LAca's Byzantine Flamethrowers wip

[LAca]

A snapshot of something to come... Guess what.... Let's burn !!!

[Goose]

Holy Crap.
Loving them LAca.

[Socal_infidel]

Sweet Jiminy! That's nuts!

[kelvintyk]

Is the fire the firing animation from catapults or trebuchets? Anyways, its looking real cool and WICKED.

[Hounf of Culan]

Very nice LAca.

[Ieuano]

brilliant, when they coming out!

[LAca]

No release date yet. When it will be ready. I didnt make the soldiers yet, only the flamethrower effects ( a mix of ballista flaming sprites and some others (not sure if those are used in game),and the effect is based on the naffatun attack.

[Serious Spamurai]

Very cool, you should make them recruitable from docks or something, the same one that builds fire ships.

[Manuel Komnenos]

wow wow wow
have you some other units in plan?

[Kalos]

This looks great. Can't wait.

[Mike13531]

wow, laca, your on a roll, just when i thought your last unit was good now you come up with another. , great job . say, what kind of soldier do you have in mind? I personally love what CA have done with the latinkon skin, have you made up your mind about what skin you will use? what kind?

[LAca]

wow, laca, your on a roll, just when i thought your last unit was good now you come up with another. , great job . say, what kind of soldier do you have in mind? I personally love what CA have done with the latinkon skin, have you made up your mind about what skin you will use? what kind?

I was thinking about something else. Light/medium armour - long padding, leather cuirass helmet. Maybe a small shield hung on the back ( or left thigh, close to the sword) like a pouch. The idea is that they have really short range, but they have extremely high attack factor ( the flamethrower). But in close combat i would prefer them to be weaker. The attack has the effect of the naffatun, but more powerful (55 attack, but im testing it, not final). the one thing i really would like to do is to make a lasting effect (i mean damage for the passing troops) for the flame (you see on the pics that the ground is burning for a while), but i didnt succeed on that until now.

The idea is not new, i already knew about the flamethrowers before i played mtw, but i begun to work on it after i saw the expansion's flamers. The difficult part was the defining of the new effects actually, but i succeded on that even better than i imagined it. I cannot say a release date because i go on holiday for some time before i will do the soldiers.

Jodereck, the light infantry is already in my plans. And its based on the very image you attached. The helmet model is already one of the helmets used by the heavy spears i made.

[Basileios]

Burn baby burn...

Cool idea with the flamethrower unit! Personly I might have prefered if there would be a rework of the already excisting Byzantine units first - I like your heavy spearmen very much!!! - but the flamethrower unit will certainly be an indispensable improvement to Byzantiums arsenals, too.

I think a padded kabadion will do for them. They aren't frontline troops afterall and won't have to take part in melee, so a short mail shirt in addition to the kabadion might the maximum armour to be usefull to them (maybe as part of an armour progression?).
Btw what about a leather cap + turban insteed of the helmets (as can be seen on most pictures in Osprey's Byzantine Infantrymen)?

[LAca]

I seen some drawings on a site (http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sc.../Weapons2.html) something about clothing used by specialised units like naffatun - and it is said they had their clothes soaked in fireproof substances. So it makes sense.
Could you show me show me of those pics - im really interested in byzantine infantry clothing.

[Basileios]

So it makes sense.
Could you show me show me of those pics - im really interested in byzantine infantry clothing.

Sorry, I have no scanner... but here is the link of a site owned by T. Dawson, the author of Ospreys 'Byzantine Infantrymen c. 900-1204'.

http://www.levantia.com.au/

Here some pictures from Byzantine soldiers after T. Dawson:



Basic apearance of Byzantine Infantrymen (carries here an axe too). After the Praecepta militaria Byzantine infantrymen were supposed to be equipped like that. The basic difference between different troop types was in their main arms not in their equipment! So troops could easily be transformed in an other type when needed. Hoplitai (also Skoutatoi or Skoutaratoi) carried a kontarion makron (pike or sarissa) as their main weapon. Peltastai the kontarion mikra (spear), Menavlatoi the menavlion a thick heavy spear of normal lenght & Riptaristai (also Akontistai) with javelins.
The colour of the kabadion, their padded protective garment, may have changed from unit to unit, like the shield colour and design did.


11th century super heavy infantryman. Most certainly a heavier armoured front-rank Hoplit. Though Hoplitai & Skoutatoi can be considered to be synonymous terms, the Skoutatoi used to be supposed to be armoured with mail shirts or lamellar in addition to the kabadion, while Hoplitai were only supposed to wear the kabadion only.


Mounted archer. Though it could be either worn mail or lamellar the later wast generally recommended for all troops that were supposed to take part in hand to hand combat. Mail was recommended for officers (who were supposed to command not to fight in the first place), artillery crews etc. ...
Lancers would have looked similar but carried lance and shield insteed of the bow and arrows. Though generally trained with both lance and bow, only skilled Byzantine cavalrymen performed as archers. Armour for mounted archers or (Hippo-)Toxotai was identic no matter if they serve as light cavalrymen, line cavalrymen or even Kataphraktoi. The later might have had horse armour when available...

Kataphraktoi were armed with the mace as recommended main impact weapon. Arm and leg armour originally consisted of laminated greaves instead of mail and the klibanion was usually sandwiched between the kabadion and epilorikon - two types of padded protective garment. The first worn under the later over the klibanion (lamellar cuirass).

[Caesar Clivus]

Ummmm...it looks great but there is a greek fire thrower unit being added with Kingdoms

[Goose]

Maybe thats where LAca got the idea.

[Prof]

I'm pretty sure that he got the idea from kingdoms, but not everybody who wants to use flamethrowers is going to buy kingdoms...

[HaveFallen]

I'm pretty sure that he got the idea from kingdoms, but not everybody who wants to use flamethrowers is going to buy kingdoms...

Correct! For me..you know why i'm not going to buy it? No Disk Space!. Ahh I have only 2 gigs left here.

Anyway I'm glad this mods being made.

[Mike13531]

exactly. personally i'm buying it, but whatever, , i'm sure Laca's soldier texture will be a lot better than CAs.. he's the best unit creator around, cause he takes his time to prefect every last detail

i wonder tho.. hopefully they won't be too weak, cause i'll be using them on my glorious conquest against Rome and the factions in the east