"Does anyone use a Pontic army?" Topic

I am building a Caesarian/Marian Roman army and am considering different foes from the era.

I am wondering if anyone uses a Pontic or Egyptian army and if so what units they have and what models they use for them.

I have a Pontic army in my collection of DBA armies. There, it's referred to as a "Mithradatic Army" (II/48), named after its head honcho, Mithradates.

Like many later Successor armies, it's an attractive one for wargamers, because the list of options for this army, in most army lists, provides a wealth of choices.

Good, wargaming sources for this, are, Mr. Barker's "Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome", Duncan Head's "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars" as well as the various WRG army list, e.g. DBM Book II.

I won't clog up the bandwidth here with a detailed recap of that info, except to say that one typically has two main choices with a Pontic/Mithradatic army: A Hellenistic look with Pikes and Scythed Chariots, OR a more Romanesque look with so-called "Imitation" Legionaries.

I went with the earlier, pike options for my army. The figures that make up my army, however, are all, old Mike's Models 15s, Heritage, and even old (smallish) Freikorps figures, all long since out of production, so details on that won't be of much use to you.

Good luck with your Pontic. Maybe you'll be able to keep Ceasar from repeating his famous, "Veni, vidi, vici" line after facing them. Maybe. ;-)
//Paul in Seattle

what rules are you using? If its DBA check out fanaticus.org
As far as armies for Marians to fight, I'm particularly fond of Tracians, Later Judeans, and Hasmoneans.

Correction: As a former Latinist, I should have known the proper spelling of the King of Pontus is "Mithridates", not "Mithradates". --Now, I'll go write it 100 times correctly, as per that great scene in "Life of Brian". //Paul

Although it is out of print, try to find a work by Alfred Duggan called "He Died Old". A fantastic book on "Never-Say-Die" Mithridates.

Very inspiring.

Would an armored war elephant be appropriate?

The never ending hunt for the cake and eat it army!

Sorry, but it's very unlikely that Mithridates had any elephants in his host. By the First Century BC, the supply of Indian elephants had dried up for most of the Successor kingdoms, save perhaps for the Seleucids, and those that had been stomping around with earlier Successor states had probably all died off by the time of Mithridates.

I don't see any army list which list elephants as an option for a Pontic/Mithridatic army. Now, if you're looking for an army with lotsa armored elephants, zip along 1000 years to the Ghaznavid army. //Paul in Seattle

Paul, I saw an army list that had both mock legio and pikes. Is this appropriate?

yep Seleucid & Ptolomeic after 167BC & by Mithridates after losing the 1st Mithridatic war; he reorganised the infantry in imitation to the legions - he got his ass kicked by Pompey in 66BC so it didnt do him much good. After this he tried training another army of about 36000 as legionairies but never saw action due to revolt.

Try reading Appian & "He died old" by Alfred Duggan.

A caution on "imitation legionaries".

I am unclear on the rules you use, the rules I use are heavy on the internal drill of the troops. Thus, a Republican legion of 167 BC acts differently than the Maurian of just a couple generations later, and CERTAINLY different from the classical imperials in Segmentata.
AND all three LOOK different. I have seen a number of Pontic armies over the years that just crack me up. People who do this are commonly looking at Successor armies and one that might win against Romans. AND then they get excited by a sincle line about"imitation legionaries" without explanation and do figs and drill for troops from 300 years later.
If you are going to add the imitations, well, avoid the pittfalls.

Rocky

I use WAB. I would think that imitation legionaries would be alot weaker and inept than the real deal. I imagine the first thing you could do is take out the drilled and stubborn rule. Other than that I haven't thought that far.

I use a pontic army fairly regularly in DBM. It's a nice combination of different infantry and cavalry types, with fun items such as the scythe chariots.

Cavalry - Shielded Greek Heavy Cavalry with javelins(Selucid or Macedonian types), Light horse (both Tarentine and scythian), and a useful stike force of Sarmatian mercenaries.

Infantry - Peltasts (Spear and Javelin or Thracian Rhomphia / Javelin types), Pikes, Imitation legionaries, and supporting slingers, archers and javelinmen. The army can be very effective as it provides all sorts of different kinds of threats against an army like late republican Roman, but against this the different troop types can be difficult to co-ordinate well.

Allies - Armenians - Cataphract heavy cavaly, horse archers and cheap archers and javelinmen.

Hope that helps.

Paul

Thanks Paul, it looks better and better!

Looky here:
link

This thread was 6 years old ! Did you need to resurrect 4 old threads to post the same link ?!