Except there shouldn't be a Persian army where the only infantry are the Immortals. To the best of our knowledge it never happened.

I would make 16 bases of more 'normal' infantry compulsory.

Shouldn't cause problems for anyones figure collection unless they bought a very odd army indeed.

Martin

My understanding, as informed by Herodotus is that the 'spears' were used with the shield/pavise to construct a 'barricade'; implying that the spear was not a hand-to-hand weapon.  Also not convinced that Immortals should be 'skilled'; pg 43 defines 'skilled' as  " a high level of skill through training and practice and/or a high quantity of missiles". Herodotus states that Immortals units were kept at the required strength by recruiting men from the other Persian/Iranian sparabara units. This does not imply any increase in ability level.
FWIW, my interpretation is ... Sparabara : bow, experienced shooter and pavise only, (no spear); Immortals : Superior (increased morale due to unit status), short spear, bow, experienced shooter and pavise.

Quote from: martymagnificent on July 03, 2020, 01:46:24 AM
Except there shouldn't be a Persian army where the only infantry are the Immortals. To the best of our knowledge it never happened.

I would make 16 bases of more 'normal' infantry compulsory.

Shouldn't cause problems for anyones figure collection unless they bought a very odd army indeed.

Martin

that is true for a lot of armies ... we tend to pick the best ...

"had made a barricade of their wicker shields and from the protection of it were shooting their arrows in such numbers that the Spartan troops were in serious distress". Later, "there was a struggle at the barricade of shields, ; then the barricade down, there was a bitter and protracted fight". And later at the battle of Mycale "the Persians, so long as their line of shields remained intact, successfully repelled all attacks"

as i read it...it is more shieldwall than pavise ""there was a struggle at the barricade of shields,", and perhaps not shortspear but melee expert "bitter and protracted fight"

Quote from: Jilu on July 03, 2020, 09:45:37 PM

Quote from: martymagnificent on July 03, 2020, 01:46:24 AM
Except there shouldn't be a Persian army where the only infantry are the Immortals. To the best of our knowledge it never happened.

I would make 16 bases of more 'normal' infantry compulsory.

Shouldn't cause problems for anyones figure collection unless they bought a very odd army indeed.

Martin

that is true for a lot of armies ... we tend to pick the best ...

I can't think of any other MeG armies, that are primarily infantry, that have no minimum for the armies 'standard' infantry but allow huge numbers of an elite that made up a fraction of the whole. Players may tend to choose 'the best' from what is available but they are generally forced to take some more normal troops by the list.

Martin

Yes stability is everything right now.
So I will only correct a clear error if someone spots one.

Let's just get out there, grow a big community, and have loads of fun playing the game.

Si

Also, one may always voluntarily downgrade skilled to experienced  but not upgrade experienced to skilled 

Quote from: badhabum on July 07, 2020, 12:46:50 PM
Also, one may always voluntarily downgrade skilled to experienced  but not upgrade experienced to skilled 

Hahahaaa oh you jester.

Anyway, as a fun exercise I added up all the tournament Ach. Persian lists downgrading their shooting to experienced. It looks like it adds up to the same number of super modelled I've made out with. So that will be easy to remember...



Dru

In the dim distant past of this list - the immortals were all superior and average shooters, and there were non immortal foot minima.

I think the non immortal foot minima got rolled into the immortals when they were downgraded to average, then didnt get reseperated when they gained skilled shooting

(my opinion is skilled shooter is correct for the top Persian troops as it was their prestige weapon, but I would probably have gone with giving it to the guard cav rather than the immortals)

I think the best solution is minima for non immortal foot, or a reduced maximum for immortals rather than a rules change

The pavise is not the issue, the wall of skilled shooters with pavise is a bit scary.


Though anyone on a horse rides through them in short order

Hello all, I've done some digging into how these troops were used (see link). I've made some suggestions as to how rule changes might better model their behaviour (there's a thread in Rules Queries to cover) However, having just published the new book it's unlikely that that will change anytime soon. However, I believe we could get most of the benefit by addressing the army lists, so I've put a section of suggested changes in for those. In a nutshell, it shouldn't be possible for the entire infantry component to be Immortals and apple bearear because they were a small fraction of the army.

cwatp.blogspot.com

As a a non-ancients player trying to learn the period(s), this is an informative article.

1000 man "regiments" if you will sounds right, as the decimal system or organisation seems to be a common thread throughout the region and well into the 19th century.

If a 1000 man unit is 10 ranks deep, then presumably it's frontage is quite narrow, in this case 120'. Assuming each rank needs 3 foot minimum to wield his bow, it's gonna be 30' or more deep.
Do we know how this compares to contemporary armies? Did they only have 4-6-8 deep units?
Another thought is, if they used spears to tie the shields together to make a barricade, presumably each file would use 3-4 of it's spears to do this, the rearer ranks passing their's forward to use as required. Afterall, they're not needing them whilst they are shooting. And if they are replacing casualties in the ranks in front of them, they'd be able to find a spear underfoot if they didn't have one to hand.

If the unit is firing, I'd guess only the first 2 ranks would get anything like aimed shots at the target. All the 8 files behind would be overhead shooting presumably trying to hit the rearer areas of approaching enemy units. Whilst not particularly accurate - a unit would have 200 aimed-ish shots and 800 random-ish area fire shots - this is still a lot of shots.

If the shield bearer is the officer at the front, presumably he's the better man, and could shout fire directions when he's not using his spear or bow. But once in close combat, could the 7 rear files carry on overhead shooting, or would they be pressing up against the front ranks to hold firm, and to fill casualty spaces?

if the officer is the front ranker, then presumably when the front rank has fallen dead and wounded, the fighting quality of the unit (as apposed to individuals) would then fall by a quotable factor in wargaming terms?

Quote from: sultanbev on September 28, 2020, 09:21:33 PM
As a a non-ancients player trying to learn the period(s), this is an informative article.

1000 man "regiments" if you will sounds right, as the decimal system or organisation seems to be a common thread throughout the region and well into the 19th century.

If a 1000 man unit is 10 ranks deep, then presumably it's frontage is quite narrow, in this case 120'. Assuming each rank needs 3 foot minimum to wield his bow, it's gonna be 30' or more deep.
Do we know how this compares to contemporary armies? Did they only have 4-6-8 deep units?
Another thought is, if they used spears to tie the shields together to make a barricade, presumably each file would use 3-4 of it's spears to do this, the rearer ranks passing their's forward to use as required. Afterall, they're not needing them whilst they are shooting. And if they are replacing casualties in the ranks in front of them, they'd be able to find a spear underfoot if they didn't have one to hand.

If the unit is firing, I'd guess only the first 2 ranks would get anything like aimed shots at the target. All the 8 files behind would be overhead shooting presumably trying to hit the rearer areas of approaching enemy units. Whilst not particularly accurate - a unit would have 200 aimed-ish shots and 800 random-ish area fire shots - this is still a lot of shots.

If the shield bearer is the officer at the front, presumably he's the better man, and could shout fire directions when he's not using his spear or bow. But once in close combat, could the 7 rear files carry on overhead shooting, or would they be pressing up against the front ranks to hold firm, and to fill casualty spaces?

if the officer is the front ranker, then presumably when the front rank has fallen dead and wounded, the fighting quality of the unit (as apposed to individu als) would then fall by a quotable factor in wargaming terms?

Infantry depth varied. A pike phalanx could be 8 or 16 deep depending on the need. Hoplites seem to have been mostly 8 deep but sometimes went deeper to put pressure on (Thebans at Leuctra) or thinned them out to match enemy frontage (Athenians at Marathon). It's unknown whether the shields were tied together or not. If they were, spears would be awkward to use, you'd probably want plain lengths of wood. The man at the front was the leader of ten, or Dathapatis. The sense from Herodotus is that they shot until close combat was imminent, at which time they took up their close combat weapons.