Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Paul Georgian]

In a message dated 6/1/02 9:37:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
jjmurphy@...
writes:

> Would you please take a look at message #4812 which I posted a bit
> back regarding the Maurikian Byzantine list in Dark Age Warrior?
>
> You are probably better aware of the following than I am but I'll
> include it for everyone else's benefit and so you don't have to thumb
> through and find it.
>
> Foederati and Optimates are referred to in the Strategikon as specific
> units in an idealized (?) army deployment in Book 3 Sections 6-8
> (pages 41 to 43 of the later edition) and also in the discussion of
> unit depths in Book 2 Section 6 (pages 28-29). There is a smattering
> of other references to them as well throughout. I am not off the cuff
> locating the specific passage which ties the three elite units
> together into a praesental organization which later became the
> opsikion theme, but it is easily found where it has been described as
> such in various secondary sources. In any event the types and sizes of
> the units mentioned in the cited passages of the Strategikon for these
> is at least consistent with that.

Absolutely correct and were Warrior a set of rules that was primarily aimed
at simulating historical battles, using troops that would have been
customarily available to the ordinary field commander, that's the list that
would have been done. Warrior is not that kind of rules of set. It is a
tournament players set of rules where your Maurikians may be called upon to
fight any number of ahistorical enemies from Sumerian City states to
Burgundian Ordnannce and everything in between. On that basis, the list was
developed with the assumption that Maurikian players would want to field the
best army they could with high morale, good armour and weaponry type troops.
The best armies Heraklios and Maurikios could put into the field, in other
words, not some scraped together frontier force. I know this sounds harsh to
those primarily interested in historical accuracy but I strongly believe that
it's unavoidable to a large degree in a rules set where a Sumerian shopkeeper
with a pike and a wicker shield and cloak is as effective as one of
Alexander's Macedonian Phalangites. On the other hand, if you wish to
simulate a historical battle among your own group you can use the list as a
guide and amend it any way you need to for historicity. I certainly wouldn't
hestitate to do so if I was running a scenario.

> The text in these passages certainly also implies a regular organization for
> the Optimates which are shown in these passages as
> being organized, paid and trained by the state regardless of their
> origins (and the presence of a large number of Romans in the Optimates
> is attested to in any case in several secondary sources and perhaps in
> the Strategikon as well).

Based on many interpretations of the evidence, the Optimates chould indeed be
regulars in the sense of the rules. However Warrior handicaps regular
cavalry by not allowing them to charge impetuously unless there is general in
sight charging also. This is one of the biggest crocks in the rules IMHO
(not entirely 4 Horsemen's fault. It's a Barker holdover rule.) and on that
basis I erred on the side of giving the Maurikian's some cavalry that could
charge impetouosly on their own. I wouldn't have any problem with giving
them the option to be upgraded to Regulars. The real problem is that they
should also have the L option instead of JLS. They would have been armed in
the Roman fashion. This is an error in the list that Scott tells me will be
corrected, if it hasn't been already.

> One particular passage of the Strategikon, not the only one I believe,
> regarding double armament would be the first two paragraphs of Book 1
> Section 2 ("Cavalry Armament"). This is on page 12 of the recent
> reprint.
>
> A couple of Strategikon passages - and I believe other evidence -
> mention lances with leather work permitting them to be carried while
> keeping the hand free for handling a bow. This is a powerful arguement
> I think for double armament.
>
> In the current list only 2/5 of the line cavalry have bows. First of
> all, many more are indicated by the Strategikon as "archers" when
> greater than the minimum 5 ranks are used. Secondly, this seems to
> dilute the supposed emphasis the Byzantines of this period placed on
> mounted archery since less than half of their line troops have bows
> and being in open order they are less able to mass firepower.
>
> As a final comment on double vs single armament, the Byzantines and
> the heavier of their Persian or even Avar enemies are mentioned in
> quite a few places as having similar armament. Yet the Avars get
> double-armed heavies and so, in FW, do the Sassanids. Supposedly there
> were a lot of cross-influences between these.

This is a thorny area of the list that I might be inclined to agree with you
if I were redoing the list. Your suggestion that veterans be allowed the
option of upgrading with B is probably reasonable. On reflection, it might
have been better to divide the list into Maurikian and Heraklian timephases
with all the Maurikian cav having B and the Heraklian veterans being allowed
to do so. This would simulate the "reformed" fully regularized army of
Maurikios before the essential destruction of the Byzantine army during and
after the anarchic rule of Phokas and it's complete reconstruction under
Heraklios. BTW, on the risky nature of following the sources specifically
there is also a passage in one of the early military manuals (not sure which
from memory, might even be the Strategikon) that describes Byzantine heavy
infantry (all the infantry, not just the rear rank archers) putting down
their shields and spears and using their bows and then picking their shields
and spears back up when the enemy neared. Imagine the uproar if I'd followed
this source and allowed all Byzantine infantry to have bows in addition to
their spears.

> Anyway, I like the new list better than anything else out there.
> Specific armament is perhaps less vital than the new-found ability of
> these troops to function in the kind of roles which the Strategikon
> and other sources indicate. Putting it to good effect on the table is
> of course always more problematic. Sorry to take entirely too much
> space and hope someone gets something meaningful from all this.

As a final word, any army list based on ancient sources is at best a
compromise as we try to sift through what was an "ideal" vs what was actual
practice. The main problem with Warrior and most of the other ancients rules
is that, it is usually the armies with the most sources available and that we
know the most about, that get screwed in how they get advantages within the
rules, while armies about which next to nothing is known, such as the
Blemmyes, get major advantages (like having all their Cavalry be Irr A) on
the basis of one passage in single history (again this is a Barker rule.
Hopefully 4 Horsemen will reduce the invincible Blemmye to their deserved
obscurity in the Classical lists.). :-)

Paul G.


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