Achaemanid Persians

[martin goddard]

With the troops armed with bow and spear, are they going to be a good fighting army?


1.    Persian Army
This is the great army of Darius and Xerxes.  It includes a lot of foreign troop types. Battle tactics = D, I, J
Troop type   Quality   Detail   Number of units   Upgrades
Chariots   Trained   Shock   0 - 1   
Cavalry   Trained   Unarmoured.  Bow No shield, spear.   2 - 6   0 - 2 veteran
Mounted skirmishers   Trained      1 - 5   
Close order infantry   Trained   Unarmoured.  Bow shield and spear.   4 - 7   0 - 1 elite
0 - 1 veteran
Close order infantry   Trained   
Mercenary hoplites.Armoured.  Shield and spear.   0 - 5   Xenephon etc!
Close order infantry   Levy    Unarmoured.  Shield and spear.   3 - 8   
Auxiliary infantry   Levy   Unarmoured.  Spear and shield.   0 - 6   0 - 2 trained
Foot skirmishers   Trained      3 - 7   

Suggested reading
The Histories by Herodotus
Greek and Persian wars 500-323 BC  Osprey  MAA 69
The Persian Expedition.  By Xenophon.  Penguin Classics.



martin

[John Watson]

This is something that has troubled me about the rules for some time.
Some units are spear and shield. Option 1
Some units are spear, shield and bow. Option 2
Some units are hall spear and shield, half bow. Option 3
Some units are all bow, shielded or not. Option 4
C&K seems to cater for options 1 and 4 without any problems, but not the others.
I would suggest for option 2 that should fire with the normal dice, but in a fight should have no bow effect.
For option 3 I suggest that they should shoot at -1 die for normal shooting and in a fight should have bow effect at -1 die and fight at -1 die.
If you leave any combined spear and bow units at maximum effect they will be too powerful.
John

[martin goddard]

Good thoughts John.

Tonight we are trying out the spear bow combo to see how it goes.
There are only a couple of armies with troops armed with spear bow and shield.
These are Achaemenid Persians and might be Korean at some point?
Persians are not a very good fighting army in CK . Although we are trying it out.


The mixed bow and spear units are easily  represented by two units. One bow and one spear.
They can be lined up touching one behind the other.  Simple and effective?

The work goes on.

martin

[John Watson]

The problem with one unit of spear and one unit of bow representing split spear/bow units is the limit of three units per zone. With three split units you have 1.5 units of bow and 1.5 units of spear. With your solution, Martin, you have 2 of spear and 1 of bow or vice versa. Neither of these achieves the right effect. It would be like telling a WW2 airforce that they can't have fighter/bombers but they can fighters and bombers. They all do different jobs.
Whether you agree with the tactic or not there were quite a large number of armies that employed these mixed units.
John

[martin goddard]

I am resistant to extra complication in case CK becomes similar to those rule sets which are all encompassing which I have an aversion to. There are loads of them.

This might be a complication we need?

We will have to play some games using the  method I suggest and then make a  judgement?

martin

[mellis1644]

Tonight we are trying out the spear bow combo to see how it goes.
There are only a couple of armies with troops armed with spear bow and shield.
These are Achaemenid Persians and might be Korean at some point?
Persians are not a very good fighting army in CK . Although we are trying it out

Note, quite a few of the Byzantine foot troops might be in this category as well. They were not always mixed but I believe could be. This. was for the same reasons as the Persians i.e. a much more flexible option if facing mostly cavalry based armies.

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

Most of these mixed units, certainly all the Persian troops I have seen, are shown with the bowcase slung over the shoulder. There would not be a need to field separate archer figures per se...
Like most hybrid units their tactical effect was probably a compromise... counting as protected/shielded but firing at a reduced effectiveness perhaps, yet still better than completely unprotected archers/skirmishers?

Neil