Slitherine

MrCrow wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2024 3:39 pm
However, this does not mean that there was no type of heavy infantry among the Apulian ranks. The book itself, shortly after the sentence I posted, says that armored troops were a minority but confirms their presence. It even shows a reconstruction (figure 157), which in Field of Glory likely corresponds to the Veteran Italian Foot: an armored infantryman with a "large round shields".

At this point, though, I would like to ask you something about the Veteran Italian Foot: why are they considered medium infantry and not heavy? Personally, I doubt that, carrying an Argive shield like that, they could have had the same mobility as, for example, the Thorakitai, who carried a more manageable thureos.

Ancient tactical manuals do not acknowledge the existence of a separate class of "Medium Foot", infantry are either psiloi or line foot.

Medium Foot in FOG2 are line infantry, just less dependent on a rigid shield wall formation than Heavy Infantry. Note that they have the same move distance as Heavy Infantry in open terrain.

It is the use of javelins that suggests the Oscans were not really "heavy infantry".

It is worth noting that in practice the rules treat Roman legionaries as sort of half-way between heavy and medium infantry. They are more affected by terrain than troops classed as Medium Foot, but considerably less affected than more rigid Heavy Foot such as hoplites or pike phalanxes.

In this system we feel that Oscans fit Medium Foot best.

And it would be pure speculation to give them a tactical "toolbox" mixture of Heavy Foot and Medium Foot. (Even the Romans could not manage that in this period, except by the use of allied troops).

While on the subject of Duncan Head's book, there are some points in his analysis of Hellenistic troops where we disagree with him. In particular we do not accept his view that thurophoroi deployed with spears and javelins at the same time. According to Luke Ueda-Sarsen's analysis, they either deployed as line infantry with spear (essentially hoplites "lite"), or as Euzonoi (psiloi) with Javelins. Hence this is how they are depicted in the game. It is arguable whether (when deployed with spear) they would do better than normal hoplites in rough terrain, but we have given them the benefit of the doubt in view of their lighter equipment.

See:

http://lukeuedasarson.com/Iphikrates1.html
http://lukeuedasarson.com/Iphikrates2.html