Byzantine archers?

[AqD]

Are the archers in Byzantine armies inaccurately represented for gaming reasons? I read on sources telling that the main parts of infantry in late Byzantine armies are archers, levied from those who are granted land for their military service, and they're supposed to be well-equipped, wearing armour and may even have longswords for sidearm. It's just too different from the light archers in BC's roman army.


If the answer is yes, would it be more accurate if I change Spathatoi into archers? I can't find any information on Spathatoi in late Byzantine armies really. It seems the sword was no longer the primary weapon for heavy infantry.

[Naja]

East Roman field armies were always majority foot infantry, most of which was heavier and spear-armed. Archers and javelin troops were also a big component of the infantry. They were lighter in the Macedonian period (like during Basil II's time), and if anything they were far heavier during the Komnenian restoration (especially once Manuel was in charge).

The only exception were the mobile elite units like the Tagmata, which were all-cavalry.

[AnthoniusII]

Brocen Cresent from the 1st day of its existance nottified its fans that the Roman roster is more or less one made for game play.
Anyway....
Archers in general were unarmored.Only in the peak of Macedonian Dynasty (Nikephorus Phokas reforms) archers and javelinmen had some simple and cheap body armor.
Archery was not the strong point of Roman warfare. That is why Romans (byzantines) use to hire archer mercenaries. A very good addition was Turkic origin warriors that embrased Christianity and became part of the Roman society. They had a number of names such Murtatoi or Turkopulla (the last name means children of Turks).
Saracen archers (also from arabs or islamic persians) were recruited under the name of Pharganoi.
Tagmatic forces in BC's timeframe were in decline.
Instead Latinikon (German,Norman and Hungarian knights), Scythikon (warriors of Cumans,Pechenegs,Seljuck,Oguz etc) were some of the units that replaced Tagmatic forces.
Conclusion.
Romans had weak archers. If a player needs better ones he/she must recruit mercenaries.

[k/t]

Brocen Cresent from the 1st day of its existance nottified its fans that the Roman roster is more or less one made for game play.

I hope that will change in 3.0.

[nein]

turkopole mercs available to the eastern romans? It was the crusaders who copied this idea from them after all. They can already recruit turkish and kypchak horse archers... so maybe some foot variants available as mercs or recruitable. The ERE can only train one foot archer unit

[brapollo]

turkopole mercs available to the eastern romans? It was the crusaders who copied this idea from them after all. They can already recruit turkish and kypchak horse archers... so maybe some foot variants available as mercs or recruitable. The ERE can only train one foot archer unit

They should have more than that one unit but as it stands now, foot archers are useless in BC, so it hardly matters. That being said, I am not aware of any sources that would decisively argue that the roster, for this time period, should be including fancier, homegrown archery units for the Byzantines. I believe they included "mourtatoi," turkish archers, in Stainless Steel. However, the portrayal of that unit, as armored, professional archers (who even lay stakes!), is almost certainly wrong. As long as the Byzantines can recruit Turkish archers in an aor fashion, I don't see any serious issue with the portrayal of Byzantine archers.

[AqD]

They should have more than that one unit but as it stands now, foot archers are useless in BC, so it hardly matters. That being said, I am not aware of any sources that would decisively argue that the roster, for this time period, should be including fancier, homegrown archery units for the Byzantines. I believe they included "mourtatoi," turkish archers, in Stainless Steel. However, the portrayal of that unit, as armored, professional archers (who even lay stakes!), is almost certainly wrong. As long as the Byzantines can recruit Turkish archers in an aor fashion, I don't see any serious issue with the portrayal of Byzantine archers.

But archers are the still majority of infantry provided by the theme system? If the theme system was no more, where did the BC Skutatoi and Spathatoi come from?

[nein]

>But archers are the still majority of infantry provided by the theme system? If the theme system was no more, where did the BC Skutatoi and Spathatoi come from?

despite it's attempt at historical accuracy BC still falls short in some areas... such as ottomon infantry available to the rum seljuks

[brapollo]

>But archers are the still majority of infantry provided by the theme system? If the theme system was no more, where did the BC Skutatoi and Spathatoi come from?

despite it's attempt at historical accuracy BC still falls short in some areas... such as ottomon infantry available to the rum seljuks

Yeah, I am pretty sure the creators have already said they are getting rid of that. The "ottoman" problem is really the only big problem as I can figure other than the "no mounted Mamluks with bows in the campaign" problem. And the cataphracts-with-only-spears issue. Frankly if they fixed those three things and gave more arrows to foot archers, I'd be moderately pleased.

[nein]

>"no mounted Mamluks with bows in the campaign" problem.

are you referring to a unit that is impossible to recruit? There are a few of those

>And the cataphracts-with-only-spears issue.

that is just royal cats, the others have a mace and lance.

>Frankly if they fixed those three things and gave more arrows to foot archers

you can modify that yourself... I did anyway

[k/t]

Nein, did you change the models? I need someone to do that for my submod.

[nein]

I have no knowledge of modelling, all I did was change ammo sizes for the archer units.

[TheRomanRuler]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Brocen Cresent from the 1st day of its existance nottified its fans that the Roman roster is more or less one made for game play.
Anyway....
Archers in general were unarmored.Only in the peak of Macedonian Dynasty (Nikephorus Phokas reforms) archers and javelinmen had some simple and cheap body armor.
Archery was not the strong point of Roman warfare. That is why Romans (byzantines) use to hire archer mercenaries. A very good addition was Turkic origin warriors that embrased Christianity and became part of the Roman society. They had a number of names such Murtatoi or Turkopulla (the last name means children of Turks).
Saracen archers (also from arabs or islamic persians) were recruited under the name of Pharganoi.
Tagmatic forces in BC's timeframe were in decline.
Instead Latinikon (German,Norman and Hungarian knights), Scythikon (warriors of Cumans,Pechenegs,Seljuck,Oguz etc) were some of the units that replaced Tagmatic forces.
Conclusion.
Romans had weak archers. If a player needs better ones he/she must recruit mercenaries.

This proves fact:
Romans were, after race-mixing and cultural changing, still thinking themselfs as Romans, not Byzantines, and so prefered infantry over archers
Also note the fact: It all happened 1 000 yers ago, if we don`t know clearly what happened at WW2 (for example murder of 20 000 polish officers and various nazi equipment) its impossible to know equipment of medieval soldier- and empire was falling, so its even harder to know what truly happened, we all know that victor writes history, not losers, event the most macnificent Empire in history.

[PlPs]

Brocen Cresent from the 1st day of its existance nottified its fans that the Roman roster is more or less one made for game play.
Anyway....
Archers in general were unarmored.Only in the peak of Macedonian Dynasty (Nikephorus Phokas reforms) archers and javelinmen had some simple and cheap body armor.
Archery was not the strong point of Roman warfare. That is why Romans (byzantines) use to hire archer mercenaries. A very good addition was Turkic origin warriors that embrased Christianity and became part of the Roman society. They had a number of names such Murtatoi or Turkopulla (the last name means children of Turks).
Saracen archers (also from arabs or islamic persians) were recruited under the name of Pharganoi.
Tagmatic forces in BC's timeframe were in decline.
Instead Latinikon (German,Norman and Hungarian knights), Scythikon (warriors of Cumans,Pechenegs,Seljuck,Oguz etc) were some of the units that replaced Tagmatic forces.
Conclusion.
Romans had weak archers. If a player needs better ones he/she must recruit mercenaries.

What about Archers of Trebizond?

[zburanuki]

the weak point of the byzantine army was the horse archers and not foot archers.that's why alexios a' hired many turkish horse archers,but not foot archers.byzantium produced archers from trebizond and some weaker archers (compared to the trebizond's ones) were recruited from all the themata and were part of the psili.just like any other european kingdoms,byzantium used horses for charges and it wasn't familirized with the steppe tradition of the horse archer.

[Julio85]

I thought byzantines had a good horse-archers traditions since the wars against Hunnic and Sassanids (they copy the concept of horse archers from the middle east populations, cotrary to republicans romans and the early imperial romans they were more likley to adapt their warfare in order to survive to the most differente kind of enemies.

[AnthoniusII]

I thought byzantines had a good horse-archers traditions since the wars against Hunnic and Sassanids (they copy the concept of horse archers from the middle east populations, cotrary to republicans romans and the early imperial romans they were more likley to adapt their warfare in order to survive to the most differente kind of enemies.

the weak point of the byzantine army was the horse archers and not foot archers.that's why alexios a' hired many turkish horse archers,but not foot archers.byzantium produced archers from trebizond and some weaker archers (compared to the trebizond's ones) were recruited from all the themata and were part of the psili.just like any other european kingdoms,byzantium used horses for charges and it wasn't familirized with the steppe tradition of the horse archer.

What about Archers of Trebizond?

Archers from Trepzond just like those from Crete were people raised on mountains. Geurilla warfare was a must for them inorder to survive.
But geurilla warfare requires mobbility and that mobbility does not fit with armor. Never the less leather jackets or padded suits could offer a descent protection as those men were never ment to deal heavy troops in close distances.
Its true that after Maurice's reforms but mainly right after the 1st Arabic expansion Romans were forced to creat native archer troops.
Those troops were 2 kind.
Millitias
Proffesionals (mainly mounted archers).
Those troops were a level lower to those from steppe origin though.
The finall blow to the extinction of native archer troops came right after Basill II's death when emperors rashed to replace native troops (that may overthrown them) with mercenaries that were loyal to the one who payed them.
A 2nd reasson was the turkic tribes migrasion in the Anatolia.
Most of them embrased Christianity and settled inside the empire's borders.
Their steppe warfare tactics were superior to those of native troops.
They were known as "children of turks" aka Turkopulla.

[hameem123]

idk but i think Romans have this ideology and principle saying that killing a man in Range is a cowards work but nonetheless is handful in war (read that somewhere in Rome Total War) and in fact in RTW Roman factions also have light archers only and the only strong archer they have are the mercenaries or auxilliary,btw if you give Byzantine a strong archer plus them having a ridiculously powerful infantry and cavalry then its end game for all other factions.

[wakain]

Not really the mod's timeframe, but the Italian campaign under Belisarius and Narses against the Goths and their strong dependence on cavalry and armoured mounted archers who would dismount before battle, though admittedly due to the dubious loyalty of their foederati infantry, always gave me the impression that archery in the Eastern Roman Empire was more important than commonly assumed.

On the Roman roster: Though I'm hardly in a position to judge its historical accuracy, I've always liked it. The Roman roster is highly polarised. though capable infantry is quite easily accesable, (skutatoi, spathatoi and the like), those are not line-holders or battlewinners on their own. The elite units (infantry and cavalry), except for dismounted bodyguards, are difficult to attain, very costly, almost impossible to retrain and thus it's a challenge to keep them in state of combat effectiveness, especially as the campaigns get more prolonged and further from the Roman heartland. This Means choices must be made about when and how to use them, not unlike how Komnenos handled his Varangians. Logistics are everything and I spend more time organising my armies than fighting with them. This adds, perhaps in part thanks to the the unforigiving nature of the AoR and the high costs of building, a layer of depth I've yet to see with othermods, or other factions within BC for that matter.