There is a kickstarter in progress for 28mm Hellenistic Judeans. The starter armies are designed for DBMM, which I do not play. They are Hasmonean, Late Judean and Maccabean
I would probably use them for Basic Impetus but there appear to be no lists for these, just a Jewish Revolt one. Can anybody give me a quick intro into the time periods these armies cover and historic opponents?
Time period would be from the revolt against the Seleucids (170-ish) until Roman rule. At least some of them would be suitable for the Jewish Revolts - after all, a good deal of the evidence is from the revolt period, including the textiles from the Cave of Letter.
Sources for composition include Bks of Maccabees and Josephus. The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness Dead Sea scroll probably has some useful stuff but it is difficult to sort the idealistic bits from the reality. Duncan's new intro to AMPW has something about the bronze shields which are mentioned.
Main enemies would be Seleucids, Ptolemies*, Nabataeans, Romans, Parthians and themselves. Also handy as part of most of those armies.
*More potential than actual iirc. Cleo III retook Egypt with an army which was largely Jewish. I think Cleo VII and Herod nearly came to blows.
John Grainger's "The Wars of the Maccabees" could be a good place to look for an historical overview - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wars-Maccabees-John-D-Grainger-ebook/dp/B00AJ2QEXQ
Thanks both - I have bought the Grainger book
I found I Shatzman's book "The Armies of the Hasmonaeans and Herod" very useful when I was putting together my Herodian Jewish army.
There is a thread of discussions about the composition somewhere under this heading on the Forum and I think an article did get published in Slingshot a few years back.
Quote from: dwkay57 on November 07, 2022, 09:00:15 AM
I found I Shatzman's book "The Armies of the Hasmonaeans and Herod" very useful when I was putting together my Herodian Jewish army.
There is a thread of discussions about the composition somewhere under this heading on the Forum and I think an article did get published in Slingshot a few years back.
I will have a look at my back copies - for some reason I rarely think to do that
Do the Mortem et Gloriam army lists have any value? If so, there area couple of lists for the classical period that might help. https://lurkio.co.uk/meg/meg/wp-content/uploads/MEG2022/MeG-Army-Lists-22-Egypt-and-Judaea-2022-01.pdf (https://lurkio.co.uk/meg/meg/wp-content/uploads/MEG2022/MeG-Army-Lists-22-Egypt-and-Judaea-2022-01.pdf)
The WRG books "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars" and "Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome" provide some information on Jewish armies of the Maccabean period and the Revolt respectively.
The Osprey book "The Army of Herod the Great" has some good text on the organisation and structure of Herod's army, but - as usual with Osprey publications - some of the illustrations aren't that useful and raise a couple of eyebrows.
I contributed an article to Slingshot on the Hasmoneans back in the late 90s (I think) when I built the armies in 15mm.
Also, read Josephus.
From my reading I always thought the DBM army lists for the Hamonean, Herod and Jewish Revolt periods were very good. So good, in fact, I built all 3 armies in 15mm.
True to form though, all were soundly thrashed when I ran them in DBM competitions. The fickle figures of fate!
Quote from: stevenneate on November 09, 2022, 07:08:19 AM
From my reading I always thought the DBM army lists for the Hamonean, Herod and Jewish Revolt periods were very good. So good, in fact, I built all 3 armies in 15mm.
True to form though, all were soundly thrashed when I ran them in DBM competitions. The fickle figures of fate!
It is just possible that I have those lists somewhere - I will have a look
Quote from: stevenneate on November 09, 2022, 01:41:20 AM
I contributed an article to Slingshot on the Hasmoneans back in the late 90s (I think) when I built the armies in 15mm.
I did an article in the late 1990s as well on Judean infantry
Quote from: stevenneate on November 09, 2022, 07:08:19 AM
From my reading I always thought the DBM army lists for the Hamonean, Herod and Jewish Revolt periods were very good. So good, in fact, I built all 3 armies in 15mm.
True to form though, all were soundly thrashed when I ran them in DBM competitions. The fickle figures of fate!
I am sure I remember enjoying your writing about that.... Think it was in Slingshot but might have been some where else.
You'll remember facing my Judaean army, Gavin - it narrowly beat your Akkadians, mainly through shooting. A favourite army of mine, nicely painted by John Calvert.
Quote from: John GL on November 11, 2022, 03:24:51 PM
You'll remember facing my Judaean army, Gavin - it narrowly beat your Akkadians, mainly through shooting. A favourite army of mine, nicely painted by John Calvert.
Yes - remember that game. Our right wing was shot down by archers on rough/steep hills (as we advanced past them valiantly protecting our centre)...our left made very heavy weather of crushing the weaker Judean troops facing them...and our centre pushed on towards the Romans sitting stationary near your base edge. Forget if we managed to reach and overcome the Romans in the middle or not before time was called.
Here's the account I wrote at the time:
Finally we faced Akkadians – two huge blocks of Pk(I) (no Pk(X)), one of Ax(X) and a PIP-dump mini-command. Our Bw command held rough hills on our left again, and the C-in-C's Ax and Ps held rough going on our right, with the Romans, LH and Cv in the centre. The Ax(X) attacked the Ax(S) and were beaten off with loss, but they had huge numbers and eventually worked around our flank with psiloi and a single LH(I). The central pike block powered into the Romans who fought back gamely but soon took worrying losses. On our left, however, our Bw(I) were able to shoot unmolested into the flank of the other pike block, scoring many hits. That command's break point was 12.5, which was reached entirely from shooting – the massed Auxilia attack against psiloi holding a rough hill, though successful, turned out to be unnecessary.
By that time, though, the Romans were in serious trouble and broke, with 6 legionaries and a cavalry dead. The untouched pike command was powering through and threatening to chase our LH off the table – one LH element actually did flee off. As the time limit approached our C-in-C's command was half an element from breaking and their Ax(X) command was one off – on our last bound we bagged a pair of Ax(X) and broke their army for a 9-1 win.
Quote from: John GL on November 12, 2022, 02:24:05 PM
Here's the account I wrote at the time:
Excellent - brings the memories back...though as a doubles game the memories of everything are a bit hazy 😀
I did contribute an article on my DBM competition experience using the Jewish Revolt. I adopted my own competition scoring system, mainly based around big points for losing my own generals in factional in-fighting. I had a great time recklessly throwing away my own troops in impossible situations, but I was trying to play "in character"! Gave away 4 big and easy wins to fellow competition "cellar dwellers" but I like to think wargaming was the real winner!
I've just pledged for a Late Judean Army and am grateful for the sources mentioned and other reading ideas. Need to do my homework before they arrive...