Uriah recruits a second Bronze Age host.

The second tranche of my Bronze Age project has been a compromise.  I was torn between building the Sea Peoples or the Canaanites.   In the end I sort of did both and neither.  A third tranche will obviously be necessary… but  won't need to be as large.  Once again I went for Wargames Foundry.  They meet my requirements exactly, and in terms of 28mm (25mm really) figures are something special.  I will replace the pictures with those of my own figures as soon as I can.

The order was for 13 packs, and you better start blinking now, because once again the cost was eye watering.

Product #1: Sea People with Tight Turbans (Teresh) - SEA017/1 @ £12.00
Product #2: Sea People in Helmets (Ekwesh, Weshwesh, Lukka) - SEA015/1 @ £12.00
Product #3: Sea People in Crowed Leather Helmets (Peleset, Tjekker, Denven) - SEA013/1 @ £12.00
Product #4: Sea People in Horned Helmets(Sherden) - SEA012/1 @ £12.00
Product #5: Sea People Command - SEA011/1 @ £12.00
Product #6: Canaanite Command - CSM001/1 @ £12.00
Product #7: Canaanite Spearmen 2 - CSM006/1 @ £12.00
Product #8: Canaanite Armoured Chariot 1 - CSM011/1 @ £14.00
Product #9: Canaanite Light Chariot 1 - CSM014/1 @ £14.00
Product #10: Canaanite Light Chariot 2 - CSM015/1 @ £14.00
Product #11: Egyptian Light Chariot 1 - E032/1 @ £14.00
Product #12: Egyptian Command Chariot 1 - E035/1 @ £14.00
Product #13: Egyptian Light Chariot 2 - E034/1 @ £14.00

The last three chariots complete my Egyptians, the biggest of my Bronze Age armies, and will form my second chariot squadron “Ptah,” for Sword and Spear.  I cheated a little and had already boosted my original Foundry Egyptians with some North star ‘Kadesh’ range Sherden Guard, Spearmen and bowmen.  They are significantly taller than my Foundry figures, but will be forming my elite foot units.

The New Kingdom Egyptians will be an impressively large army, pretty much the mainstay of my Bronze Age project.

Old Nestor, drafted into the Sea Peoples.

The Sea Peoples part of the order is for 40 figures, three of the five warbands I will need, plus the command figures and chariot swap-out warriors.  I already have a Sheklesh warband, who will double as (and according to Rohl are obviously the same as….) Shassu Bedouin, as well as Sheklesh skirmishers.  Lastly I can field three chariots, after adding old Nestor and his streakers (a pack of Mycenean skirmishers… tiny tackle out…)   All of that leaves the Sea Peoples pretty close to complete, perhaps with another couple of packs in the third order.  (More Peleset probably.)

For the Canaanites I decided that I really only needed the core starter force.  Three chariots, 8 command and 8 spearmen. From this I can probably fudge together a spear levy unit, some skirmishers and a single chariot squadron.  The Shassu can obviously support the Canaanites, so my next, and hopefully last order for the Bronze Age will be to boost the Canaanites by another six chariots, as well as the finishing bits and pieces I will need, including some cattle, goats and a Nile crocodile.

The Hittites are probably a step too far for my project.  After deep consideration I will rely on their Canaanite allies to battle the Egyptians, possibly with an Anatolian Prince or two (ok so the Sea Peoples) lending support on behalf of the empire.

My big money saver is a box of 1:72 Caesar Miniatures Nubians. Against a standard 28mm figure they look like pygmies.  Beside the essentially 25mm Foundry the 23 mm tall plastics look pretty similar if slightly slimmer, and I will take the trouble to boost the height of the base by a millimeter or so.  The plastic Nubians come 42 to a box, enough to make a reasonable force, warband, bow and skirmishers, for 8 quid.

I have a lot of painting to do before I can get to that first game.

Diet Coke, Chariots and the Divine Julius.

A full Committee meeting of the Marshal Petain Club was recently convened in a local hostelry.  As club Treasurer I was on chariot driving duty, and during a discussion of the Iliad in a moment of diet coke driven clarity, I pointed out that there was actually an account from a reliable (almost) source, of a similar style of chariot warfare to that of old Homer’s verse, but that it gave a different view of those heroics.  It outlines the role of the chariot in battle, not as simply a ceremonial transport for its heroic owner.   Actually it reports the viewpoint of a regular professional army meeting chariot riding heroes of a similar vein to Achilles and his mates.  

The divine Julius is one of the only generals from Antiquity who left us his direct account of fighting against chariot warriors.  His analysis of their use is invaluable but bears close scrutiny.  Of course, given that this is Caesar’s military and more importantly political memoir, it must be read with caution.  Caesar is reporting one of his few defeats, yet he was voted twenty days of festivals by the Senate for his exotic fictionalised victory.  Chariots formed part of this exotica, and recalled the days of 150 years before when Celtic armies using chariots had threatened Rome itself.

He describes an ambush on the men of the 7th Legion, out gathering supplies. (By his orders!) who were attacked by a larger force of British chariots and cavalry

… then attacking them suddenly, scattered as they were, and when they had laid aside their arms, and were engaged in reaping, they killed a small number, threw the rest into confusion, and surrounded them with their cavalry and chariots.

The chariots seem to have disordered the Romans, who were disordered anyway, and who had been isolated from the main Roman body.  They inflicted some casualties upon them, before Julius rescues his careless boys from his own mistake.

Caesar breaks off his narrative to supply some analysis of the use of chariots, and it seems to fall into two phases:

[4.33]Their mode of fighting with their chariots is this: firstly, they drive about in all directions and throw their weapons and generally break the ranks of the enemy with the very dread of their horses and the noise of their wheels;

He seems to be describing a swarm of irregular troops.  The emphasis is on speed.  The initial contact has perhaps an emphasis on the throwing of javelins (more literally in translation "firing their darts"), and the use of morale effects of the proximity of chariots and their sound, in an attempt to break the enemy formation.  It seems clear that the “enemy” being referred to here are Roman horsemen, or isolated groups.  Celtic chariots are a weapon to be used against opportunistic targets or enemy horsemen, not formed Roman legionaries.  They also use mounted firepower, at least initially, until they close in for melee:

...and when they have worked themselves in between the troops of horse, leap from their chariots and engage on foot. The charioteers in the meantime withdraw some little distance from the battle, and so place themselves with the chariots that, if their masters are overpowered by the number of the enemy, they may have a ready retreat to their own troops. Thus they display in battle the speed of horse, [together with] the firmness of infantry;

There is an echo perhaps of “heroic” warfare in this.  Dismounting is however mentioned elsewhere by Caesar, as a tactic used by “savage” German cavalry, and by cavalry in these societies we mean nobility.  Aggressive foot getting among disordered cavalry caused real problems.  The speed of the chariots seems to be the factor that allows this.

Caesar also recounts:

and by daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness that they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, to check their horses at full speed, and manage and turn them in an instant and run along the pole, and stand on the yoke, and thence betake themselves with the greatest celerity to their chariots again.

This has always confused me, and the Penguin edition I first read years ago translated it in a similar way.   It seems on face value to be claiming that the chariot warriors could remount by running along the chariot pole, ie… from the front of the vehicle.   I'm not sure that makes sense, or even that this is the meaning.   If he is retreating, as Caesar says, then he would surely want the chariot pointing away from the guys chasing him. Looking at a bare translation:

and in a short time and spurred on his horse down the steep place,
and in the run through the pole and the yoke of the bend, and to regulate the speed vehemently, and to depart from it and in the car in the shortest possible accustomed to betake themselves.

Not as clear I think.  Perhaps on a different reading the warrior can dismount from the front, over the yoke incredibly rapidly, after the driver does an emergency stop, even on a steep slope, and that the vehicle can be turned rapidly emphasising the maneuverability of the chariot itself.  It seems to me that the Celts practice these maneuvers, indicating a degree of martial prowess.  Interesting that this is the practice he emphasises rather than throwing the darts.

Another writer, the Greek Historian Diodorus Siculus almost echoes Caesar, or more probably uses Julius account to write:

"In their journeyings and when they go into battle the Gauls use chariots drawn by two horses, which carry the charioteer and the warrior; and when they encounter cavalry in the fighting they first hurl their javelins at the enemy and then step down from their chariots and join battle with their swords.  Certain of them despise death to such a degree that they enter the perils of battle without protective armour and with no more than a girdle about their loins. They bring along to war also their free men to serve them, choosing them out from among the poor, and these attendants they use in battle as charioteers and as shield-bearers

My interest in Julius account stems from my current army building phase.  The Bronze Age Egyptian chariots are being constructed, and I am more than curious to find out their use in battle.  Caesar gives us some clues, but allows us to see some differences.

The primary weapon of a Maryannu was a bow.  Egyptian chariots carried a good supply of arrows and the prowess of their professional crew was such that unlike the Celts, who emphasise the practice of individual warrior heroes, the Bronze Age Egyptians trained in terms of firepower, and teamwork.

Caesar’s account of the speed and maneuverability of the Briton’s chariots is interesting.  These vehicles, like those of the Egyptians, were light and fast.  A Libyan or Caananite bowman would need to be good, lucky or numerous to hit one of these.  The Hittite’s use of spearmen as chariot crew at Qadesh surprised the Egyptians, yet the Pharaoh was not defeated… quite.  Indeed Egyptian chariot warriors would have a spear as a backup weapon. Running around outside the chariot however… well the Egyptians had a more sophisticated answer than that in their chariot runners.

Like the Celt’s use of chariots to attack Caesar’s horse, I suspect that Egyptian chariots were a weapon used against enemy mounted troops… other chariots, and to ride down isolated groups using their speed.  Skilled horse mounted bowmen can be tremendously accurate, and the trained and professional Maryannu from a more stable platform than a horse's back would have been quite deadly.

If the Celt’s use of chariots echoes the heroic fighting of the Iliad then it seems the Egyptians resemble more the professionalism of the Romans themselves.  Probably...

Now Mr Uriah Sir,  when I slap the rail of the chariot I want you to behave as if a member of the public has stepped out into the chariot’s path, and do an emergency stop.  Ready…

Slap.

Bloody hell man you just ran over him at full speed… ah… you're  a Hittite aren't you!

No sign of Ian Gillan at the Derby World Championships

As the wargaming ambassador to Cyprus I arranged my visit back to the UK to coincide with the Wargames World Championships at Derby.   Since I am the only member of the MPGC visiting the Midlands at the moment I felt that it was my responsibility to have a look into the convention and see what was what.

Firstly it's not actually at Derby.  The venue is the exhibition hall at Castle Donnington race track, right beside the East Midlands airport.  This is not the first time I have ventured into this particular racing track.  In 1982, as a young and be-haired student I went to Monsters of Rock, and I have only the most vague memories of seeing some of my heroes, Gillan and Hawkwind.

I spent the entire weekend intoxicated on Kestrel 3% lager… quite an achievement in itself.

The day of the wargames show was typical Midlands weather, bleedin’ miserable rain.  Having returned from Cyprus yesterday I felt the freezing cold and heavy drizzle acutely.  The exhibition hall is much bigger than the shows I usually attend.  For me Gateshead is large, but this one was significantly larger with a much greater number of traders.  I spent a couple of hours touring the tables, curious as to which rules were being used, and openly checking out the figures being used.   Lots of 15mm games, and Essex were well represented. As for the rules: WRG 6th, WRG 7th, DBMNMNMMN, SAGA, Armati, Impetus. By far the most games were Ancients, but there were some moderns too.

I loved the Napoleonic divisional size display game, first one I saw on going in, and voted for it in the “vote for your favourite game.”  

I had a clear idea of what I wanted in terms of purchases too.  I wanted to add a Sea Peoples chariot and some skirmishers for my Bronze Age project.  What I got was old Nestor in his Mycenaean chariot, and a gang of streakers to back him up.   As well as these I found a couple of the Pendraken 10mm Normandy buildings.

The Toofatlardies were there demo-ing a game, great stuff.  I'm not in any sense a tournament gamer, but I really enjoyed watching some of the games progressing.

Some criticisms: The venue was so big that I lost the Pendraken stall, having seen it on the way in, and it took me an hour to find it again.  My fault I suppose.  I was also disappointed in the stock that Foundry were carrying.  I would have spent more but there were very few Bronze Age packs available.  The sheer quantity of utterly brilliant toys on display left me astonished, and I'm maintaining my resolve to keep my wargaming within the range of the projects I have going.

Rock God Ian Gillan.

All in all an interesting experience.  I'm not sure if I will go again next year, and to be honest I’ll probably be in Cyprus.  Still I really enjoyed it. 

No Ian Gillan there though! 

Come cheer up my lads, 'tis to Glory we steer..

The second Marshal Petain Club Post Captain campaign, the Biscay Cruise will be set in 1794.  A guide to the political events unfolding is available in the Naval Times, below.  The Napoleonic Naval rules used are the very detailed "Post Captain" by GQ3 These focus on small actions involving only a few vessels.  Last time we used 20 gun Sloops ofWar.  This time we have a promotion to Frigates.

In May 1794 Lord Howe sent two Frigates to look into Brest and ascertain the whereabouts of the French Fleet.  Admiral Villaret was still present in the French naval base, although he was expected to move out into the Atlantic to escort the vital food convoy from the West Indies into a French port.
Historically this situation led to one of Britain's greatest naval victories, although it was later overshadowed by Nelson's career as an Admiral.

Our Post Captains will be expected to complete Lord Howe's mission, and cruise down the Biscay coast dealing with encounters and events as they occur.  In the previous game the Channel Island Patrol, both Captains conducted a very sucessful introduction to the skills needed for command in the game.  This time the ships are bigger, as is the Campaign area.  The challenges will be larger too...

And it’s a hello to the Tjehenu: the Early Libyans

Three weeks in the bright sunshine of Cyprus and I`ve finally finished the Libyans.  The “Extroverts” need a dip in Army-painter but I`m quite happy with them.  The zebra skin cloaks on some of these boys were a joy to paint.

I intermingled some javelinmen among the swordsmen, mainly because of parsimony, but I`m quite pleased with them.  I`ve also been hitting the books, trying to find out more about the history and culture of this somewhat enigmatic people.  There's not much to find, because there seems to be an Early Libyan shaped hole in history.

The Egyptians called the Western-Desert the “Red Land.”  This part of Libya is a vast featureless expanse of sand and stone-plateaus with a hyper-arid climate. The coastal-plain (the littoral) is partially protected from the desert’s extremes but it could never compare with the fertility of the Nile Valley.   If the climate change that dried the Sahara was linked to the Sea peoples invasions and the end of the Bronze age, the nomadic tribes must have been increasingly desperate to move into the Nile Delta.
 

Of course the very name “Libya” is a misnomer.  The Libu tribe isn’t recorded until the reign of Merenptah, when they headed the coalition from Western-Cyrenaica,  It was Greek authors who named this harsh environment Libya.  The Egyptian inscriptions are precise and spell out the name of the desert tribesmen phonetically as “Tjehenu.” The temple inscriptions of Seti-I, Merenptah, and Ramesses III all agree on this name.  

My Egyptian civilians.

Among the Greek writers who did look at these people Diodorus scathingly wrote that the Libyans were “nomads who had neither rulers nor laws and lived by raiding and rapine.”  Most conflict involving Egypt and Libya was identified as raids, counter-raids, and petty-revolts.    There is a strong resonance of this in the Tuareg, the Berber tribes who still inhabit parts of the Saharan interior as nomadic pastoralists,  Harshly judged by the colonial powers as “mendacious and masters of surprise tactics” these descendants of the Tjehenu provide a good parallel for their ancestors conflict with Egypt, another colonial power.

The archaeology of the area of the western desert has been understandably neglected.  There were no tombs filled with gold, no heroic poems to follow.  That the tribes finally succeeded and Egypt saw a Libyan dynasty is largely forgotten.   

Oddly enough it is among wargamers that the Early Libyans saw something of a resurgence.  The army was quite popular under DBM as a sort of masochistic counterbalance to the gamery of "perfect army" tournament players.  With the best will in the world an army of the Tjehenu is a bit of a loser.  On the other hand mendacious ... masters of surprise tactics," raiders and petty revolts sound like excellent skirmish material to me.  

My only Egyptian so far, a chariot runner off to warn the Pharaoh. 

So it's on to the Egyptians.  Now I have one army done the "colonial power" needs sorting out and painting up.  Can`t wait to get some games in with these. 

Heroes

I, I will be king

And you, you will be queen

Though nothing will drive them away

We can be heroes, just for one day

(David Bowie)

Whilst researching potential force compositions for my Achaean army, I have gone back to the Iliad for inspiration; it goes without saying that the Iliad will be the principle source for this project. Whether Homeric warfare reflects Bronze Age warfare or is actually more representative of warfare at the time the poems were written down is a controversial and oft debated subject; that said it's the only source we have so it will have to do. Anyway it's such a damned good story that it would be a shame not to use it; so the Iliad it is then. Reading the battle accounts therein, I was struck by the emphasis on heroes, both Greek and Trojan. Take the following passage for example:

He had two sons, Phegeus and Idaios, both of them skilled in all the arts of war. These two came forward from the main body of Trojans, and set upon Diomedes, he being on foot, while they fought from their chariot. When they were close up to one another, Phegeus took aim first, but his spear went over Diomedes' left shoulder without hitting him. Diomedes then threw, and his spear sped not in vain, for it hit Phegeus on the breast near the nipple, and he fell from his chariot. Idaios did not dare to bestride his brother's body, but sprang from the chariot and took to flight, or he would have shared his brother's fate; whereon Hephaistos saved him by wrapping him in a cloud of darkness, that his old father might not be utterly overwhelmed with grief; but the son of Tydeus drove off with the horses, and bade his followers take them to the ships.

The passage was chosen at random but is a typical example of many such instances. The quoted section largely focusses on the exploits of Diomedes; in fact the whole chapter centres upon Diomedes' actions, in which he appears to be a one man army as he wreaks havoc and destruction upon the Trojans. With page after page of such accounts, one could be forgiven for assuming that all the fighting is attributable to the named heroes alone. However, my completely untutored view is that this is just an example of ‘heroic’ poetry as sung by bards from time immemorial. 

To me the emphasis on the principal heroic characters does not seem that unusual; this is nicely typified by the 9th century Historia Brittonum in which we find:

‘The twelfth battle was on Mount Badon in which there fell in one day 960 men from one charge by Arthur; and no one struck them down except Arthur himself’.

Oh yeah, 960 men all by himself? He might be a legendary king but that’s going some!

Or how about Y Gododdin, in which the exploits of many British heroes are described, each with their own dedicated verse?

Never was made a hall so mighty.

There was never a warrior braver

Than kind-hearted Cynon, jewel-decked lord.

He was seated at the table's head.

The man he struck was not struck again.

Very sharp his spears,

White shield rent, he ripped armies.

Very swift his steeds, racing in front,

On the day of wrath his blades were death

When Cynon charged in the green of dawn.

We might expect this of these ancient British Celtic types; after all they’re descended from Trojans anyway – if you ascribe to that tosh. However, leaving the more mythical and legendary stuff behind and moving forward in time to more firmly historical events we can still see heroic versions of fairly well attested events. Take the Battle of Brunanburh (937 AD), for instance:

King Athelstan, the lord of warriors,

Patron of heroes, and his brother too,

Prince Edmund, won themselves eternal glory

In battle with the edges of their swords

Round Brunanburh; they broke the wall of shields,

The sons of Edward with their well-forged swords

Slashed at the linden-shields; such was their nature

From boyhood that in battle they had often

Fought for their land, its treasures and its homes,

Against all enemies.

Or the Battle of Maldon (991 AD):

Bows were busily at work, shields received spears.

Fierce was that onslaught. Warriors fell in battle

on either side, young men lay slain.

Wounded was Wulfmaer, meeting death on the battlefield,

Byrhtnoth's kinsman: he with sword was,

his sister's son, cruelly hewn down.

There were the Vikings given requital:

I hear that Eadweard smote one

fiercely with his sword, withholding not in his blow,

so that at his feet fell a doomed warrior;

for this he of his people gave thanks for,

this chamber-thane, when the opportunity arose.

The Brunanburh account reads as if Athelstan, Edmund and sons did all the fighting themselves, yet the enemy are implicitly numerous in their wall of shields. In the same vein, the Maldon poem gives prominence to Byrhtnoth, along with his kinsmen and retainers but, in this case, they are explicitly part of a larger force.

The example of Brunanburh is interesting as one of the Norse sagas, Egil’s Saga, is thought to contain an account of the battle.

Then Thorolf became so furious that he cast his shield on his back, and, grasping his halberd with both hands, bounded forward dealing cut and thrust on either side. Men sprang away from him both ways, but he slew many. Thus he cleared the way forward to earl Hring’s standard, and then nothing could stop him. He slew the man who bore the earl’s standard, and cut down the standard-pole. After that he lunged with his halberd at the earl’s breast, driving it right through mail-coat and body, so that it came out at the shoulders; and he lifted him up on the halberd over his head, and planted the butt-end in the ground. There on the weapon the earl breathed out his life in sight of all, both friends and foes. Then Thorolf drew his sword and dealt blows on either side, his men also charging. Many Britons and Scots fell, but some turned and fled.

This saga shares many parallels with the Iliad; both were put down in written form hundreds of years after the event (1240 AD in the case of Egil’s Saga). It has been claimed that the Iliad contains material that is later than the Bronze Age in which it is set. This also seems to be the case with Egil’s Saga; halberds in the 10^th century sound unlikely, unless of course this is just a vagary of the translation. In both cases we see the emphasis on ‘the hero’ with attendant heroic actions involving feats of great strength; Homer’s heroes throw large boulders whilst the Norse heroes lift bodies on the end of halberds!

What seems clear is that the heroic poems and sagas emphasise the role of the heroes but it seems more than likely these were battles involving masses of troops fighting. And so it is with the Iliad; our heroes have the greatest prominence yet if we look close enough I suspect we will find the unnamed masses fighting and dying alongside their lords and masters. But that is for another post.

So what have we learned from this little exercise? Well, it suggests to me that if we are to capture the feel of Homeric warfare then our chosen rules will need to emphasise the ‘heroes’. To my mind that suggests a variant of the Lardies’ rules, with their emphasis on ‘Big Men’. At the moment, I reckon, a Dux Britanniarum variant is the front runner and current favourite.

The Tomb of the Charioteer

The tomb of Uriah the Charioteer was found in the hills west of Karnak in 1908 by a team lead by Dr Howard Parker of the University of North Durham, and Lord Randolph Farthingdale the eminent Egyptologist and notorious Tomb Raider.  Acknowledging almost immediately that the tomb had been ransacked in ancient times, and may never have actually been used, the expedition moved on, but not before Dr Parker recorded the wall inscriptions in his expedition notebook. 

Panel from the real charioteer's tomb, Sakhara south of Cairo

Sensing that these were merely a biography of the tomb`s intended occupant the Doctor wrote a paper “Tomb XVIII West of Karnak and its implications for the 18^th Dynasty:  Archaeology Monthly, Issue 6 1909 ”  He then accompanied Lord Charles on the disastrous expedition among the Nubian Pyramids, where the local tribes accused the pair of resurrecting the Mummy of Imhotep, finding and destroying the lost Oasis of Am-Sher and plundering the tomb of the so called Scorpion King.

Both were subsequently accused of starting and finishing an accidental Mahdist uprising in Abbysinia, and credited with the defeat of the anarchist “Red Headed League.”

The Inscriptions

The hieroglyphic inscriptions on the walls of the Tomb of the Charioteer detail the military career of a Sherden Mercenary from Alasiya (Cyprus), an Officer of the Pharaoh Thutmosis.  The panels are broken up into the various campaigns undertaken by the Charioteer on behalf of his Pharaoh.

The first panel deals with Uriah’s time among the Libyans and his subsequent capture by the Egyptians following a raid into the Nile Delta.  As a valuable “Kedjen,” a Maryannu chariot warrior, Uriah was taken into the Egyptian army, standard practice for warriors with this skilled training.

Dr Parker’s translation of the first series of inscriptions runs thus:

The guy in the middle clearly has some issues.

My youth in Alasiya

My tribe the Sher-Dana

My People of the Sea

My Father a King

Sailing beaked ships of war 

We grew skilled in the bow

Warriors of the chariot.

Yes, I found a hieroglyph font!  It appears however that google translates it back into English if your computer does not have the same font installed, so I used a picture of the text instead!

And yes, this is just a framework idea for a few games, beginning with a Libyan raid.

The basis of this as a game framework are the detailed biographical inscriptions in the tomb of Ahmose son of Ebana, a naval/marine Captain who served the 18th Dynasty in many campaigns.  It's a fascinating read that gives the flavour of the times.  I hope that Uriah can live up to it.