"Morphing armies..." Topic

I'm curious if it would be reasonable to take an early Persian army and morph it into one Alexander would have fought. Did the styles of dress change too significantly? If it is feasible what would have to be changed aside from adding heavy infantry?

Could I morph an Alexandrian army (one that fought the Persians) into a successor army? What would change? Which type of successor army would be the easiest morph?
Would it just be easier to buy a FoG starter and go from there? (I don't own FoG).

Thx much for your input.

It is pretty easy to morph. The vast majority of your Persian figs in the earlier era will be archers. These can all be used in the Alexandrian era, you just need to add some units of spear and shield armed guys. The only troops you won't really use are the sparabara but they should only be the front rank of each unit pretty much.

I use a variety of subject state infantry in my army. Some of these will continue on into the later period, some will not depending on what battle you are doing. Obviously many Anatolians will not still be with Darius at Gaugamela, neither will the Egyptians.

As there is probably no way you are going to represent all of the subject states that Xerxes invaded Greece with you can pick and choose ones that would still have fought under Darius at the later Alexander period battles for even more coherency.

Morphing an Alexandrian army into a successor army is a simple task. If you want the simplest you would do one of the armies used by the Diadochi which would have been just about the same as the army under Alexander. If you want one that is later you will need to change your cavalry a little bit or just add more armoured cavalry and elephants but the phalangites, light infantry and light cav will pretty much look the same.

The further forward you go the more you will have to change, of course. Once you get late enough you might have to switch out much of your infantry for imitation legion or theophoroi. But if you are looking at the late 4th and early to mid 3rd centuries you shouldn't have much of a problem and will only need a few units.

Here's a decent stab at this sort of question..

link

Here's my scattered thoughts.

At the end of the day its only yourself you have to please so its whatever is acceptable to you. Early Persians Immortals and Heavy infantry no good for later, all the lighter stuff should be fine. Subject nations could be used to provide Darius levy. The cavalry mainly stopped using bows in addition to spear so here is the tricky question of what is acceptable. My own view of morphs is that by and large if you add new key distinctive units to the core of the original army, add correct commanders and maybe unit command groups than the "will pass at a pinch" troops tend to sort of disappear from notice. The only drawback to this early/late A.P. effort is that if you discard all the heavy infantry and some of the cavalry you will need to provide a lot of new stuff. If you did (say) a unit of Heavy Guard cavalry, new generals, lots of Greek Hoplites, scythed chariots, an elephant and some Persian Peltasts or Kardaces for the later period you will hardly notice the slightly old fashioned looking chaps hidden away in the mass.

Macedonians, I feel it gets easier here. All the foot and most of the horse will do for later IMHO. Hellenistic experts would probably not agree but in my book from normal viewing distance all pikemen look pretty much the same (and I am referring to classical ones here before anyone tries to remind me that its hard to pass off Landsknechts as Alexander's lads.) Any of the earlier Successor armies will be able to be built around the Alexandrian army.

Graham

In 15mm most Persian heavy cavalry are not modelled holding their bows, so they are not obviously "bow-armed cavalry" anyway. I use the same cavalry figures as Early or Late Achaemenid Persian, just stating clearly what they are armed with. Apart from lights, most of the infantry are different figures however, so not much morphing there.

You can also get quite a lot of mileage from your Persians in the middle period in between Plataea and Gaugamela – all those pesky raids and things Agesilaos II managed, plus Persian in-fighting (Cunaxa). As said above, there would be no Immortal-style heavy infantry, but the sparabara types would still be useable.

I think Ancients is all about morphing. There are many units that are not period specific, especially light units. Even in the Macedonian Army I use unarmored phalangites to represent most of Philip's phalanx. As the Alexandrian Army gets farther into Asia and captures more booty I add more heavily and ornately armored men. I believe this process can be extended to the Roman period, with the unarmored pikemen always being used to represent poor levies to fill the phalanx like Ptolemy's Egyptians at Raphia.

Morphing an Alexandrian army into a Successor one requires little extra effort if you stick to the Western Diadochi. But as you go further east you will have more troops diversity, though your core cavalry, light troops, and phalangites should be useable.

My own mighty morphin' trajectory is to segue from Classical Greeks to Diadochi with the hoplitai and light troops preserved.

i've just compleed an early persian army using figures entirely for later persians, with the exception of sparabara and immortals that I got from a different source.

if I wanted to make it a late persian as well, i'd just be adding takabara and cardakes and a scythe chariot or two.

mind you, its an army list based on herodotus, so its designed to give it a huge 'subjects' component.

if I was using some crappy lists like FoG or something, none of these would be present, and the infantry would be all Sparabara and Immoprtals for early and cardakes (and hoplites) for later (and I suspect not too many cardakes either for most competition gamers).

so in that respect, it depends entirely on your lists.

other thing stolook out for though – horse armour is something I associate with the alexander period only, so maybe a bit wary of putting that on too many units outside of bactria.

if you go for an interesting mix though, you can do almost anything – including egyptian marines and indians

My view is to morph all you want, we don't know nearly as much as we pretend to about ancients armies, their organization and equipment. Keep in mind that our original sources are extremely limited and biased.