have to speculate on some, like this one.
And while Nikonorov covers all the evidence for Baktrian elephants, he omits and misinterprets many, many sources for his coverage of other elements of the other armies he discusses in his book.
I enjoy both EB and RTR, but I find it always detracts from the experience just a little bit when I see a unit which is unnecessarily inaccurate.Quote:
Have you gotten a chance to play a campaign in EB yet MP? Hope so and hope you've gotten some enjoyment from it.
Trying to be good natured about this. Oh well.
It's still not a Seleukid unit, it remains Baktrian/Indo-Greek, and it's just scale, not a composite cuirasses. With the evidence of scale armor on indo-greek coins, the lack of evidence as to the body armor (of any type) wore by greek troops on elephants we went with something that we feel is reasonable, and allows a bit of variety into the equipment of the elephant riders.
We have the greek style rider for 6 factions as well as merc skin. IIRC only one, the Baktrian/Indo-Greek has scale, one has chain (Seleukid as mentioned) 3 have some form of linothorax, one has leather, and one has padded cloth. I don't feel we are being massively inaccurate here...