Slitherine

Scrumpy wrote:
Is there any chance you could do a collective book of those allies offered to armies, but are not in print yet ?

No. They will appear as their lists are published. Patience

Not sure if it is already covered, but Sicilian Norman?

PyrrhicVictory wrote:Not sure if it is already covered, but Sicilian Norman?

I think they said the sicilians are in Oath of Fealty in the Autumn but Wolves from the Sea in February will have Normans and depending on how they did them and what year you are after they could be there.

My guess is the Vesper Siclian and 13th century types are in Oath. 1041 is Wolves.

Nik, to go with my (early) La Tene above, how about the Umayyad army at the time of Tours that invaded Spain and France?

olivier wrote:I'd love to see some of the africans kingdoms army ( if you can find an expert about them ) as Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem and Axoum.

Yes the current books seem to stop at the Sahara and so all the Southern African armies have been 'missed'. That includes the ancient ones (what's know about them) and then the armies of the 'middle ages' period as well. That includes the true African Muslim states etc. I don't think that these have been covered.

I'm not sure I'd ever field an army of these (other than maybe the African Muslim) but others may.

Yes, I could see an interesting book based on all the missing desert based armies from both the Sahara & Arabian deserts.

Nik

Found another one. The Parthian vassel states seem to have disappeared from the Parthiasn list, showing only as allies. Fine for Parthians but as the vassel existed in most cases as seperate armies where do I find them? I am most interested in Elymais (also known as Elam, Susiana or Khuzistan) as they fought the Parthians (and possibly the Sassanids) between 188 BC and 227 AD. I believe that this should be a seperate list, even though the evidence is sparce.

I was going to suggest alist for Anglo-Burgundian Hundred Years War armies such as Saalisbury's army at Cravant, then I realised that it would be better as a variant of the Hundred Years War English (Continental) list, andthen I realised that the variation would be to add 'or Burgundian' after Gascon a couple of times.

One thing that doesn't seem to have come up yet is the issue of whether or not some missing lists deserve to be represented.

One of the problems with DBM to my mind was the prevalence of competition-winning armies whose historical record was based upon minimal evidence - or indeed whose armies performed extremely poorly in real life. I am thinking here particularly of armies like the Ancient Makkan and the Camel-Knights of remotest Sudan. If the entire army is going to be based on a few scratchy bits of rock art then we should probably leave it be.

The same probably applies to all the itty-bitty armies, some of which I see are now covered by ally lists, which is just right, they couldn't usually put a decent field army together without help. I notice though that the very Late Byzantines are not covered by the lists, which is probably right, there is not really a field army after 1400AD. This should also rule out some of the Polynesian type armies, if the island is only home to 5000 people then chances are you are not going to get the kind of army fielded that makes sense in a set of rules like FOG. As it is the rules squeak most when the representative scale of the armies are very different, such as classical and some medieval armies. Yes knights were very good but there were never very many of them.

So, in short my plea is that some army lists deserve to be missed out and we shouldn't put lists in for the sake of it. That said, we shouldn't be restricted by cultural blindness.

John

Thanks John. Your post pretty much sums up our list writing policy. However, we may need to be reminded to stick to our guns when public opinion seeks to weaken our resolve.

Yes I think the FoG authors have generally adopted a good philosophy on list choices. The obvious issue also of scaling up what was the euqivaletn of about 4 bases into a full list would have lots of distorting effects. Yes it would be fun but it really starts moving the cart down the road toward fantasy and away from history.

I have a suggestion : Order of Saint John... I know it was a small army, but they were serious opponent with Ottoman armies ( and I have the army who is sleeping )

The point about small armies/kingdoms is well made but the African armies such as for the Malian and Songhai kingdoms/Empire definitely count(http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Afri ... STORY.html has a small history of these). There may be others but what the heck I'm no expert in this area/time period - there are wiki entries for the Bantu expansion and Kingdom of Mutapa Empire which especially later in the FoG period there may have justifiable armies in them as well but maybe this is just one or two more generic lists. The oral traditions come down through history and one assumes that these armies were quite large - how big is questionable but should at least justify their own lists as this was a booming area in the later medieval world - just known from the rest of it.

Zulu and some limited Arab range figures are likely somewhat appropriate.

The strategy and tactics magazine #244 had a good article on this as well, called 'Sundiata of Mali: Master of a Hundred Vanquished Kings' By William Stroockwhich. I'll be honest it was this what triggered my post and interest and I looked in the current army books and could not find a list for these guys.

Hope this helps.

Nik, to go with my (early) La Tene above, how about the Umayyad army at the time of Tours that invaded Spain and France?

This Army list, or Army list option, wasn´t included in the Ummayyad list. Initially we thougth to include this option in the Andalusían Army list, but Finally we decided to make a different list.

This army list is not written yet and I don´t know if Richard will include it in lost scrolls, or any other suplement.

Maybe we have to talk about it again.


Cheers


David

EricDumDum wrote:I have a suggestion : Order of Saint John... I know it was a small army, but they were serious opponent with Ottoman armies ( and I have the army who is sleeping )

Serious yes. But never in the field. They had a larger fleet than an army practically.

In our period the Knights are basically on Rhodes and there were less 1000. Other that ship-to-ship did they ever fight on dry land other than Rhodes?

hazelbark wrote:

EricDumDum wrote:I have a suggestion : Order of Saint John... I know it was a small army, but they were serious opponent with Ottoman armies ( and I have the army who is sleeping )

Serious yes. But never in the field. They had a larger fleet than an army practically.

In our period the Knights are basically on Rhodes and there were less 1000. Other that ship-to-ship did they ever fight on dry land other than Rhodes?

You could probably replicate a Knights of St. John using the Medieval Cypriots.

Bill

Agreed it is probably the best bet.

Early Western Cro-Magnon
Later Neanderthal

What would be useful for those of us less in the know (like me) is somewhere where suggestions like Bill's can be stickied...someone comes up with 'List X is needed' and someone else says 'This list is published and would do well for it'.

did early hebrew really get left out of Swifter than Eagles? No joshua, gideon, saul, david as a boy? nada?