Roster for India

[Carados]

Oops. For some reason I thought you were meaning a link, hence I skimmed through to see a link but didn't find one applicable. I skim read a lot.

Regardless
I did remember you saying that which is why I brought it up again in the first place because that's exactly what I think.

We're using two DMB slots for having the armoured elephant and the armoured archers. I'm convinced we can do away with both. Plus, I would have a far easier time balancing the elephants when none of them have armour to make an ironclad jealous.

[Carados]

Going back to the Indo-Greeks. We have to take Bactria into account. First of all, lets establish roughly what happened.

Bactria shouldn't even exist until a little way down the line. It was Seleucid territory. As such, the initial Bactrian roster should be very similar to the Seleucids. When they become independant, Parthia spring up at roughly the same time. At some point, the Graeco-Bactrians invade part of India and become Indo-Greeks. The two are one and the same at first. Constant Parthian attacks cut Bactria off from the Seleucid empire. Later on a rebellion in Bactria causes the faction to split in two, with the former attacking the latter. These rebel Bactrians, weakened by the Parthians, are invaded by the Sakae/Scythians and later destroyed. The Indo-Greeks carry on for a long time after this and seemingly establish friendly relations with the partly hellenized Sakae/Scythians. After a time the Sakae/Scythians then start eating into the Indo-Greek territory, pushed out of their own land by the migrating Yuezhi, who were themselves displaced from their own land by the more powerful Xiongnu-Wusun "alliance" and later the Parthians.

Beyond this, we leave the scope of ExRM in it's entirety.


At the moment our list for the Bactrians in 4.0 is:

Hetairoi archers (General)
(Armoured) Peltestai
Hypaspitai
Leukaspides (veterans)
Pezoi
Agema
Archers
Elephants
Horse Archers
Cataphracts


The ones I've marked in purple are units that use up a single DMB slot. Now, I'm wondering whether to take some of those away as factional troops and instead replace them with AoR units that also have some bearing on the Indo-Greek bit.

Since Bactria is initially part of the Seleucid empire, most of the units should be transferable from one to the other. We already have a few shared slots (particularly the phalanx units). I figure some peltasts and archers would be shared, too. As such, the faction peltasts and archers could be used for something else entirely.

I can add a unit of Hetairoi archers in the same manner as the Macedonian Hetiaroi, Molossian Cavalry, etc without the loss of a DMB slot. This could also represent the Indo-Greek cavalry Quinn mentioned in the first post.

Also, I remember Sardaukar One mention something about the possibility of Thessalian settlers?? This is interesting and gives us something else to work with. As an alternative to the above, we could use a reskin of the Thessalians for the general and heavy cavalry. This uses no slots (since we already have the Thessalians), but adds something different to the East. The Bactrians were fairly big on cavalry, after all.

The Sodiganas have their own AoR armoured cavalry by the way (something to that effect anyway). This will eventually lead to the Bactrians adopting the cataphracts.

I'm envisioning a process by which the Bactrians lose their Macedonian roots and instead turn into this Greaco-Bactrian culture. Developing your buildings will replace the Macedonian stuff with the more Eastern flavoured units. When Bactria enter India, they lose their Macedonian capabilities in those settlements but gain the Indo-Greek stuff. Eventually, if everything goes according to plan, the migrating Sakae/Scythians will take advantage of the damage Parthia does to the heart of Bactria and completely displace them. Thus, the Greaco-Bactrians become the Indo-Greeks - not through weird script magic, but simply because of the natural changes to the unit recruitment that they'll experience.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

bactrian sword armed soldier with oval shield.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

hoplite looking units.

The coins with the horsemen seem to depict them using the xyston underarm with both arms. Thus, no shield.
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Bios/EucratidesI.jpg

The depiction of Athena with an Apsis on this coin would indicate to me that the Apsis was still in some use around this time.
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Bios/BasileosApollodotou.jpg

Quinn has used the old Leukaspides for the Hypaspists at the moment. They are based off this illustraction of a coin from ~90BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IndoGreekInfantry.jpg

The depiction of Meander here clearly shows him using a spear, overhand, for his portrait. The picture on the other side again shows an apsis. I imagine the God (or whatever it is on the reverse) is in Meander's image.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Menander_Alexandria-Kapisa.jpg


I reckon we should go along with the Thessalian settlers and base the general and "hetairoi" off them.

I would imagine that hoplites are in use here. I can see a metal cuirass in the illustration Boom S has provided. Therefore, I suggest we use the 3.5 Leukaspides as "Indo-Greek" hoplites. Allegedly, the Persians send all of the Greeks in their territories over to Bactria. This would explain the Greek/Hoplite prevalence.

Boom S, have you come across any references to swordsmen at all? AqD suggests there has been mention of Greek swordsmen in Indian sources. Perhaps they were simply hoplites that happened to use their sword on more occasions than usual? If so, there is no need for us to include them as a unit. Incidently, this illustration might represent the same thing. They seem to have a similar helmet, and the frills around the waist are present on both.


Thoughts?

[Boom S]

Boom S, have you come across any references to swordsmen at all? AqD suggests there has been mention of Greek swordsmen in Indian sources.

greek mercenaries have been mentioned but I don't think the weapon type has been specified, at least not that I know of.

that said, I think a swordsman unit is very likely because of both the local military customs and terrain. there is a statue or carving of a greek style swordsman in the post I made earlier.

[Carados]

Hmmm. Ok.

Here's a proposal:

Greaco-Bactrian Kingdom (Faction)
Leukaspides (new unit)
Agema (new unit)
Hypaspists (current Leukapisdes)
Thessalian Hetairoi (old RTR)
Cataphracts

Sogdiana:
Sogdian archers (current Bactrian archers)
Sogdian horse archers (current Bactrian horse archers)
Sogdian armoured cavalry (new unit)

Bactria:
Pezoi (new unit)
Greek peltasts (current Greek/Diadochi peltasts)
Greek archers (current Greek/Diadochi archers)

Indo-Greeks
Indo-Greek swordsmen (new unit)
Indo-Greek peltasts (current Bactrian peltasts)
Greek Hoplites (current Greek hoplites/Bactrian pezoi (only after Macedonian style dies out))

India
Indian spearmen (new unit)
Indian archers (new unit)
Indian swordsmen (new unit)
Indian cavalry (new unit)
Indian chariots (new unit)
Indian elephants (new unit)

[Boom S]

no cavalry in India ?

as I have always said, I've reservations about the Indo-Greek peltasts.
I would also suppose that the bactrians would have started using local archers with their composite bows.

[Carados]

No
What cavalry should they have?
We have some more DMB space now, so they'll probably be doable.

With those Peltasts, my intention would be to have them as a kind of sword armed Thureophoroi, rather than actual peltasts per se. The current Bactrian peltasts happen to have the Phrygian helmet and the linothorax. I figured, with a blending of Greek and Indian culture, the javelin/pelta and the sword would naturally combine at some point. The other swordsmen would be for the richer members of society who can get a hold of an apsis and a metal cuirass. Does that seem plausible to you?

The Bactrians would use local archers, yeah.
Persians in Aria
Sogdians in Sogdiana
Indians in India
If they want, they can go even further north and get Scythian archers, too.

No need for a faction unit to represent that =)

[Boom S]

no cavalry ???

as for my views they are in post #4.

[Carados]

Ok
So a lance and shield cavalry AoR unit for India then ^__^

Since you aren't so sure on the "peltast" issue, I'm inclined to keep it in at the moment. All subject to change at any given moment pending appropriate eveidence, of course

[Boom S]

my objection was only to the purely skirmisher type peltasts because these originated out of a very specific type of social situation which was not present here.

no objection to the type you describe here.

[Sardaukar One]

When did the Indians start using towers on elephants?

If i'm not mistaken, the Mauryans didn't do this till sometime after Alexander.
But what about the other Indian factions that Alexander fought? I want to say I read somewhere that one of the Indian kings Alexander fought did use towered elephants. But I can't find the source right now.

It seems a little odd to me that Pyrrhus, the most western of the hellenistic kings in possession of Indian elephants, is given credit for introducing towers to elephants. At least as far as the hellenistic kingdoms are concerned.
It would seem to me that the Indians were most likely to have introduced this development, but if so, surely this advancement would have trickled through to Pyrrhus after the Seleucids and Antigonids had adopted towers first. From east to west. Not vice versa.

The Seleucids seem to have started using towers in the 270's at the latest.



This is the picture of the terracotta celebrating a victory over the Gauls. I think this site has it confused with the Pergamun elephants. It should be the elephants of Antiochus I. Pergamun did not get elephants till Magnesia. And i'm not aware of any major conflict with the Galatians during this period.

The picture won't show.
Here is the link. The picture of the terracotta is at the bottom of the page. Notice the shield of the soldier being attacked by the elephant. Its a gallic shield.

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/WarTech.htm

[Boom S]

using platforms on elephants predate mauryans or alexander. the greek style of 'towers' (in which the soldiers stood) if the artistic depictions are correct was never used in India. what was used (and a variation is still used in jungle safaris) was a raised platform inside which soldiers sat balanced on their knees. it was easier to maintain balance in this way and they also presented a smaller target.
this is a similar example of a persian illustration depicting a sassanid war elephant.


nossov's arguments on this issue seemed very ad-hoc to me, first of all without giving sufficient reason he simply brushes away diodorus and pliny the elder as having made errors while both of them mention towers in use in India. the very sources that he cites as not mentioning towers (and thus concluding that towers were not used in India) -- the sanchi stupa reliefs and arthashastra actually point in the opposite direction.
quoting the arthashastra from page 2 of this thread

Tetherposts (álána), collars, girths, bridles, legchains, frontal
fetters are the several kinds of binding instruments.
A hook, a bamboo staff, and machines (yantra) are
instruments.
Necklaces such as vaijavantí and kshurapramála, and litter
and housings are the ornaments of elephants.
Mail-armour (varma), clubs (totra), arrow-bags, and
machines are war-accoutrements.

the actual word used which is translated as machines is yantra which is an all-encompassing word one of whose meaning is contraption, a very possible description of the elephant platform. in fact we will be hard pressed to propose any other explanation since virtually every other equipment that can be used on an elephant has already been explicitly mentioned.
what makes nossov's statements and similar analysis from other writers look even more sloppy is the evidence from sanchi reliefs themselves.
this one shows a nobleman sitting in a covered howdah for a single person. note that this is not a war elephant.

the following is an example of a sketch of an elephant from a panel at sanchi.

the platform on the elephant's back is exactly what I described except for the fact that this one is a more ornamental version for one person.
moreover, the number of crews that the ancient sources describe (4 to 7) would be impossible without a tower like contraption. a bareback elephant can at most accommodate 3, a mahout and 2 archers, since archers need some space to operate.

lastly, it's not at all surprising that there is a lack of adequate pictorial evidence of the ancient war howdah, most elephants portrayed are either riding elephants with kings or noblemen on their back or as religious motifs with no one on their backs. very few portrayals are those of elephants at war and even there we have to keep in mind that in a force only a handful of elephants were fitted with towers.
the idea was that heavy towers compromised the elephant's fighting prowess, a factor usually considered more important than using it simply as a moving arrow tower.
even in mughal times which certainly had no lack of howdahs, many elephants, even armoured ones rode to battle without any towers. usually the smallest and youngest elephants which would have been inadequate in melee were towered.

coming to pyrrhus' elephants, I think both the antigonid and seleucid factions were already using towered elephants before him ?
it is quite possible that they came upon the idea of towers from the platforms used by his Indian mahouts who were driving virtually all war-elephants in hellenic use and the idea then spread among the rest of the greek world.
however, I'm not aware of any evidence that their ideas of elephant handling influenced those back in India. even Persia, which would be a logical intermediate point if hellenic elephant practices were ever adopted further east continued to use elephants in the Indian fashion AFAIK.

[Metaluis90]

bactrian cataphract!!!

[Carados]

Oops. I forgot about them. Truth be told, though, the Sogdian cavalry would fit the gap nicely anyway.

[Metaluis90]

nice!


off topic, what do you think about the actual pontic unit rooster? In my opinion it would need more persian influence... I think it should need some persian cavalry and not be based more from the successor states, at the beginning i think is right having the pezoi and a more macedonian type of army, but later of they should start going off that influence... imho

[Daqin]

If you play as Pontus and expand eastward, you gain access to Cyrtian and Asiatic AoR troops pretty quickly, and the latter includes hippakontistai. If you go far enough east, then you can get true Persians, who's hippakontistai are slightly superior to their Asiatic counterparts. I'm by no means an expert on Pontic military, but that seems sufficient to me. If its not, then perhaps just extending Asiatic AoR troops a little to the NW would be a simple solution.

Of course if the AI is controlling them, then it doesn't matter much because Pontus rarely lasts long, usually falling to either Armenia or Seleucia, either of which will bring Asiatic troops into the region.

[Sardaukar One]

using platforms on elephants predate mauryans or alexander. the greek style of 'towers' (in which the soldiers stood) if the artistic depictions are correct was never used in India. what was used (and a variation is still used in jungle safaris) was a raised platform inside which soldiers sat balanced on their knees. it was easier to maintain balance in this way and they also presented a smaller target.

The platform in the first picture would seem a little awkward to mount on an elephant to me.
It looks like you need a couple of elephants to support the platform.
The third picture is much clearer.

nossov's arguments on this issue seemed very ad-hoc to me, first of all without giving sufficient reason he simply brushes away diodorus and pliny the elder as having made errors while both of them mention towers in use in India. the very sources that he cites as not mentioning towers (and thus concluding that towers were not used in India) -- the sanchi stupa reliefs and arthashastra actually point in the opposite direction.
quoting the arthashastra from page 2 of this thread

I agree with you here.

From what I can tell, the platform on the elephant in the third picture isn't too far away from the towers used in the west. Obviously its not the same, but its not too far away either. Its not too hard to see how one might descibe the towers and platforms as being the same.
There is some kind of siding(lack of a better description), so perhaps the powers that be in the west went one step further in this area?

the actual word used which is translated as machines is yantra which is an all-encompassing word one of whose meaning is contraption, a very possible description of the elephant platform. in fact we will be hard pressed to propose any other explanation since virtually every other equipment that can be used on an elephant has already been explicitly mentioned.
what makes nossov's statements and similar analysis from other writers look even more sloppy is the evidence from sanchi reliefs themselves. this one shows a nobleman sitting in a covered howdah for a single person. note that this is not a war elephant.

If I read you right, you are saying that if the Indians were doing all this, then having towered war elephants seems highly probable.

If so, I would agree with you. Again!

moreover, the number of crews that the ancient sources describe (4 to 7) would be impossible without a tower like contraption. a bareback elephant can at most accommodate 3, a mahout and 2 archers, since archers need some space to operate.

Thats something I was thinking about. I thought you could maybe fit four people(including the Mahout) total on the back of an elephant without a tower. Anymore and you would certainly have to have some kind of platform or tower. Almost certainly a tower.

lastly, it's not at all surprising that there is a lack of adequate pictorial evidence of the ancient war howdah, most elephants portrayed are either riding elephants with kings or noblemen on their back or as religious motifs with no one on their backs. very few portrayals are those of elephants at war and even there we have to keep in mind that in a force only a handful of elephants were fitted with towers.
the idea was that heavy towers compromised the elephant's fighting prowess, a factor usually considered more important than using it simply as a moving arrow tower.
even in mughal times which certainly had no lack of howdahs, many elephants, even armoured ones rode to battle without any towers. usually the smallest and youngest elephants which would have been inadequate in melee were towered.

I'm not that relevant on Indian vs Indian warfare at this time but it does strike me that the Successor states in the west seem to have used their elephant corps differently than they did in India.
At least as the years went by they did.

The Seleucids seemed to have used their elephants to screen their cavalry and to keep enemy cavalry off their phalanx. And to strong arm the Ptolemaic African elephants.
But to deliver the death blow does not seem to have been something the Seleucids used elephants for.
I know that Seleucus' elephants are credited with winning Ipsus, but its not as if he used them in a charge on the Antigonid phalanx.
Pyrrhus is the only one who used his elephants in such a role that I can think off, against the Romans.
Hence, towers on the backs of elephants providing a high elevation for some archers makes much more sense. Makes a lot more sense if you are using your elephants to screen your cavalry and your phalanx. And to keep the enemy cavalry at bay.

Presumably, in India, war elephants were used in a more straight forwared fashion? And were used to deliver the battle winning charge? Not facing the kind of heavy infantry you would find in the west would make this a far more viable tactic.
But I don't know for sure.

I would also add that the hellenistic kingdoms had to be a bit more prudent with their elephants because they could not get anymore. Not easily anyway.

coming to pyrrhus' elephants, I think both the antigonid and seleucid factions were already using towered elephants before him ?

Pyrrhus had towered elephants when he went to Italy in 280 BC. Certainly when he fought the Romans.
The Seleucids had them by 277 BC if the terra cotta of the Elephant battle is anything to go by.
The battle between the herds of Antigonus and of Eumenes seem to have been tusk to tusk affairs.
As you pointed out, this would be more difficult with towers on their backs.
At Gaza, Ptolemy formed a unit to combat Demetrius' elephants. They laid spikes down in the elephant' path and the slingers and archers targeted the mahouts without return fire. Suggesting they did not have towers, which would then have had archers in them.
It might have been tactics such as this that eventually led to elephants being used differently. Towers packed with archers could have helped alleviate the problems they faced at Gaza.

By the by, at Gabiene, the opposing herds clashed while screening the advance of their respective armies. The Antigonid herd got the best of it when Eumenes' lead elephant was killed. It seems it effected the rest of his herd somewhat negatively. I find this interesting as I thought elephants were a matriachal soceity.
I'm sure most of the elephants present would have been male, if not all. Especially the lead elephants.
Whats your view on this?

it is quite possible that they came upon the idea of towers from the platforms used by his Indian mahouts who were driving virtually all war-elephants in hellenic use and the idea then spread among the rest of the greek world.
however, I'm not aware of any evidence that their ideas of elephant handling influenced those back in India. even Persia, which would be a logical intermediate point if hellenic elephant practices were ever adopted further east continued to use elephants in the Indian fashion AFAIK.

I think this is how it must have been. Getting the idea from Indian mahouts.
And I don't think the west did influence the Indians in elephant advancements. But I think for the most part, the use of elephants became different between East and West. Though this far from concrete on my part, you do notice that towered elephants come far more to the fore as the numbers of Indian elephants decrease in the west. At Gabiene, there were around 190 elephants. At Ipsus, there were close to 500 elephants. Between Lysimachus and Kassander, they could have had anywhere between 150-200 elphants in their possession after Ipsus.
There is not a lot of info on the battles during this period, but it seems the use of elephants as tanks was not that effective in the west. Except against enemies who had never seen them before.
Charging them into phalanxes would have been quite attritional on ones herd. So more effective uses had to be found for them. I think they relied on the fear factor more than anything.

How were elephants used in warfare? Were they used to deliver the knock out punch?
What were the Indian counters to elephants? In the west, they were quite adept at developing anti-elephant tactics such as Ptolemy did at Gaza.

[Sardaukar One]

off topic, what do you think about the actual pontic unit rooster?

The Pontic rooster? Sounds lethal.
If its anything like the rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail, i'm all for it.

I can just envisage the Rooster flying in and out of a Seleucid phalanx, lighting up some armoured elephants ala Legolas in LOTR and getting the enemy general to rout with its terrifying battle cry.

[Carados]

The Pontic rooster? Sounds lethal.
If its anything like the rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail, i'm all for it.

I can just envisage the Rooster flying in and out of a Seleucid phalanx, lighting up some armoured elephants ala Legolas in LOTR and getting the enemy general to rout with its terrifying battle cry.

Judging by these two images:

http://th01.deviantart.com/fs37/300W..._by_uriska.jpg
http://rooster.harkish.com/images/rr.png

with a minimum of 10 defence, and with it's scythed helmet granting an AP attack, they'll be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

There are other dipictions in the sources. In this instance they have a more humanoid form. I'm sure this is more of a mythological legend. Perhaps a demi-god akin to Hercules, except born to a chicken rather than a women (Zeus shouldn't have been drinking that night).




On a more serious basis, the Pontics will have a more Persian-esque line-up. Quinn is trying to model them off the late Achaemenid army - with some Hellenistic influences. There doesn't seem to be much mention of Pontic armies in the 3rd Century BC it would seem.

[Slowpoke]

On a more serious basis, the Pontics will have a more Persian-esque line-up.

Huh? Wasn't Pontos a Hellenistic kingdom? Shouldn't it have Hellenistic-style troops with a smattering of Galatian infantry, Armenian/Parthian-style cavalry and some Cappadocian mountain tribesmen?

[Metaluis90]

The Pontic rooster? Sounds lethal.
If its anything like the rabbit from Monty Python's Holy Grail, i'm all for it.

I can just envisage the Rooster flying in and out of a Seleucid phalanx, lighting up some armoured elephants ala Legolas in LOTR and getting the enemy general to rout with its terrifying battle cry.

didn't get it until i saw I was typing "roster" wrong...

before realising it I was like, "uh?" what does a male chicken with a big helmet has to do with Pontus?