Sarmatian barding option

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lero
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Sarmatian barding option

Postby lero » Sun Aug 13, 2017 10:56 pm

I can understand "cloth" barding for sarmatian as an interesting option with the minus 2 cost modifier. Why not ?
But as SWP Scythe's list said : Sarmatian came from scythian. So new barding option should be added with a plus 1 cost modifier as for scythian nobles.
And sakae are treated with barding option, an other tribes from scythians...
When you see sarmatian heavy lancers, there is no lot of doubts about barding possibility.
Lero

dave.p
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Re: Sarmatian barding option

Postby dave.p » Mon Aug 14, 2017 6:23 pm

Sakae lived hundreds of years earlier and thousands of kilometres away. You cannot compare them.
Sarmatian horses from burials are not considered large enough to carry full metal barding.
Greek and Roman sources never mention Sarmatians using metal barding.
No museum claims to have any Sarmatian barding.
If you have any evidence, please share it.

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A Lot of Gaul
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Re: Sarmatian barding option

Postby A Lot of Gaul » Tue Aug 15, 2017 3:57 pm

Dave is correct in that the Greek and Latin sources do not mention horse barding for Sarmatian horsemen. Also, the Sarmatian heavy cavalryman depicted on this relief from Tanais does not have any horse barding:

Image

OTOH, this panel from Trajan's column clearly depicts several Sarmatian cavalrymen with full scale horse barding, similar in appearance to that worn by the riders:

Image

So, as usual when dealing with the ancient world, the evidence is rather ambiguous. My guess would be that some of the wealthiest nobles had horses with full scale barding, while those who were less wealthy did not. Rating Sarmatian nobles as having cloth barding in the army list could be a good way of representing a mixture of troops with scale barding and no barding.

What puzzles me is the -2 points for cloth barding. Is that because Sarmatian nobles with cloth barding go from being Shock Cavalry to Massed Cavalry? Or is it possibly because the default was for them to have full or half barding, and so cloth barding would be a step down in protection? Possibly both?
Last edited by A Lot of Gaul on Tue Aug 15, 2017 6:33 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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MartinG
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Re: Sarmatian barding option

Postby MartinG » Tue Aug 15, 2017 4:29 pm

THe cost reduction is due to the shift from Shock Cavalry to Massed cavalry, as you guessed.
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A Lot of Gaul
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Re: Sarmatian barding option

Postby A Lot of Gaul » Tue Aug 15, 2017 6:59 pm

Thanks for the clarification, Martin! :)

BTW, since the Sarmatian list is found in the Classical Armies book, should this thread be moved to the appropriate forum?
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lero
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Re: Sarmatian barding option

Postby lero » Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:47 am

Thanks for all. This is the trajan column I got in mind.

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lero
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Re: Sarmatian barding option

Postby lero » Sat Sep 09, 2017 1:05 am

And sarmatian nobles in pontic list have barding, are superior shooter and fighter but do not have either shock cavalry or massed cavalry rules. In fact this is the way I see them. This option should have been added in sarmatian list to offer more diversity in the way we look at them. So any player could pick what he sees righter. As for hypapist who have many options in macedonian list.
But overall, this is not a big point, just an opinion.


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