Nomad Heavy Cavalry (late Roman/Dark Ages

[martinworsey]

Query from a non-historian.

My knowledge of this subject is a little lacking.

WRG lists and books illustrated Hun and following nomad elite cavalry as dual armed with kontos and bow. This was also the case with Sasanian and Byzantine elites. Books I read around the time suggested that the Byzantines adopted this equipment from the Huns who were recruited into the Byzantine army. Sasanians were illustrated double equipped but the bow was described as being primarily for hunting and not war.

There were lots of discussions around the time as to the difficulty of wielding both weapons; FOG miniature lists appear to follow this premise as they do not allow for lance/bow combinations.

FOG2 only has Byzantines as dual equipped and this kit out starts with Bucellarii who were mercenaries recruited from Huns, Goths and Sasanians. However, Hun, other nomad and Sasanians do not include double equipped elites.

Out of curiosity, is there any new evidence (i.e. post 1980's) on this interpretation and what is it please?

Thanks in anticipation.

[rbodleyscott]

To quote the manual:

"The combat system is function based. The mere possession of a weapon is not
sufficient to qualify for a combat capability. For example, many missile-armed
troops were equipped with a cheap side-arm but were not well-practised in
its use and so do not have swordsmen capability. Similarly, some cavalry
primarily operating as horse archers also carried lances, but are not given
lancers capability because their primary tactic was horse archery rather than
a fierce charge with the lance.

Allocation of capabilities inevitably has a subjective element."

We felt it more important to accentuate the key tactical differences between different armies than to make everything equipment-dependent. Especially as it is often unclear from the evidence what proportion of horse archer armies carried lances as well as bows.

In FOG Medieval we added in a class of elite "best-equipped" cavalry, equally expert with lance and bow, though only having a few of these in each list that has them.

Arguably the Huns, Sassanids and Avars could have a few of these.