Mycenaean Swords

[Deleted User]

I’m working on my Field of Glory Bronze Age Later Mycenaeans. It is a colourful & interesting force. However, I really can’t make the army totally in line with the Army Book list because it simply isn’t historical.
It does not allow for Swords units when swords are a frequent find in archaeology & the Linear B lists record hundreds in storage at various palaces. Swords are best issued & wielded by professional retinues who seem to be the core of Mycenaean & Minoan armies.
IMO it is not a Mycenaean army without Swords.
So, as well as Offensive & Defensive Spears BGs (the core infantry units in the ‘lists’), I will include 2 BGs of Swords.
Certainly more speculative will be the “illegal” Light Horse unit I’m adding: (4 bases: called “The Trojan Horse”!). There is enough evidence of this for me to defend the addition.

Any comment on this?
And to broaden the discussion, have you altered lists before? Clearly I’m not a tournament player, but I generally feel a rules/lists package has been assembled for a reason & I’m not totally comfortable with my planned “surgery”.

donald

[Mike Headden]

Swords seem to be very much secondary to spears in Mycenaean warfare. Your Spears will also have swords (or axes or daggers). A unit specifically of swordsmen would seem very unlikely, to me.

Cavalry are also unlikely and if present are likely to be unarmed or lightly armed scouts of little use on the battlefield at least until the Geometric period. The mounted arm would be largely or entirely chariotry.

That said, if you (and any opponent) are happy to try what is effectively a “what if” scenario then why not?

I’m currently converting a figure to represent Humbaba for my Early Bronze Age Mesopotamians. I doubt your swordsmen and cavalry are any more fanciful than a fire-breathing being with the head of a lion, the horns of a bull, the claws of a vulture, a hide covered in thorns and a tail that ends in a snakes head and whose gaze is death! Even if he is attested to in the Epic of Gilgamesh. 🙂

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Deleted User]

Obviously, warriors would carry an array of weapons but wargames’ rules need to simplify in order to allow something to be playable.

Sword-armed warriors weren’t unheard of in the period. The Egyptians depicted the Sea Peoples as such:

Mycenaeans armed similarly don’t seem such a stretch. I appreciate the allusions to fantasy as the sheer distance in time makes almost anything seem possible but the line between historical & fantasy isn’t one I want to cross: this is personal taste & in no way meant as a criticism.

[Mike Headden]

The Medinet Habu frieze is of a naval battle happening as Mycenaean society was collapsing and, as you point out, shows Sea People not Mycenaeans so isn’t much of a guide to the arms of Mycenaean land forces.

If you want swordsmen, have swordsmen but realise that they are probably as fanciful as skeleton warriors sown from dragons teeth and cavalry on flying horses.

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Deleted User]

Well, we’ll have to disagree with the “fantasy” aspect.

 

This seems quite factual….

http://www.salimbeti.com/micenei/weapons1.htm

 

 

 

[Mike Headden]

Not disputing they had swords, just that they used those as primary weapons. If you are modelling the later Mycenaeans with peltast type shields rather than the tower/ figure of eight shields then it might be more likely – or at least less unlikely.

But as said, it’s your game and your army so go for it if that suits your view of them.

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Deleted User]

Yes, anything’s possible….not Fantasy, obviously.  However, if swords are in such numbers, if warriors are depicted in art only carrying/fighting with them, it is indeed possible they were carried as a primary weapon.  Others would carry spears, axes etc. Groups (units?) would not be armed in a a uniformly neat way, of course. However, the exigencies of wargaming…..

Can you just imagine Agamemnon saying, “Hey we have too many spears, some of you guys go home. I need some more light horse and we are one BG too short. WTF are all those guys with swords doing here? They aren’t on my order of battle. The enemy commander won’t like this – he’ll object and make me remove them from the battlefield.”

 

For further possibilities:

https://www.academia.edu/1532320/Horseback_riding_and_Cavalry_in_Mycenaean_Greece

 

So mounted units are possible IMO too. At least more likely than a Mesopotamian Humbuby. 87)

 

 

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