all historical

[Anibal at portas]

i like the mod all historical.
units historicall,uniforms,shields,helmets,weapons etc for all factions and many types,not units invented.
many scriners and event all historical.
ancillaries,nobility titles,personal objets famous swords etc also historical.

i like the game europa universalis II,many events historical and many faction historical.
prominent figures and generals historical.

[AnthoniusII]

Don't worry mate...We (the team)are funs of realism in all factors of the game...Me personall; I am apseshed with realism...

[Anibal at portas]

big news,thanks

[neoptolemos]

Anthonius your avatar is the head from a Byzantine foot soldier?just wondering

[AnthoniusII]

Anthonius your avatar is the head from a Byzantine foot soldier?just wondering

Yes actually an officer or ellite foot soldier...
That kind of helmet was very poppular among to the empire's soldiers...


A magnificent image by mr.Giannopoulos (Historian)....

[neoptolemos]

Yes actually an officer or ellite foot soldier...
That kind of helmet was very poppular among to the empire's soldiers...


A magnificent image by mr.Giannopoulos (Historian)....

I`ve seen the picture in one of the magazines i am interested in.The illustration is absolutely cool mate!aAre the responsible modder-skinner for the byzantine empire?Byzs are my favourite and i except new models for their armies like that officer you have chosen to be your Avatar

[AnthoniusII]

I am responsible for the "roman" roster...Images like the previus one are the basis for our modellers to produse skins...
Titles,unit names and uniforms rely on realistic(as possible)features...
P.S. Mr Chr.Giannopoulos has done an exellent job...

[neoptolemos]

Looking forward for the best!I am convinced that your work is going to be excellent.Keep up the good work and thread some of your samples

[Lavastein]

what period is that soldier from? I cant find it anywhere :hmmm:

I certainly hope a reproduction of him will be done, if the period allows it

[Lamanz]

what period is that soldier from? I cant find it anywhere :hmmm:

I certainly hope a reproduction of him will be done, if the period allows it

Agreed. That would be pretty sweet.

[AnthoniusII]

Units with such armors and helmets were developted after Basileius II boulgaroctonus death...This kind of helmet was from the favorit of ellite troops but mostly officers(see a helmet of this with "holly"drawings in the "Last Byzantine Armies" by Osprey)....

[neoptolemos]

Athonius could you post some of your pictures of late Byzantine armies?I think you must have a vast collection of illustrations.gives us your light mate,just a glimpse of what is to come!

[AnthoniusII]

There will be a fanction release soon(don't ask me how soon)...
The only I have to say right now is that "famous" regioned units will be in our byzantine roster...
Units such:
Tzacones
(Medium cavalry millitia from the pelloponissos region)
Cretes
The famous "last" defenders"of Constantinople also as auxilia troops for Venetians.
Trapezountioi
The famous trapzond archers were more than a "local" unit but...they were not reqruitable any were else in the empire...
And some others like:
Spatharioi tou Vasileos(pallace guards)
The "traditional" imperial guarisson never stop to exist(despites the name it used)...
Castrophylakae(city/castle guards)
Every generall who had a province (thema)under his orders had the obligation to reqruit a profesional hardcore unit to enforce the law but mostly to guard the local observation posts,castles and the cities within his province...They were keeprs of the local armoury and often they were used as senior officers to the rest thematic-provinsial "millitia" type army...

[AnthoniusII]

And some units I requested to the mod admin and wait for certain answer...
Gasmouloi
Just like the turkopouloi and mourtatoi were troops came from mixed greek/turkish famillies,gasmouloi were children of mixed latin/freek famillies...
They came from the italian trade comnunities in all over the cities in the empire...They have chosen the easiest weapon to learn(just like the majority of the italian millitias in Italy)the crossbow...They served as city defenders but mostly as maritive troops and ship weaponed troops...
Saxon huscarls
Most people know the vikings as the famous varangians...The trouth is that,yes the 1st ones were the viking drouzinas Sviatoslav sent to emperor Bassil II Boulgaroctonus as a gift for the alliance pact between them and the marriage with the emperor's daughter(first time in history a princess marryies a barbarian ruller).Things started to change in the varangian guard when after the conquer of England by the normans many saxon nobles(huscarls)and their squires became refuges and worked as mercenaries through out europe but mostly for an employ that payed most (The byzantine empire)....

[AnthoniusII]

My eforts are aiming to "real" units and not to nic names they had through history...
Or how names of units are defined for the mod...
You wont see units with names just to prove our knowlege of the byzantine history...but names given by the "officials" of that time...
To clear some misunderstanding...
In the "roman" army units and soldiers(some times the same ones) have taken names by their a)weapon,b)armor,c)possition in the army's formation and finally their task durring the batlle(before or after)...
Some exambles:
SCOUTATOI
Like the anceint greeks before(see hoplites from their shield hoplon) the name scoutatoi was a common through the infantry units...
To mark the diference from the light weaponed/armored unit byzantines named the last ones with the generic name of "psiloi"...
In the golden age of the empire and later the units had two(2) parts with the generic names of DEFENSORES and KURSORES...That destingion remained even later mostly for the cavalry units but existed in the infantry units as well...Forthe "line" infantry units the two parts also often known as CONTARATOI and TOXOTAE...
CONTARATOI
As a word means spearmen from the ancient greek word "kontos" and the later byzantine version "kontarion"...
According to the spear type they used they often had names such "lancarii",menaulatii and others...
If we want to understand the byzantine way of placing units in the battlefield we must remember the "promachoi-scoutatoi"system...
In a "millitia"way of reqruit an army some of the soldiers could afford much heavier armors than others.So the "contaratoi" were devided by the armor level they were equipted(promachoi means those that fight in the first ranks of the formation).
TOXOTAE
That kind of warriors were the part of a unit ussualy missed for many ages..
They should be the "attacking"part of an infantry line unit(behind the scoutatoi ranks)...At the era we focus "turkish" origin sitizens of the empire joined in vast numbers as archers and rebirth the "dual"type infantry/cavalry units...Mourtatoi were some of them...
As toxotae still named the greek/roman origin archers of diferent regions like
Trapezountioi,Cretes etc...Skilled hunters of a region now joined the psiloi troops as "levy archers"...
So far ...Armor leveled troops is an invantion for the games not the real byzantine armies(soldiers of diferent armors joined the same units with generic names such scoutatoi or toxotae).

Cavalry units:
Cavalarii
The name is also a generic one and means cavalrymen (no matter their armor,weapon,place in the formation and task/mission)
After the 10th century(mostly)and the rebirth of the heavy type cavalry by the Nikephorus Phokas as cavalarii were known the 'thematic" cavalry soldiers also known as Stratiotae as well espesialy after 11th century...
All cavalarii units were separated by the dual type roman system...(See units by task/mission)...
Clivanarii
Known as the heavy cavalry romans developted to counter the heavier sassanid cataphracts,clivanarii (as a name)are no longer part of the heaviest of the cavalrymen in this era...
As clivanion byzantines describe ALL scale mails and lamellar armors...So in this era clivanarius is just a horseman equipted with scale mail or (mostly)lamerall quirass...A clivanarius may belong to cavalarii or to sholarii horsemen!!!
Cataphracti
This is the most misunderstanting name for cavalrymen...
A cataphractus is a description (by someone's view) for someone who covers him self with armor(often by diferent types of armor the same time).
The "real" name for those we describe as cataphracti is SHOLARII...As scholae we describe the profesional army units stationed (most of the times) in the empire's capital...Having huge sallaries and access to the capital's finest smithers they care a great deal for their protection and the result is what we call cataphracti..

To be continued....

[AnthoniusII]

Unit names part two...

Names by possition in the formation...
In the post before we mentioned the promachoi- scoutatoi unit separation for line infantry...
They were not the only ones...Ipercerastae(those who suround the enemy by the flanks) for examble...Ipercerastae may sound nice as a unit name but we can not name a spesific unit with it...
In a standard infantry formation ipercerastae were psiloi units based mostly in ranged soldiers of sphendonitae(slingers),toxotae(levy archers) and acontistae (javelinears)...
The same huppened in the cavalry unit flanks(immagine a formation of three(3) separate formations-one infantry and two cavalry ones)...

[neoptolemos]

Anthonius mate a thorough research of Late roman military history!EYGE!!!!
I agree totaly with you in all the spectrum of your post.Now something about discusion.The look of the byzantine army was a mixture of original Roman,oriental influenced and western influenced.In original m2tw the appearance of the units was totaly mediocre!!!I couldn`t realise the evaluation of the armor and the only unit i found somewhat goodlooking was the Latinkon(Latinikon).I have read that in the 5th and 6th century AD the Roman army leaves the Lorica Segmedata cuirass(the famous cuirass with large segments of metal) for lamelar cuirasses(Lorikion,Epilorikion) and mail coats.In some illustrations i `ve seen some extra armed horsemen or infantry having additional parts of armor similar to loricas segmedatas (Epikalyptomena mettalica fylla)Were these for real?

[hylander25k]

I'm thoroughly impressed with your knowledge. Did you acquire this some where local like a library? are you a history major? Online military database? Please share - Im an avid history fan myself, especially military medieval history....

[AnthoniusII]

Armor issue...
All about costs...
If you read the "opening"post of the "Nature of conflict" you 'll see the favorit armors for infantry and cavalry (according to the threat)...
We must admit the even slightly more expensive the chain mail was the most common armor among the byzantine troops...
The byzantines had to defend against a large number of "bow ussers"ennemies.They choosed the same sollution sassanids and steppe wariors allready have chosen (the combination of chain mail and scale or lamellar quirass)...As clivanion most byzantine historians mentioned the combination above )It was very rare for a soldier(mostly horseman to whear only lamellar quirass with out leather,cotton or chain mail renforcement)...
If you look closely the "macedonian" dynasty soldier in the OSPREY "Late byzantine armies",you'll see that he whears 3 levels of armor(4 if we count the esoloricon-the cotton suit that makes the armor confortable for the warrior).
Conclution;The medeival roman(byzantine) army was a "state" and not a squire type army...The empire payed for the basic weapons+armor and the warrior payed anything better if he could afford it...
The byzantine soldier was very valeuable for the empire becaouse if he would die the empire would loose not only a soldier but also a tax income from the soldier's civil life...That happened for the majority of the soldiers...
Only semiprofesional or fully profesional troops were out of the regular tax system(see acritae,castrophylakae and afcource shcolarii and imperial guards)...
Cavalarii belonged to both millitia or profesional type of troops...

[AnthoniusII]

Unit names part 3.

Names by mission/task...

Many units were named by their mission durung the campaigh or battle...
Kursores:
I allready mentioned that in the byzantine way of unit roster each unit had two primarly subunits.The first one was kursores.
Kursores were the 1st half of the unit responsible for the asault.In both infantry and cavalry units the task of the asualt was for the archers( see byzantine cavalry or guard archers in the vanilla version of the game).
Defensores:
As defensores called the lance/spear units(see scoutatoi or byzantine lancers)
The spear weaponed units were mostly a refuge for the "range" ones or counter attack units when the ennemy was in confution...
To let you understand (byzantine lancers NEVER charged the ennemy like the western knights or sergeants)...
The only "shock"troops available were some cavalry units such scholarii, archontopoulii and later the proniarii...
Hosarii
The name as word means "those who comite a hosia(ambush)...
They also were known as enedreutae from the word "enedra" which also mean ambush...
Those troops were not only from the lighter armored troops as some insist (in the batlle of Myriocephalon the "scouts" hossarii were from the "cataphract" type cavalry)...
Mostly the mission of ambush was a work of the acritae units becaouse for each province the army went through the local troops new the paths and safe roads better!!!
Acritae.
For the greeks/roman these soldiers were the most famous(and poppulation wrote many epic songs and myths for them)...
They were the succesors of the limitanei roman troops and afcource their name also means (acri=final line of the state=border)...
As troops were the majority of semiprofesional soldiers of each province(thema).For the reqruitment the "millitary lands" status were invented...Lived by the millitary lands close to the empire's borders they transformed from light to medium multi role soldier acting as border guards durring peace and as raiding forces or ambushers durring war time...
They were a multi funcionnal tool to every generall and his province.
As cavalry were the first troops to engage the invading force to give the province the crussal time to reqruit the thematic(millitia)army and provide the population a safe shelter.
As infantry exept of the ambush task they often used as line infantry (the same way "principes" were in the clasic roman armies.
Imagine an army that in his infantry formation has:
1st line: units of psiloi(mostly acontistae)
2nd line:units of acritae (medium armored javelinears)
and finaly at the 3rd line the scoutati/mourtati combination...does this reminds you something? After all they (the byzantines)ussed to say that they were THE ROMANS....