Nikephorean Reform [part 1] Thematic Army preview

**AnthoniusII** · March 10, 2011, 01:59 AM

Originally Posted by Coeur de Lion

Stunning units, love to see them in a mod!! Anyone know of any?

The Great Conflicts 872-1071 will be one of them in certain.

**dannyalex** · July 11, 2011, 04:03 PM

is there anychance see the part 2 shortly?

**AnthoniusII** · July 12, 2011, 01:26 AM

Originally Posted by dannyalex

is there anychance see the part 2 shortly?

Most of our friends are quite busy in this part of time.
Any way we have so far:

Tagma ton Teichon

Tagma tou Arithmou

Tagma ton Excuvitoron (50% ready) Excubitores

Tagma ton Hikkanaton (Hikkanati)

Tagma ton Scholarion (Scholarii)

Hetairea ton Varangion (Varangian Guard)

We will need to make the following units:

Vasilikoi Anthropoi (General's Boduguard).

Siphonatores

Athanatoi (1 unit in the entire game)

Scithiki Hetairea (a mix of Magyar-Turkoman and Petzeneg warriors).

Latiniki Hetairea (Norman knights).

You see the Tagmatic armies will be an army of their own!

**dannyalex** · July 12, 2011, 06:26 AM

yea all those are very nice indeed

i have only one question - request (call it anything u wanna)

if we play the game and lead Byzantine Empire to glory,or at least survive after 1453-1461 ,shouldnt be able to recruit some units like Arquebus units ,Pikes ( more of them) and etc?

Or we are doomed to guide armies that have only swords shields spears axes and etc at the same time while our enemies sent vs us pro armies?

Great job until now ,but think it a bit?shouldnt have at least same category of units like the ottomans Hungary venice poland swedish that survive the after us?and keep some of ours

**Marcus Ulpius Nerva Trajanus** · July 12, 2011, 10:10 AM

Since this roster is to be played during the later dark ages, no you shouldn't. They will rework their Komnenean roster anyway. There should be some in it.

**AnthoniusII** · July 12, 2011, 11:12 AM

We will modify the Nikephorean material, we will add more and finally we will rework the Komnenean/Palaeologean Roster.

**helmersen** · August 21, 2011, 03:16 AM

Thoseu nits look so great! Will this be implemented in Stainless Steel?

**AnthoniusII** · August 21, 2011, 05:57 AM

Originally Posted by helmersen

Thoseu nits look so great! Will this be implemented in Stainless Steel?

They will be the basis of te next version of Komneneans so yes in a way or another they could replace the units in SS or other mod that uses our 1st version of Komneneans.

**Treize** · August 24, 2011, 01:32 PM

Originally Posted by AnthoniusII

Scithiki Hetairea (a mix of Magyar-Turkoman and Petzeneg warriors).

Latiniki Hetairea (Norman knights).

Mounted and dismounted I hope

!

**Geoffrey of Villehardouin** · August 31, 2011, 07:17 PM

On the mercenaries

I feel there should be certain light cavalry mercenaries: Cuman, Alan, Hun, Turkopoles. They do not have to be different units, maybe a generic mounted archer unit would be ok. There was some Armenian mercenary infantry in the battle of the Gates of Trajan and some Franks/Normans in Manzikert, who could probably also fight on foot but I am not sure what the record is on Latin mercenaries in battle for this period.

On the Thematic units

I was admiring some of your thematic units. The descriptions are interesting and I feel accurate. The values on the right seem a bit amiss: For example, the Contarati cost 210 florins to recruit vs 540 for the Menaulati, though they are on paper a better unit. Perhaps these values are not yet finalized?

I personally feel the Menaulati should have a bigger bonus against charging heavy cavalry, because of their thicker spears (which like the Contarati they could plant to the ground). The Contarati should be slow moving and quite unable to charge, because they would have to keep pace with each other and would have to balance their long spears and had also bigger shields. Maybe they should be like slow pikemen. Indeed the Menaulati it is said were used as skirmishers, meaning perhaps that they could run around with more ease because of their somewhat different armament, which you show very nicely. Maybe you can think of a good way to represent them in battle, including the combined ranks style in which the two units fought.

I think the two types should be of about equal florin value but with partly different abilities. It would be quite interesting to see how you implement them.

Great job so far anyway. You could make the game far more realistic with these sorts of units.

**AnthoniusII** · September 01, 2011, 12:35 AM

Nothing is finalised. We haven't proceed to ballance/units stats yet.
We are testing and improving models only..

**Rolling Thunder** · March 13, 2012, 01:27 PM

Wow, some fantastic stuff here.

**k/t** · May 13, 2012, 02:35 PM

The spears are way longer than what the descriptions say.

**AnthoniusII** · May 13, 2012, 03:01 PM

Originally Posted by k/t

The spears are way longer than what the descriptions say.

There are three of them...which ones?

**k/t** · May 15, 2012, 01:30 PM

The description pictures are loading only partially now, but for Scutati, for example, the spears look longer than 3m, and for Contarati they look longer than 4. How tall would the average person have been during this period? I think I'm comparing the spear lengths to more modern human heights. If each soldier was 1.6 m, then I guess the spear lengths are close enough to the descriptions.

P.S. I'm looking forward to TGC!