- Preview II - The Barbarians -

**Abdülmecid I** · November 18, 2014, 06:47 AM

Originally Posted by Roma_Victrix

What?

Where is the evidence that Saxons invented their own crossbows? According to various authors of antiquity, the ancient Greeks (and later the Romans) had a very large and unwieldy type of crossbow called the gastraphetes,

It's actually confirmed that the Greeks were first to produce gastraphetes en masse, through their fortresses, but only when they were under the influence of Hades.

Seriously, though, I think that gastraphetes took their name, because the soldiers had to use their belly (gastra) to fire with their crossbow.

**Gäiten** · November 20, 2014, 02:07 AM

Originally Posted by The_Hibernian

It's actually confirmed that the Greeks were first to produce gastraphetes en masse, through their fortresses, but only when they were under the influence of Hades.

Seriously, though, I think that gastraphetes took their name, because the soldiers had to use their belly (gastra) to fire with their crossbow.

Oh I thought this device was named so because the user got gastroenteritis ...

**Magister Militum Flavius Aetius** · June 14, 2010, 10:54 AM

the manu ballista was a more powerful ealier design that used torsion spring technology, as it's name implies. (literally: hand ballista). There are many possible ways this was loaded and fired, but it was most likely the same way a scorpio was. The arcuballista commonplace amognst the late empire and not as powerful as the manuballista or medieval crossbow. But it was simple in manufacture but still too complex for most barbarian or gallo-roman cultures. like in the vanilla BI the Jastorf (celtic) cultures of Ireland and scotland may have still had this technology (arcuballista).

**Slaytaninc** · June 20, 2010, 09:25 PM

Jastorf isn't a "Celtic" culture, certainly not of Ireland and Scotland.

Jastorf is the culture that mostly aligns with early Germanic tribes (There were Celtic groups who had that material culture, but it was mostly associated with Germanic tribes)

**justinius** · June 21, 2010, 02:14 PM

yeah true

**Slaytaninc** · June 21, 2010, 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by justinius

yeah true

I have Peter Heather to thank for that...

**Aethelstan** · June 26, 2010, 11:34 AM

Nice preview! I´ll reinstall RTW when this is released.

Congrats on the portraits - I like what you´re doing.

**JERUSALEM** · July 08, 2010, 05:13 AM

very interesting

**Constantius** · July 13, 2010, 03:06 PM

I must congratulate and confess I only just noticed preview. Great work. ... Oh and we have food mixers now, I assume the Normans brought them?

**Visarion** · December 23, 2010, 07:12 AM

this is crazy good! Longobardi Adalingi are just super!

**IVIarkI2I** · December 23, 2010, 07:33 AM

super awesome preview

looking forward for the release

**Thiudimir2241** · January 29, 2011, 12:23 PM

Beware of the Burgundian Axemen. They are Wotan's revenge incarnate

**Antagonist** · February 17, 2011, 04:44 PM

Finally got around to reading this. Love the updates and the new units, especially the Langobard Adalingi

One small point though, I suppose no-one will really notice (or care), but "claiomhnaghta" specifically means "swordsmen", seems a little strange for an axe unit.

Antagonist

**justinius** · February 17, 2011, 04:54 PM

I just noticed that too. Shoudn't Claiomhnaghta refer to a longsword or a claymore ? (are these two words related?) Though I think there is not much evidence of long axes or longswords (like 2handers) in substantial numbers amongst Picts at this period.

**Gäiten** · February 18, 2011, 10:41 AM

Beware of the Burgundian Axemen. They are Wotan's revenge incarnate

Wotan`s Revenge - for that there is another unit ... an exclusive Saxon one

One small point though, I suppose no-one will really notice (or care), but "claiomhnaghta" specifically means "swordsmen", seems a little strange for an axe unit.

Good catch. Because I changed that unit from a longswordman to axemen, what would be a proper Gael name for axemen?

**justinius** · February 18, 2011, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by Gäiten

Good catch. Because I changed that unit from a longswordman to axemen, what would be a proper Gael name for axemen?

Tuanaghta would seemingly mean axemen during this timeframe though I'm not sure that heavy axes like the ones shown here were used in such a scale. At most, wouldn't Gaels or Picts wield a much smaller and lighter one hand axe that could be wielded accurately and with speed?