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Post by Piyan Glupak on Oct 7, 2016 11:32:11 GMT
Having painted the mounted options for an army of Rohan (lots of Gothic, Frankish and Lombard knights with a couple of Hunnic horse archer Light Horse/Rider elements), I am beginning to think about Dunlendings. At the moment I am mulling over whether to use Pictish or Welsh figures. Has anyone got any thoughts or suggestions? Are there any other figure ranges worth considering? At the moment, the army list that I am thinking about would probably be something like: 1 x 3Ax (general), 1 x 2LH, 4 x 3Ax, 2 x 3Sp, 2 x 3Sp or 3Ax, 2 x 2Ps For HotT that would be: 1 x Warband (general), 1 x Riders, 6 x warband, 4 x spear This would represent 3rd Age Dunlendings that would not get on very well with the Rohirrim. Thank you in anticipation.
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Post by evilgong on Oct 9, 2016 2:22:42 GMT
Hiya, any European dark-age hairies should be fine.
I'm not sure about spear, I'd guess WB or Ax, but its really guesswork with only scraps of info to work from. I think you could add a Ps as archers etc as a bit of invention by reference to historical analogues. I reckon the Cav would be richer tribal leaders etc so Cv or LH might do. Tolkien mentions Saruman raising Dunlanders and others (from hills or plains? memory fails) so you can justify culturally different types to use both Wb and Ax.
have fun
David F Brown
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Post by Piyan Glupak on Oct 9, 2016 6:18:44 GMT
Thank you for your reply David.
If anything, I am more worried by the auxilia. I tend to see most auxilia as being primarily armed with javelins and shields. I can not recall noticing reference to massive numbers of javelins, although there are references to "darts".
Although the Dunlendings could and did break Rohirrim shield-walls, usually they did so when numbers were in their favour. I think that they would have needed more than auxilia to do that. On the other hand, I think they would have been much more dangerous to dismounted and infantry armies (such as at the Fords of Issen) if the predominant troop type was warband.
Concerning examples of historical armies from upland areas that were not usually subject to strong central control, I haven't seen the army lists for version 3, but for version 2, the North Welsh, the Picts and the Pre-Feudal Scots have a lot of 3Sp. On the other hand, the Scots-Irish tend to be mainly auxilia and the Caledonians have a lot of warband. It might be suggested that the North Welsh, the Picts and the Pre-Feudal Scots had had to adapt to enemies with a significant mounted contingent. The Thracians, Samnites and the Italian Hill Tribes tended to fight armies with limited numbers of mounted troops.
Both Luke Ueda Sarson and David Kuijt mention that Saruman had "pikemen" who, they feel, would have been Dunlendings rather than half-orcs. Unfortunately, I can't find the references because my copy of 'Lord of the Rings' is in one volume, which mucks up the page numbering. The troop type '3Sp' tend to have long spears that can, or are likely to be wielded with two hands, and not be over-burdened with armour. I understand that the troop type 3Sp are represented by fast pike in DBMM, although I am open to correction. [Added in edit They were Ax(x) in DBM.]
The reasoning behind a mixture of auxilia and 3Sp is that the less well equipped warriors would be auxilia, whereas the better equipped would be spearmen. The Dunlendings were described as being shortr of weapons and armour; Saruman is said to have armed them. Presumably wood and leather would be available to them, so it would be metal that they would tend to be short of. On the other hand, a lightly-equipped spearman would probably not need much more metal than a javelinman.
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