Hi was thinking about trying to get my Kushites useable later in history (when a lot of the comps seem to be set). Looking at the list the Kushite Egyptian list ends in 656 BC and the Meriotic list starts in 592 BC. After this gap the Kushites have lost most of their troops types - all the chariots, 14 cavalry, 18 skirmishing bow, all the slingers and javs. They have 'gained' a large mass of close order unprotected short spear. Beyond a bit of vague description in Strabo about 25 BC and few bit of fairly uninformative art there is no evidence at all for this that I know of. It would be nice if the later list was a bit more flexible - currently it would require me to paint 63 bases of rubbish spear which I don't think anyone actually makes so I'd have to use some kind of stand ins! Any chance there could be at least some kind of transition where maybe the chariots go? Is there any reason to think that they stopped having any cavalry other than Strabo not really mentioning any in 25 BC? Lots of other lists where we don't know much seem to get the benefit of the doubt.
To be honest, not an army I know a great deal about. Probably a substantial change that in reality took place over 600 years. One I will certainly take a look at.
Richard
I think this goes back to the WRG lists for DBM and 7th most likely. The list in DBMM runs from 592 BC to 350 AD. The list description seems to match that pretty much. The troop types are also probably from there. The WRG Kushite Egyptian list runs until 593 BC. So they have the abrupt transition but without the gap! The 593 BC date is the move of the capitol from Napata to Meroe though why that would involve a drastic military reorganisation I don't know. Herodotus doesn't say what the army was like that faced the Persians under Cambyses so all that we can say is that was closer in time to the one faced by the Assyrians than the one described by Strabo. The Assyrian reliefs depict some Kushite soldiers though they suffer from the standard problem of the Assyrians depicting all of their enemies as rather badly armed, even if they probably weren't, for propaganda reason (e.g. Elamites, Babylonians). it could be argued that the Kushites wore rather a lot of armour as the Assyrians at least depict them with some armour unlike their other enemies who are shown with none. Taharqa's archers are shown with lamellar jackets which is extremely unusual for enemies of Assyria! We also know from archaeology that they did a lot of iron working Meroë.