Art De La Guerre

[Mark G Fry]

In the Syracusan list there are Levy 'galley oarsmen dressed as Hoplites' @ 3pts. So in effect they are just plain old Levy (BP:3, move @ 2UD, unmanouverable, classed as HF adding to the army BP) as far as the rules are concerned.

I'm aware this might be a bit of 'chrome' but surely the idea behind this was to disguise the oarsmen as Hoplites to deceive the enemy, as well as bulk out the apparent numbers of troops in the army.
The Romans do a similar thing with their Penal Legion (post Cannae - partly out of necessity) and I think Athens also did the same with some of its own galley oarsmen (if memory serves me right?) as until you get close up you have no idea if these are 'real' hoplites/ or hardened legionaries or not. I also suspect that there are many other examples across the ancient & medieval world - no doubt many from the Far East where such wily tactics like this would have probably appealed greatly.

Other sets of rules have covered this by allowing players to deploy these 'disguised' units as what they are intended to represent initially, until an enemy gets to within a specific distance (say 4UDs), and then they are revealed and replaced with the inferior substitutes. An additional 1pt cost for this might also seem reasonable.

It's just a bit of 'fun' - a bit like 'Arthur' or 'Cullhullan' or 'flaming pigs' or 'fire-bomb oxen' etc. etc. etc.

Just a thought.
Cheers
Mark

[navigator]

I agree.... the bretons in their dark age list have a line for 'saxons disguised as bretons'... id love to field a few units of 'levy' bretons on bicycles, with berets, bottles of wine and strings of onions, and then when the enemy gets close off come the berets and on come the helmets to reveal meat eating smelly saxons . El Kreator missed a trick with this!

[Mark G Fry]

I also think the Poles did something similar - disguising some mounted peasants as Polish Hussars & having them ride around at the back of the army looking 'threatening' - but sadly that is obviously out of period for the Ancient & Medieval version of the rules.

But don't the Arab Conquest armies have some Camel's disguised as Elephants ... hmmm ... sounds like there is a trend forming here