Video footage of the battle of marathon

Amazing what you can find on utube some days.



Why is it that they look more like my old Rospaks than anything else?

Still Slowly Gathering

These lads were born as Garrison Sassinid Standard Bearers. They were destined to join my not really Sassanid Clibinari to give them some of that traditional bubble headed look.    Some how though, even with lances, they just didn't fit in with my other, lance and bow armed,  Clibinari and in any case I've been inching back from the Sassanid angle. If not lance and bow Clibinari on 1/2 armoured horses, then how should I arm them?

Prior to Alexander, Bactria and the surrounding areas seem to have produced bow and spear armed cavalry both unarmoured and armoured with some of the latter being on armoured horses. Alexander and presumably the Achaemenids before him, apparently also raised some Javelin cavalry from the southern areas reaching down into Afghanistan and two heavy javelins were standard Persian armament at the time. Some Greek cavalry would have still been javelin armed while others would have adopted the long Macedonian cavalry spear. Under the Seleucids heavily armoured Cataphracts were introduced and became the standard heavy cavalry of the Parthian Empire. In the turmoil between the fall of the Seleucids and the rise of the Kushan and Parthian empires, what would "native" cavalry raised in the area have been like?


Now its not a co-incidence that the current gathering of armies is set in a time and place where  information is limited, that was the goal from the beginning. My assumption is that cavalry would have been varied, especially in a time of dynastic struggles but that the later lance and bow on 1/2 armoured horse Clibinari are unlikely even though I plan to field some. Some cataphracts are more likely, especially those with felt and leather horse armour, as well as some other lancer cavalry but since the javelin seems to have persisted through out the period, that is also a likely option for some. Lightly armoured and unarmoured cavalry probably predominated but what percentage were "cavalry" vs "light cavalry" (a distinction that I'm not convinced was as clear at the time as it is in our wargames)?.


Another question is about the hats. It seems the latest fad is to dismiss what used to be the archetypal Sassanid Felt Bubble Cap as an error  but since there is evidence of some earlier Medes wearing a similar hat as well as later shepherds and the like, I am happy to assume that some thing similar has been worn by some people over the centuries. Possibly not in the area where this rebel Iranian heritage army is being raised to fight the last of the Greco-Bactrians but the hats give it a distinct flavour so they are in.

The figures just seemed to want to be modified into javelin armed cavalry so I obliged and ended up with javelin armed cavalry with shield and armour, possibly similar to Roman, later Greek or Celtic cavalry. I have been basing my shock cavalry 4 to a base and my horse archers 3 to a base and had planned to base these as four figures. The officer I painted to go with them just didn't fit so he has been relegated to command the next stand of lancers and these ended up 3 to a base.  This seems to put these in the well equipped light cavalry category so that's how I'll use them , leaving the real fighting to the heavily armoured lancers. .Mind you, I think these would serve well as early Mede cavalry as well. They need some friends though.

Reinforcements Arrive

Clibinarius on borrowed Cataphract horse, Cataphract (need more of these), Desert Queen, Spearmen and a Prince August levy.

Its enough to make a fellow wish he was still doing large, Grantian armies and had oodles of time and money and no distractions. I finally ordered a teeny order of Sassinids and absolutely love these little gems of figures. I was actually ordering some medievals and slipped these in just because. Anyway they arrived while I was at Huzzah and never mind the medievals, guess who's on the painting desk. They might need their own army though.........

Now don't ask me about Zenobia, Rob slipped her in and I have no idea if she's from a 20mm range, a defunct range or a special that he did. But she is just the sort of ruler my new Iranian Imagi-nation needed. I had been sighing and thinking if I bought actual Sassinids then I'd have to buy the long delayed Romans to face them, but the ones I'd want would be the wrong Romans. Well, seeing these, I'm back on track with my series of unknown Iranian and Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms back of beyond. Except that Rob also slipped in some marvelous hoplites that I suspect are Hyborian in origin which has me thinking about Spartans and of course, flipping through the S&S list gives me other ideas. Well the good side of  Basic Impetus using so few troops is that even with multi-basic impetus armies, I could easily do a dozen armies with 100 or so figures each.

Well, first things first, paint at least 1/2 of the new arrivals and finish planned armies then plan and buy more!

Thanks Rob for keeping these figures alive and sharing!.

The Wargame of Thymbra

Garrison Phyrgian Infantry closing on the enemy with malice aforethought. 

Since this battle hinged on the Lydian's attempt to out flank the Medes, I figured I should maximize the width of the table. Unfortunately I came up hard against two bits of reality. First, when playing with hexes the axis of the game matters. With my current configuration, my options are basically along the long axis or on a diagonal. Secondly, when I reassembled my table, I put one side on backwards so there is a fault line of  incomplete/mismatched  hexes in the middle. Must fix that but in the meantime, I went back to playing on basically half the table like I did for Marathon.

The armies as fielded were more than double the size of Basic Impetus armies. The game was big enough, in terms of units, to push my  battle fatigue limits but not breech them and there was just enough room to maneuver so all was well. I think I can mark this as a comfortable maximum for me. I could have  abandoned the hexes but if I stayed with the 15mm unit footprint and ranges it wouldn't have made much difference. If I had gone with standard 25mm unit foot prints and ranges, I would have used a few more figures but about  2/3 the number of units. The game would probably have been shorter with each combat being more critical. I'm not sure that would have been better.    

Columns of Lydian troops push forward on the left and right, planning to turn inwards and attack once in position.

As usual when playing a solo game based on an historical battle, I started by following the historical plans to the best of my ability. Essentially, the Lydians were advancing with columns of infantry and cavalry on the left and right and a phalanx up the middle. The idea was to pin the Medes while the cavalry turned the flanks and crushed them. The Medes, based largely on Xenophon's account,  were deployed with refused flanks, reserves of their best troops and some gimmick troops designed to disrupt the enemy attack or in the case of the tower, to provide additional missile support.

Scythed chariots are tricky things, especially in the defence. I decided that the best plan was to lose the initiative on the 2nd turn or win it on the 3rd. The fall back position was for the enemy javelin fire to miss. Yeah, not the soundest plan and it worked about as expected. Two of the three chariots were destroyed by javelin fire while the third was launched onto a hoplite phalanx and destroyed after causing a bit of disorder. Ok, no surprises there but I soon realized that I had a more serious problem. (Please excuse any apparent bias, but I was sitting behind Cyrus the Great).

The idea of the camels was to rob the Lydian shock cavalry of their charge bonus but the Lydians screened them with peltasts and bypassed them. Camels are only slightly more resistant to a shower of javelins than the chariots were.  Since I had given them an Impetus of 0 meaning that they couldn't charge, their options were limited. The right wing camels were destroyed but the left wing managed to extract their's and eventually redeployed them farther down the line, opposite the cavalry as intended. Watch for the resulkts of this move later on.

The lines close as javelins and arrows darken the sky. The Mede camels can be seen retiring in the upper right hand corner on one side while the ones on the left mill in disorder waiting for the final hit. In the center massed bowfire has panicked one of the phalanx units. 

In the center, the phalanx that had been disordered by the chariot was now hit by massed bowfire which added to the confusion, in short, the rear 1/2 of one big unit panicked and ran. The rest of the phalanx charged forward but must have been a bit rattled as they were repulsed with losses all along the line. The levied hoplites and native spearmen are rated only slightly lower than the "real thing" in this game but it is a game where a little can mean a lot. Croesus rallied his center despite a continuing barrage of arrows, well most of it anyway, and prepared to renew the fight.  

On the Mede right, the cavalry decided that with the camels gone, they might as well seize a moment and charge. The elite cavalry was immediately routed by the Lydians despite the brief advantage but the second unit got lucky, followed up its advantage on the next turn and eventually broke one of the Lydian cavalry squadrons, before being destroyed in turn. By now, Mede reserves were rushing to bolster the flanks.

The Lydian center slowly crumbles under massed bow fire while the Medes are forced to commit their reserves early on the flanks.

For the next few turns there was little scope for maneuver and the only decisions to be made were stand and shoot or charge. The Mede infantry got excited at one point and charged a supposedly inferior unit of Thracians who cut them to pieces. A unit of Immortals suffered much the same fate (OH fickle dice!). The Medes restrained their ardour for the rest of the game and plied their bows and javelins to maximum effect.

On the Mede right, there was desperate fighting and Cyrus and his bodyguard were themselves driven back. Eventually both sides here were virtually exhausted though  the fight never quite ceased. In the center, the rallied phalanx drove forward on the left, driving back 2 units of Medes and breaking a 3rd. Only the bowfire from the tower managed to disorder the phalanx long enough for the line to be restablished.

On the right of the phalanx however, the arrow storm was too much and slowly the units faded away. Farther to the right, not all of the Lydian peltasts had been able to get into the fight and now some were recalled to plug the gap in the center. A fatal move, just as they left, the front line units finally gave way under the arrow storm leaving gaping holes and allowing the Mede archers to turn their bows on the cavalry. The Lydian cavalry who had had to ride farther since the Mede cavalry had not rushed to face them, found themselves with a choice of stand under a barrage of arrows or charge the mixed formation of camels and Mede cavalry. The fight was severe but eventually the Lydian cavalry broke taking the army with them.

Just off the screen above, the battered remnants of the opposing left and right wings still face each other with not a single fresh unit on either side. In the center, the Lydian infantry melts under a hot stream of arrows from a bloodied and dented but intact Mede infantry line. On the near flank, the Lydians have collapsed in rout and are being swept. (The unit show retreating in disordered bring the army to their break point).

It felt awfully close at times, especially when little things would happen like the Immortals charging with 7 dice and getting no hits while the opposing Thracians threw 4 dice and got 3 sixes! In the end it was a solid victory however with the Mede's being barely 1/2 way to their break point though, to be fair, they had only 2 fresh units left so this was no walk over.

By and large, the rules worked well once again. There were a few turns where it was all combat and the turns were clicking over so fast my head was spinning, with very little to show for it on the table but I was tired after all the holiday stuff and still, somehow I found myself repeatedly replying "in a minute" to various requests to do various chores or watch some movie as I started just one more turn, again, and again. (Apparently both chores and movie managed happily without me.)

There were moments where it seemed like the dice and troop quality might be more important than Cyrus's deployment and his gimmick troops but on sober reflection, while the reserves didn't get to ride around the enemy phalanx and charge it in the rear, they were vital for holding the enemy's successes while allowing the counter attack on the winning wing, all without weakening the line anywhere like the Lydians did, and the camels, once properly deployed helped stem the tide on the winning flank while the tower's fire support may have tipped the balance in the center.

The camels didn't do the job initially, but I deployed them too far forward and there was only 1 unit on each flank. I had been unsure that the rule would work right. The usual description is that the Lydian horses wouldn't close so the Lydian cavalry dismounted and attacked. At a low level this isn't shown, the rules don't  force or allow the Lydian cavalry to dismount, they just remove their charge impetus but upon reflection, this is just about the right effect if you considered the Lydian cavalry as having dismounted to attack on foot without the minis being changed. It does mean that only units immediately faced by camels were effected but since units are never aligned in Impact and thus always over lap when 2 lines meet, it is next to impossible for the Lydians to avoid them all together. I would be tempted to deploy 2 units on each flank though.

 Small but stinky!

One other OB decision almost upset the game. I had forgotten how powerful light infantry can be in some situations. Since javelins, spears and bucklers seem to be popular Anatolian infantry weapons over the centuries, and since I had  lots, I threw in a dozen units to make up numbers, I'd have gone with more if there was room. Not only did they shoot up the chariots, they were able to more or less keep up with the cavalry, screen them  from missile fire, drive back the camels and hold the Mede infantry at bay long enough for others to force a decision (or try to). If/when I run this again, I think I would trade in about 1/2 of the peltasts for more spearmen and skirmishers. This would increase the odds of the historical gaps opening between the flanking columns and the center and decrease the offensive missile power of the Lydian army while increasing the staying power of the center.

A good game and a fitting end to my Lydian campaign.  In the new year, the focus will shift to the Eastern frontier of the Persian Empire.

Experimental Clibinari

I decided to indulge myself and start in on some Clibinari. These are from the  Garrison 25mm Achaemenid list. What I really wanted were some Sassinid figures, but I had a unit of these in my Valdurian army many years ago. Like my Sassinid elephants, they went missing when I graduated from college and headed west. To be honest, I expected to have followed up with Sassinids by now but maybe this fall. In any event, it felt like time to paint some up. This is where I hit a small hitch, I had no idea how the figure should look. 

This figure, with its baggy pants, cowl, short sleeved over tunic and gallic style hauberk, doesn't resemble any illustrations of Achaemenids that I have seen, thought the short sleeves are typical of Garrison Persians.  I thought I saw something similar in the 2,500 th anniversary parade but on reviewing the video footage I couldn't find them again so perhaps I imagined it.  That was one problem, the other was that I hadn't decided yet who they will represent, Rebels, Persian Nobles, subjects from which province?  It seemed smart to stop and figure that out and work on a test figure.

After trying a dab a colour or 2 to see how it looked, and doing some thinking, I decided that these would be Nobles answering the call to arms, not a regular guard unit. My first thought was to make them Rebels along with my Garrison light cavalry, my "Hyrkanians", but the more I looked at what figures I had available, painted and unpainted,  and thought about scenarios, I decided to put the Garrison Persians on one side, that made these loyal Nobles. One question answered.  

Leather seemed like a reasonable fabric to make a protective hood out of but in addition to not being able to find .any Persian or similar examples, the hood has wrinkles like cloth not leather thick enough to protect. fabric. If you ignore the helmet, the head piece actually resemble one versions of the usual Persian headgear. Since this is often shown as white, I tried painting this one white. That seemed a bit too stark a contrast so I fell back on a dark yellow.

The short sleeved over tunic could probably be almost any colour, my Immortals and light cavalry wear uniform versions but then you can see the whole thing, here only the sleeves show. More than that, I decided that these would be Nobles rather than guardsmen and uniform doesn't sit well with Nobles. A compromise was in order, I went with a dark red that might have been a leather under tunic or might be a tabard of sorts.

Baggy pants and tunics were next. Since they were now nobles answering the call, colourful and non-uniform seemed in order. If the pants had been tight, I'd have thought about embroidery but stiff embroidery doesn't seem to match billowing fabric and I didn't want to go for the cotton print look either so solid colours with embroidery on the tunic, mostly a little brighter colours than this fellow with his dark blue pants perhaps.

Although the armour might be  bronze scale, I have opted for iron since that says "cataphract" to me, but I added polished bronze bits to brighten them. The shields might have been wood or leather or born personal devices but without a reference point, these being nobles in the King's service, and me being lazy, I settled on plain purple shields with a bronze boss.

Now, 11 more to go as the opposing Royal and Rebel armies take shape in my mind.
 

King Dariross The Obscure and the Art of Changing Horses

My original aims for the Gathering was to refurbish my OS 25mm ancients and get them on the table, making use of as many existing figures as possible and without adding too many figures. Still good aims and the logic that picked the Lydian campaign  as the best route to that goal is still sound. However, I missed a couple of key factors.

I wanted to paint up more Medes & Persians but in order to have a valid use for them,  I needed more Lydians even though I already knew that I was tired of painting Greeks and Greek type troops.  So, the Persians sit and wait while I work through a list of Greek-ish Lydians, or rather don't work through it. I wouldn't mind adding something different like a big phalanx of Egyptian spearmen for Thymbra as per Xenephon but the coffers are bare.

I did briefly consider Hyboria but I wanted to stay with the historical  fantasy approach and the Mede & Persian empire. Luckily, I don't need to scrap any of the troops I have done up or the campaign itself. After all we all knew going into this that the Lydians would eventually be conquered, it was just a matter of when so I can incorporate the Lydians, Phyggians, Thracians and Greeks into the Persian army as subjects and mercenaries and reserve the option to come back and play out the Lydian campaign later.

So its off to the mysterious East. Expansion of the empire is one possibility but there were numerous revolts and what better use for my armies than a civil war? The image in my mind are a series of walled towns, near the mountains, the Caspian on one flank, India on the other. Horse archers, proto-cataphracts, city militia and a few elephants.  hmmmmm

Another change since I started this trip is that my experiment with WHAB style individual figures and movement trays has failed. I'm going back to my old standard elements. Now that doesn't necessarily affect the rules that I started working on, but as long as I am making changes, this seems like the time. Having quite enjoyed playing some games with Bob Cordery's gridded wargame,  I think it may be time to have another look at Morschauser and have a fresh go at an element set.

Elephants! I found elephants!

Having turned my attention back to Cyrus the Great, I recent;y came across an online translation of Ctesias's Persica. This describes (briefly) an expedition by Cyrus against the Derbices, a nation on the Syr Darya. These ambush him with a force including elephants sent by their Indian allies. Aha!

Now, these elephants probably looked more like your average, ancient Indian army elephants than they do the Hinchliffe Sassinid elephant kits that I picked up cheap last year (or was it the year before?) I picked them up, partly because I got a verry good deal and partly because I used to have a pair, a long time ago and liked them even if they weren't as impressive as my massive Garrison Carthaginian beast. The elephants were
one of several units that for reasons I have now forgotten, don't appear to have graduated from college with me.

The original Pachyderms in action in the 70's and yes this is a repeat photo. There didn't seem to be much point in snapping a shot of a bagged elephant kit.


OK so that's not justification for an elephant IN my Mede/Persian army but it is justification to paint up some up for an enemy and nicely gives me a focal point for another enemy, One that could take part in a (rather stretched)  3 way campaign. I had considered the Saka or Massagetae as a 4th army but  they just didn't seem distinct enough and didn't seem to offer anything new for a table top game except the possibility of a swirling conflict of horse archers which is not particularly well suited to my new smaller table which I am planning.

Now I'm not exactly sure what the Derbices looked like or what their army was like and I'd just as soon not know too much at this point (unless it reinforces my imaginings!). A mysterious people in a far away fertile land of walled cities on the edge of a desert? What's not to love?

Given their geographic location, something similar to the Saka and Bactrians seems reasonable. I picture a largely peltast like force supported by archers and cavalry including horse archers, and possibly some chariots since they were still in use in India for some time to come. Dress to be similar as well with trousers, tunic and soft cap. Again, the end result will be troops that can be an enemy or be incorporated  into an Achaemenid army. Eventually some real Indian troops could be added for additional colour.

The plan now looks something like:

a) A Grek army, on its own or allied to the Lydians or as a source of mercenaries for the Persians
b) A Mede/Persian army including proto-cataphracts ala Cyropaedia.
c) A Lydian army including mercenaries/allies supplied by Babylon/Assyria and Egypt including arabs as well as various Anatolian troops including Phrygians, Lydians, Greeks, Thracians/Bythnians, and other tribes from the fringes. All of these could also serve as subjects and mercenaries in an Achamenid army.
d) The Derbices  possibly with gratuitous Massagatae allies as well as Indian ones and including elephants.
     .

Preparing to play Platea using the new rules

Slings and Arrows of the outrageous fortune sort.

Turns out what I thought was a bit of a cold coming on, appears to be some sort of infection that the doctor  suspects that I may have been incubating since my little hospital 'incident' 6 weeks ago.  Anyway, now under the influence of antibiotics on top of everything else, I am slowly starting to function again but alas, no game this week  A little planning has now resumed though.


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The day after listing Platea on the poll as the potential historical battle, I decided to refresh my  memory on the numbers involved,  FORTY THOUSAND HOPLITES! . plus 10,000 more on the Persian side!

 I don't have that many hoplites!

Even at 1 to 200 I don't have that many. Even if I had gotten around to getting one of those Garrison 100 hoplite deals that I had been adding and subtracting from that e-shopping cart and had then painted them up, I still wouldn't have enough to be convincing, although it would start to look better. Oh, and the Spartans got bumped from a previous order and still waiting so, not 1 Lambda in the lot. Luckily, before panic set in, I remmbered that the original idea hadn't been to refight Platea, it had been to replay Charles Grant's refight of Platea in The Ancient Wargame.

Technically, I still needed those extra 100 hoplites  but since his 20mm Garrisons appear to be on the old 10mm wide frontage per hoplite and my troops are on a comfy 20mm wide base, one of my 24 man units should substitute nicely for one of his 42 or 50  strong units, especially on my smaller table. So a quick in-house vote was taken and me, myself and I voted unanimously in favour of using his order of battle but with my standard units sizes and classifications. As he remarks in his description of setting up the Sambre: "This is not an accurate conversion but the plain fact was that this was the total number of figures available, so what else could one do?" Indeed.

I did make a few changes to the details of troop types. Grant makes no mention of  the WRG 3rd ed  morale class used for the hoplites but does rate the Spartans and Heavy and the rest of the Greeks as Medium. Now normally, the Spartans are accepted as superior to other hoplites but the Athenians were at the top of their game. They were the only citystate to have met the Persians in battle and defeated them, indeed, there were probably veterans of Marathon in the ranks. The Spartans even tried to give them the place of honour vs the Immortals .So I figured they should rate the same. On the other hand, I'm not sure the Immortals were sufficiently better than the other contingents to warrant Elite status. Instead, I have invoked a shield barrier rule. Since the Persians were a hand picked force, I haven't rated any as "Levy".

The Persians also have several units of "light" infantry which under the WRG 3rd edition, would be the equivalent of my "Skirmisher"  category. I would have called them "Medium" infantry myself but will compromise and field them as "Light" Infantry under my rules.

Last up, both sides are given 3 generals. That works fairly well for the Persians but is a bit of overkill for the Greeks who will end up with 1 general commanding a single unit of hoplites. After some debate,  I decided to let it stand but ruled that each General only has authority and influence on his own units to reflect the allied and quarrelsome nature of the army.

Without further ado, here are the armies with their deployment based on the game described by Charles Grant in his book The Ancient Wargame. Each general will be assigned a card for activation. The unit names refer to the ones fielded in the book. The exact allocation of units on the Persian side is a bit vague but I have included the Phrygian spearmen in with the Thebans as the over all numbers of Medizing Greeks seemed low and it made sense to lump all the heavy units together.

The intent will be to play once with the battle plans as described in the book. I may, or may not follow that with a 2nd play through either basing the battle plans on Herodotus or going free form.    

________________________________________________________________________________
GREEKS.


SPARTANS

• Pausanius General for the Spartans and their allies only
• Alpha Battalion: 24 Elite Heavy Infantry on the right wing on Asopus Ridge 
• Mesenian Javelinmen: 8 Levy skirmishers deployed behind the Alpha Battalion 
• Beta battalion: 24 Elite Heavy Infantry in march column nearing the rear table edge 
• Antelope Javelinmen: 8 Levy skirmishers with Beta battalion 

ATHENIANS

• Aristeides General for the Athenians and their allies only 
• Omicron Battalion: 24 Elite Heavy Infantry deployed on the left wing on Asopus Ridge 
• Sigma Battalion: 24 Elite Heavy Infantry deployed on the left wing on Asopus Ridge 
• Athenian Archers: 12 skirmishers with bow.deployed with hoplites.  

THE REST OF THE GREEK ARMY 

• A Corinthian General  (Grant only provides player names for the sub-commanders on each side)
• Corinthian Battalion.24 Heavy Infantry deployed on 'the island' in the rear of the army. 

_____________________________________________________________________________

PERSIANS

(all lined up along the Asopus River, ready to cross)

PERSIANS

• Mardonius Over all commander as well as left wing
• Green Immortals 24 Medium Infantry Archers with Spara  
• Black Immoratals 24 Medium Infantry Archers with Spara 
• Horsetail Light Cavalry: 12 Light Cavalry with bow 
• Scorpion Cavalry with javelin

LEVIES

• Artabazos  Sub General
• Median Javelinmen: 12 Light Infantry with javelin 
• Crescent Light Cavalry: 12 Light Cavalry with bow & javelin 
• Cadusii Light Infantry: 18 Light Infantry with spear and bow 
• Apadan Light Infantry: 18 Light infantry with bow 

MEDIZING GREEKS

• General over the Greeks (and Phrygians)
• Phrygians: 24 Heavy Infantry 
• Boeotian Hoplites: 24 Heavy Infantry 
• Theban Cavalry: 12 light cavalry with javelin 

________________________________________________________________________________

With a little luck I should be able to play the 1st game on Wednesday and post a report a day or so later.   

TIME FOR A TEST GAME: CAST YOUR VOTE NOW

My new ancient rules have been worked over some more and some small, out of context, tests made. Its time for another real test, a battle. The question is should I just carry on with the campaign even if the next scenario is not a great one for testing rules or devise something to work them out.

I know, its the weekend, and a very short poll. Not everyone is going to have time to cast a vote, but to those who do cast a ballot by Tuesday night, I thank you for your opinions.  I have laid out 3 options:

1. A historical refight. This has the advantage of providing a baseline to compare the rules to. That is, does the game resemble in any way, shape or form what happened, or what might have happened?  But its a break in the sequence of things.

2. The Next Campaign game. This might be an interesting game, but given the losses to date, it might be rather lop sided and depending what is drawn, might be an unusual situation. It would be good to know the rules could handle that but wouldn't necessarily say if they could handle normality. It might also be hard to judge if what appears to be a flaw was due to the rules or the situation.

3. A Mede-Lydian pitched battle. The 3rd option is to short circuit the campaign and do a fairly generic pitched battle with the idea of trying out the interaction of units in a standard ancient battle setting (which is to say in the middle of a dusty plain rather than an opposed river crossing, delaying action or a race to get away with stolen temple treasure.)

What do you think folks?

The Campaign Begins

I'm not sure that re-reading several volumes of Robert E Howard's original Conan stories was the most appropriate preparation for a vaguely historical campaign but it seems to have done the trick.  My original idea was to wait until both armies were fully ready with old troops refurbished, new ones painted, all units re-based to a new standard and so forth. It has become clear that this condition is unlikely to be met this year so I decided to start with what I had ready. The overall campaign forces are the same but units may not be used before they are ready and no stand ins will be allowed. As units are completed, they may be fielded (which may drive the painting as other units get eliminated).

I have also decided that, since time is at a premium and the mini-campaign a mere precursor,  the battles should be kept small, so I have effectively cut the scenario forces in  half. The paradigm for this round will be 6 cavalry or 12 infantry per scenario "unit". These will be grouped into wargame units as appropriate. This is an ultra lazy campaign with minimal background and paper work, If a unit is destroyed during a game then it is no longer available for future games, otherwise all units will take the field at full strength each game. Each side may choose units up to the scenario limit from their pool of units..

If I didn't mention it before, I have also decided that since I don't speak any ancient languages, I am not going to pretend but will stick to modern English as far as possible and thus will field  Generals, Regiments etc..
Not calling the Greek hoplites, hoplites will be tricky due to habit.


Each side had a theoretical force of 3 cavalry and 10 infantry regiments each of 24 figures plus conscripted pioneers if needed. The forces are as follows:

MEDES led by General Rosius in a light Chariot.


Cavalry:
Royal Chariots: 3 Heavy chariots  (counted as equal to 12 cavalry)
Hyrcanians: 12 Medium Cavalry (bow, spear, shield)
Raffum Regt: 24 Medium Cavalry   (javelin and shield, 1 squadron also has light armour)
Saka: 18 Light Cavalry Horse Archers,
Arabs: 6 Medium Camelry ( bow and spear) (eventually will be 12 strong)

Infantry:
Ecbatana, Raffum and Hyrcanian Regiments: Medium infantry with spear, bow and wicker shields.
Saka: Medium infantry with bow and wicker shields
Uxians: Light Infantry with bow and shield, levy
Scythians: Light Infantry with bow and axe, mercenaries
Armenians: Skirmishers with javelin, sling or bow, levies.
(being recruited: Susa Medium infantry regiment, Cappadocian Light Infantry, Dara Medium Spearmen)

The Mede army enters the pass.

LYDIANS led by General Aloettes

Cavalry
1/2 Regiment of Lydian Heavy cavalry (armour, spear, stubborn)
1 Regiments of Mercenary Medium cavalry (javelin, 1 squadron with shields)
1/2 regiment of mercenary light cavalry (javelin, buckler)
(another, full regiment of Lydian cavalry is being formed)

Infantry
Sardis Medium Infantry Regiment (armour, shield, spear)
Ionian and Aeolian Heavy Infantry Regiments (armour, large shield, spear, phalanx)
Thracians and Mercenary Light Infantry Regiments (shield, spear and javelin, mercenary)
Bythnian Light Infantry (shield, sickle and javelin, levy)
Archers (bow, skirmishers, levy)
Skirmishers (javelin or sling, levy)
Egyptian Allies 1/2 regiment of Ethiopean archers (1/2 regiment of Nubian archers is en route)
 Phrygian light infantry with javelin and axe is being recruited

It is interesting the psychological effect that shifting the African troops has had. I am used to thinking of the Persians as a polyglot, multi-racial army defending the established power structure but suddenly it is the Lydians who have a multi-racial army representing the powers of the day and the Mede army is a coalition of related Aryan peoples sweeping down from the hills to establish a new order.

The Battle of the Pass was fought on June 26th and a report will appear soon on my battlegame of the month blog.

Missing Post

The following post was supposed to go up 3 weeks ago but I think I waited for pictures and then forgot it!

Belatedly:
The first infantry regiment has now been through the refurbishing mill. Originally I was just going to rebase the infantry but when dealing with individual figures, its a big help if you can easily identify which regiment stray figures came from. I don't buy suggestions that units were issued particular patterns of intricately embroidered clothing even if some items were handed down from above but I do want each regiment to have its own character as well as making it easy to identify which unit a figure comes from.

For the initial campaign, there will be 4 units of spara-bara, line infantry if you will. These are:

The Hyrkanian Regiment. (formerly fielded as Immortals, I have taken their rout in the last game as an excuse to down grade them and will order 'proper' Immortals in long robes to replace them)  Yellow caps, red tunics, garrison miniatures carrying bow, spear and shield. This regiment has an associated cavalry regiment with similar dress and weaponry.

The Ecbatana Garrison Regiment. A regiment of Medes in white domed felt hats. Again, all garrison figures, 6 archers, 6 spear and spara (hats slightly modified), 12 bow, spear and shield.

The Raffum Regiment. A regiment of Iranians with white tiara, 12 archers, 12 spearmen. All RAFM figures.

The Scaran Regiment. A regiment of saka in coloured scythian caps, a mix of Garrison and Bennasi figures, all archers but the front rank will have spara (hats slightly modified and spears replaced).

Other planned regiments are the Susa Regiment of Elamite infantry in long robes and fillet, an as yet unnamed regiment of Mede spearmen, another Saka regiment which may be spara bara or light infantry and a regiment of guards in long robes..
  
    

The Lydian infantry musters

At last the dust is starting to settle and I have resumed painting, including the last of the Garrison Phyrgians. Here is the Sardis Regiment in all its splendour. That thicket of spears just cries out for another on each side but they will have to content with existing hoplite allies for now.

The Persian/Mede reorganization is also done leaving me with the Ecbatana Regiment of Garrison Medes:

and the Persians, the Raphum Regiment using RAFM miniatures:

The armies are not up to their full campaign strength yet but I am ready to begin and no substitutions will be allowed. Any missing units can be added as figures are painted.

Shields up

The Raffum Cavalry Regiment

The first full regiment of Mede cavalry has now been refurbished, reorganized and rebased. If memory serves, they were originally raised in the mid-80's as three 10 man units for WRG 6th ed (2 heavy, 1 light) and have since fought under WRG 7th, Hoplite, DBA, Armati and WHAB. Most of the figures are converted RAFM Hellenistic cavalry but there are a few converted Ral Partha Scythians and a new Garrison standard bearer. Roughly half wear visible armour, the rest might have armour under their tunics, or not. The new individual bases have been lightly coated in sawdust to soften the edges of the figures' bases and then painted to match my tabletop. This treatment helps the troops to blend into their surroundings.

Their original equipment did not include shields. The use of shields use by Mede cavalry is moot and possibly the figures look better without them but it was late, the new standard bearer had a round shield and there was this pile of painted shields recently removed from a unit of slingers and they will come in useful against some of the enemies that I might ask them to fight. The shields I have used are probably not the most likely shape and design, rather they were what I had available.

There are two main reasons for wargame cavalry to carry shields, the first is that the historical troops definitely carried them, the second is that the troops might have used them and the chosen rules reward their use. A Persian wargame army using WHAB falls under the later category, especially if it might be used as a stand-in for later armies. Since WHAB is old fashioned enough to give saving throws based on how much armour a unit is carrying, more is better as long as it isn't heavy enough to slow the unit down. The points assigned can be skewed though. A shield or a light armour will double the save chances for a cavlryman but a shield is only 1/2 the price of the armour. This of of course encourages players to choose Persian cavalry with shield and no armour rather than the more probable armour and no shield. Having both is better yet. Now this is all pretty much irrelevant  for my solo mini-campaign since I won't be counting points anyway but it bugs me none the less.

Did the Medes carry shields? Without getting too tedious, the evidence both written and pictorial would seem to indicate that at least some did at least some of the time. Why would they choose to use or not use shields in real life? The answer may be that a light shield is most useful to a horsemen engaged in hand to hand combat with other cavalry and to defend himself and his mount against missile fire but is an encumbrance to the bridal arm and makes control of the mount more difficult. When facing a Greek army, the opposing missile fire would not be a major issue and a shield would be insufficient protection to allow a frontal charge on a phalanx and wouldn't be needed if they were pursuing a broken one or attacking the flank or rear. When fighting an enemy with shock cavalry or one who relied on massed missile fire, a shield might have been more useful. The main armies that my Medes expect to face are: Lydians, Assyrians, Egyptians, fictional Alexandrian Successor, Romans and "barbarians". In all these cases, the shields will be useful if questionable.

Reviewing how my Mede cavalry works under the rules, I became aware of a problem. They don't have the oomph to be shock cavalry but if they ride up to opposing infantry to throw their javelins, they will be unable to avoid being charged except by fleeing with the possibility of causing panics and of never rallying. I have decided to deal with this in 2 ways. I intend to grant them the Parthian shot special rule which will allow them to ride up to infantry, shoot, then pull back out of charge reach. Against cavalry, they will still have to brace for impact or flee. Secondly, I have taken the step of deploying them as 6 man squadrons. These will be little threat by themselves and can be driven off by enemy missile fire but they will be very maneuverable (deployed 3 wide and 2 deep they will be able to "fast march" 24 inches per turn if they don't shoot and aren't embroiled with the enemy) and with several used together or if they can penetrate gaps in the enemy  to hit his flank or rear, they are a force to be reckoned with. On the other hand, if routed, they will be too small to bother my main combat units. The rules make standards useful, but only 1 per combat is needed so I have decided  to stay with 1 for each 2 units. This will allow me to field 4x 6 man units or 2x 12 man units.

So, without further ado we have:

Imagineering Bureaucracy

In an early post, I dabbled briefly in the background of my semi-historical Mede army. On the surface it may seem like a bit of a useless exercise but if I progress beyond stray scenarios the information may come in useful and in any event since I don't want to bother with points, it gives me a rationale for what units to deploy and how they should be organized.

One of the sticking points is that one of the few bits of information that comes easily  to hand and to mind is the organization of Persian (and presumably earlier Mede) armies into 10's, 100's and 1,000's, (not to mention 10,000's). As mentioned in earlier posts, this caused me some grief as it does not match convenient 25mm wargame unit sizes. It also does not explain how smaller forces would be selected (for example where one finds say 300 cavalry being deployed). An advantage of semi-historical gaming, especially in a poorly documented era, is that I can use my discretion and imagination to provide solutions with a clear conscience. After a mad minute where I contemplated fielding 50 man wargame units each with 10 x 5 man subunits, I settled on the following theoretical and practical organizations.

The smallest unit, the 10 man file is too small for me to work with on table, so I will begin with the 100 man sub-unit as the basis of my organization. Without worrying about niceties of ground scale, I flatly declare that 3 wargame figures or 1 chariot or elephant and crew constitute a COMPANY of 100 men.   Ten such companies constitute a REGIMENT. A full strength regiment is thus 30 figures. Three men don't look like much on the table (and aren't a legal unit under WHAB) so companies will not normally be fielded on their own, instead the regiment is divided into 5 SQUADRONS each of 2 companies or 6 men. This will be the minimum size of wargame unit. On occasion, a unit of more than squadron size but smaller than regiment size is needed. In these cases, 2 squadrons are formed into an adhoc unit called a WING.

Now, armies are rarely at full paper strength and there are two main ways to deal with this. The most common method is to maintain the number of sub-units but allow their strength to drop. This results in uneven sized subunits and so in some armies the administrative unit was not used as a tactical unit. For example, a battalion of 10 administrative companies might be fallen in and numbered off into 8 equal tactical platoons each morning, resulting in each being composed of men from several different companies.

Another, less common method, was to maintain the subdivisions as close as possible to full strength and reduce the number of sub-divisions when numbers failed. In particular, some later regiments maintained field and depot battalions or squadrons with the field ones being sent to war at, as near as possible, full strength. This is the system my Medes will adopt. Indeed, it now appears that the common practice in my army is to  send 4 squadrons into the field and hold 1 squadron back as a depot.(conveniently giving me my basic 24 man units with a rationale for smaller units).  The depot squadron is responsible for recruitment and training, looking after convalescent men, sending drafts to the front when needed and for rear area security.  
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District regiments are normally recruited in one area and armed alike. Auxiliary regiments may be composed of various contingents of mercenaries or tribal levies from the fringes of the empire. One common practice is to brigade 2 squadrons of skirmishers with a wing of light infantry equipped to either skirmish or fight hand to hand.

Skirmishers and cavalry are usually deployed by squadron, but heavier shock cavalry usually deploy in at least wing strength and occasionally as full regiments. Light infantry operating in support of the skirmishers and cavalry normally deploy by wing while massed infantry  normally deploys by regiment.

For the upcoming Lydian campaign, the following troops have been earmarked and are now completing their mobilization: 1 District cavalry regiment, 1 Auxiliary light cavalry regiment, 1 chariot wing, 6 District infantry regiments, 2 Auxilliary light infantry regiments, 1 Sapper squadron. All of these will be under the command of Rosius, Satrap of West Hantsia.  Pictures and details will hopefully be available for posting by next week.

Whether the Lydians conveniently adopt a similar system, as far as possible given their haphazard empire and reliance on seasonal mercenaries,  or go a different route, remains to be seen.

More Shadows in the Desert

I'm glad I bought Dr Kaveh Farrokh's book on Anciewnt Persia at War, but I'm even more glad that I got it cheap at a flea market. I had been hoping for something with in-depth treatment of the latest research in organization, tactics, arms etc but the book contains very little on any of these topics. It does however contain interesting speculation on the impact of Iranian culture and language on the world (I had no idea there was a Persian colony in Italy in the 5th C) as well as recounting every Persian king in a 1,000 years (and usually which member of their familiy killed them) and  a brief mention of virtually every campaign with some information on battles where available.

Unfortunately for my purposes, while the author takes a stab at weapons in a vague way though he seems to lack real understanding of arms and armour and seems to have little sense of the importance of discipline, command structure, generalship, formations, tactics and so forth. For example the Greek vs Persian clash is seen purely in terms of armour and defeats of Sassanian cavalry at the hands of  the Hephthalites appears to be attributed in large part to the latter's method of suspending their sword sheathes by two straps instead of one, and so forth.

Useful background reading but no real use on the tabletop.

Rising Tide

There is nothing like playing a game, even a solo game, to pique one's interest in a project. First came the preparations and 2 solo versions of Marathon, then when a snow storm cancelled the live play version, I decided to go ahead and improvise a Lydian-Persian clash to try out the new proposed OB's even though I haven't painted up any actual Phyrgian or Lydian troops yet.  The result was a fun game with that sort of not quite historical feel that I was looking for. The sort of feeling I get from re-reading the account of the Hyborian Age battle in Featherstone's Wargames or the battle accounts in Charles Grant's The Ancient Wargame or in various Tabletop Teaser reports (for example, read this account of an ambush of Princess Zenobi's caravan ( http://www.box.net/shared/5q0wqui8s4 ).  A report of the Bridge of Boats game will appear on the Battle of the Month blog before too long but it brought up some interesting points.

The calm before the storm.

Firstly, although  my original intent was to do just enough units to play a few Teasers, I'm now thinking that I want enough troops to be able to run a campaign with more troops on the shelf than will be needed in any one game. Not sure yet exactly how many more but since shelf space has not expanded, this means I will have to be tougher about evicting some unused or unpopular units or armies as well as finding a way to leniently include some favoured units that don't quite fit. Things like 3rd C Thracian mercenaries in helmets with rhomphai, some wild barbarian mercenaries from beyond the boundaries of the civilized world, perhaps from beyond the Black Sea, some with perhaps a slightly celtic air. 

Secondly, I like some form of uncertainty in solo games and have been used to finding this in some combination of command control and variable moves. The morale and combat  results in WHAB seem to provide enough unpredicatility to satisfy myself and scupper carefully and not so carefully laid plans alike. \\\
They certainly provided several turn around points in the Bridge of Boats river crossing just played.

Thirdly, what to do about catapults? Now, really, in the 5th/6th C  I shouldn't need to think about any sort of engines of war unless carrying out a siege but when laying out the river crossing, I felt an awful urge to include them, like Alexander against the Skythians. Now if I was starting from scratch, I would probably be planning an Imperial Roman vs Sassinid campaign and Scorpions and Onagers would not be a problem. The same would apply if playing a Hyborian campaign, and of course I have a few engines kicking about,  hardly ever used in 30 years, some closer to appropriate than others. The jury is out, but if this is going to be my one ancients period then I may wave my magical wand and include them in certain scenarios, (like a river crossing).

Fourthly, the games this month have confirmed my feeling that points are not a good way to balance a game since some troops are always more worth their points than other, especially in certain situations and in a campaign, troops can't always pick their situation. So, while I may count points after the fact for interest  sake, I won't take them into account when designing the campaign armies. Units will be standard sized and troops armed as they are.Proportions of unit types included will be dependent on what seems reasonabl;e crossed with what is available and what I feel liek painting.

Next post, a first stab at orders of battle for the two sides.









 

Second Thoughts

I spent a considerable time and effort convincing myself that 18 figure units, or more accurately, units with 3 bases each of 6 infantry or 6 bases of 3 cavalry, were the way to go. Maybe one day I'll learn that when I have to work that hard to convince myself of something then its probably not right. While preparing to refight Marathon, I ended up having to play with unit configurations and found that surprise, surprise, the 24 man units that I had originally envisaged were flexible and looked good.

As originally envisaged: 24 man units with 12 man light infantry and cavalry units.

Now if I do revert to 24 man infantry units, what do I do with the cavalry? Keeping to the premise that all regiments are 1,000 strong I have 2 choices: field 24 man cavalry and skirmisher units or field the cavalry and light infantry as 1/2 units or wings, for example the Skythian horse archer unit would be 24 strong but might take the field as two 12 man wings or even four 6 man troops on the day of battle. Actually having the "quarter" as an administrative and tactical sub-unit appeals to me. I have no reason to believe the Persians used such an organization but then, as I've said before, this is "MY" army.

Of course, now I'll need to paint up more troops, but that's not a bad thing.

Tales from beyond the frontier

Last March, 4 of us got together for a weekend WAB  campaign of the use what you got sort. My Persians, Gary's Assyrians, Big Jeff's Barbarian's and Little Jeff with his dad's Carthaginians.  We played four 1 on 1 games (2 each) and then the Persians with their Assyrian levies, err I mean allies against the various outlandish types. Having seen what was out there, we decided there was no need to expand the Empire. (unhuh, yup that was our story).

In the first game, Rosius destroys the Phoenician Rebels, err I mean the Carthaginians, despite their use of strange beasts.

Persian levies massed for the final battle. Pity that our Assyrian allies cracked...........

RAFM Skythian noble cavalry chases off some some barbarian tribesmen.

One Hump or Two?

Dressing the Dromedary Detachment

Strictly speaking, I shouldn't really have a camel corps but there they were in the old Garrison catalogue and I've always had a secret thing for camels so when I discovered that they were available again, I indulged. Its been more than a year now since I glued them to their sticks and primed and started on them, then ground to a halt. Nothing stalls my painting like not being able to figure out out "I" want the figures to look like. Oh a simple matter for a young fellow, schooled to do what he's told, check your Osprey, order the right code from the right manufacturer and bin them if they don't match. Even easier for those who don't care, right 1 stand of camels. here are some old Ghaznavid camels, that'll do.  So here's what has been staring at me.

A Garrison unarmoured camel rider with bow, spear and shield, wearing an ankle length robe with long sleeved over tunic and a 3 lappet cap. But who are these guys? During Xerxes great invasion, Arab levies appear and most books and miniatures depict them as 1/2 naked, bareheaded savages with 2 archers perched upon their ride. Now whether or not any arab levies would have dressed up a bit when leaving the desert to campaign in the far northern reaches of Anatolian, its unlikely that there would have been Arab levies in a Persian army before the fall of Babylon.

Camels are, of course, not unknown on the steppes of Asia as witness the common name of Bactrian Camel.  A little early for a Bactrian contingent perhaps, but a bigger problem is that these, while smallish do appear to be dromedaries. I considered claiming that the blanket & saddle covered both humps but even I didn't buy it.

Now, as I said, I shouldn't really have camel's at all and I'm not talking about adhering to Army Lists. At the battle of Thymbra, which still lays in the future if you remember,  Cyrus will take advantage of the Lydian cavalry's never having encountered camels by dismounting pack camels in front of his infantry. The Lydian cavalry is thrown into disorder and Cyrus wins the day. I might field a unit of dismounted pack camels one day. They should probably be Bactrians but kneeling Dromedaries is what I have.

Garrison Scythian archer with Ral Partha kneeling camel.

BUT, that still doesn't solve the matter at hand, now that I have my camel corps, how should I paint it? Several volunteers popped off their group stick and some individual experimentation took place to see what felt right while I pondered the possibilities. First the hats, arabs of the day are usually shown bareheaded and several of the caps had not cast quite right. A few strokes of a knife were sufficient to produce acceptable long hair. That's easy, I also have a thing for 3 lappet caps, so a mix perhaps. Long white robes sound quite Arab-ish and possibly the edge of the over tunic could be disguised but while one test figure had possibilities, it just didn't 'feel' right. Well, these guys aren't levies straight from the desert and they don't look like conscripted pack animal drovers so what about a small contingent of free lance mercenary Arabs? The officers have perhaps adopted some facets of Median dress assuming they aren't Medes themselves. The rank and file, while not going all the way,  might have spent some of their hard earned pay on new clothes, bought local as they wandered abroad. Slowly a picture and a unit character emerges.

        

The camel corps experiments with various new clothes.

So there we are, the makings of my camel corps. I just need to finish up the 5 prototypes then get at the 2nd batch, aiming for an over all look of individuals with something in common. After all, Cyrus had to get the idea of using camels from somewhere!

Rosius The Forgotten, King of the Medes

There more than a few blurry spots in our knowledge of the 6thC BC, there could be a lost king whose name has not survived and perhaps whose deeds have been assigned to another, in any event, I dislike pretending to be a dead fellow. (Rosius is presumably sleeping somewhere in a cave until the call comes...)


Rosius the Forgotten, showing the effects of 30 years in the field. Oddly his personal standard appears to be nearly identical to that once carried behind Queen Johanna of Valdur. (Hinchliff Sassinid and Minifig Seleucid figures)

A few more things need to be considered before we get to a list of units, how big is the army going to be and how is the army theoretically raised and maintained so that if and when a major campaign is launched, there'll be a basis for replacing casualties (Please note that I make no reference to paying for said army, I find financial matters tedius enough in this world).

In reverse order, lets look at how the army is raised and please do not confuse this with the historical Persian army. The core of the army, both native Medes and subject regiments are raised by district. Young men are selected each year to serve for 4 years, should they live so long. Each winter an order is sent home as to how many recruits are required to bring the unit up to strength once the full timers have been dismissed. Assuming that there are enough young men to replace not only the released men but also any sick. wounded and dead soldiers, the units are thus brought up to full strength by the start of the campaign season. The soldiers who have served their time, return to their homes but remain liable for call up with each district being resposible to furnish a 2nd full strength unit, normally for home defence. Most districts supply what we may call line infantry, equipped according to their native fashion, but some districts supply cavalry.

In addition to the district regiments, the pick of the young noblemen of the kingdom are drawn off to serve in the King's guards, both horse and foot. Once they have served their 4 years, most return home but some are picked for long time service as senior oficers in the district regiments or as members of the palace guard which does not normally take the field. Casualties to the guards are immediately made good by other regiments in the army. There are also some small technical units which are maintained directly by the king on a full time basis, the Corps of Charioteers, the Department of the Quartermaster, and the Engineers.

There remain two other sources to be considered, on occasion, contingents from allied kingdoms may be found fighting alongside the Medes or even under their command and, when needed, mercenaries may be hired. This is normally done as a way of obtaining specialist troop types not available in the district regiments or during times of political unrest. Mercenary units do not have a regular system for replacing casualties and may be brought up to strength periodically or left to dwindle away and be repalced by a fresh unit as expedient.


Apulian mercenaries in Persian service? Who knew?

Now we know how the units are raised, how many should there be? I'm certainly not going to paint even 120,000 Medes at 1:50 which leaves me various options but the one I am going to choose is to fight the campaign with those units that I can field even though they will never all be on the table at once and even though this means I will be fighting a major war of with an army of almost certainly less than 20,000 men.

The army, following its reorganizaation, and omitting any Greek or Bythnian units, currently has 4 regiments of cavalry, 9 of infantry plus a small contingent of chariots and camelry. The Immortals are actually a double sized unit which is fielded as wings and some of the light infantry regiments are currently understrength and currently take the field in combined units. The cavalry has never been properly reorganized and are also currently fielded as composite regiments. This is probably as big an army as I would ever want to put on the table at once but there are some more units that I want to build, like Persian infantry in long robes, and of course, the composite regiments need to be split and filled out or 1 of the units scrapped. Its a rare table top teaser that has as many as 16 units and of course, in a 'proper' campaign, the size of a force will be determined by the events leading up to a battle. So if I plan on 6 cavalry units, counting the chariots and cavalry as one, and 14 infantry units, then I should be all set.