Mongol Armies

[Paul Vinton]

Old gamer, back to Historicals now from a long Fantasy break!

I recently acquired a pile of old 25mm Mongols, and dug out what I had collecting dust.  The first part of the collection looks have about 30 of the 1979 Ral Partha medium cavalry, the ones with the one pose horse and different riders to put on top.  These seem to be of the 1206 AD era up to when the first invasions of China began, basic equipment/armor/weapons.  I am missing a bunch of spears, the old metal ones with cast lead points, so I'll have to dig those up or make some out of brass rod with greenstuff heads.

Speaking of, hooked spears/lances.  I've seen illustrations of the hook facing both up and down, which is most accurate?

The next pile'o'figs is about 60 of the RAFM Mongol archers, again one pose horses and riders.  A few with maces, I guess they could be leaders or champions.   So between the older Ral figs and these, I have the light cavalry section of the army taken care of.  The RAFM figs seem to be of a later era than the first batch, armor seems more up to date, so maybe post-unification of the Mongol/allied tribes and first expansion outwards?

Then have about 45 of the armored heavy cavalry, again the one pose RAFM figures.  I'd have to say they belong with the second batch of horse archers, that era.  Missing a bunch of spears/lances again, so will have to make some more as well as those for the first batch.

To finish off the cavalry, 12 or so odd light cavalry, maybe Hinchliffe or Heritage, slightly more animated and different poses, troopers mostly with some command.  Seeing as most of the army is RAFM, I'm realliy thinking of getting a few more figs from different companies, just to have variety throughout the army.

From the various books I have on the Mongols, it's hard to pick the style of army I'd favor right now.  First expansion seems interesting, mostly cavalry with the supporting foot, engineers and artillery coming in later on.  The invasion of Europe is good reading too, Subotai really had that campaign nailed down.  I think the Golden Horde and Il Khanate are slightly behind my interest curve, but couldn't I build a wargame army that could represent any of the Mongol armies from history?

Oh yes, did dig up some foot figs too, look like physicians, engineers, some light foot and archers.  No artillery yet though, any suggestions on companies that do decent machines for the Mongols?

Our local group is in Central Illinois, and we have a rules set based on the original WRG rules from the late 70's/early 80's.  Not entirely happy with that anymore, thought I'd stir in a few more rules from other systems to get that updated for the new millennium.  Dang, I guess it has been 30 years since I played Ancients.........

[Duncan Head]

Speaking of, hooked spears/lances.  I've seen illustrations of the hook facing both up and down, which is most accurate?

The attached is from Witold Swietoslawski's Arms and Armour of the Nomads of the Great Steppe... (OficynaNaukowa 1999). Given the Amur location of the hooked spearheads it's possible that they may be Jurchen rather than Mongolian, but they must be the same kind of weapon.

[Patrick Waterson]

The function of the hook is presumably to separate rider from horse, and a downward-pointing hook would seem logical on this basis.

[Jim Webster]

Looking at rules Paul, I'd base on DBx basing (because you can use that with a lot of rules)

Also four DBx bases, placed on a sabot base, will work for Impetus.

Actually if you think of yourself as something of a modeller, and if you decide to go for Impetus anyway, you can base for them and use less figures on the big bases but with more 'terrain' effects 

An Impetus army is generally cheaper than the DBx equivilent 

But if you don't know, I'd go for DBx basing

Jim

[tadamson]

Initial quick comments..

#1  Differences between Mongol armies are more across time than across geography.  I'm not clear on the armour, headgear, bowcases, quivers etc of the figures you have.  These will set a rough date.

#2 The 'hooked' lance.  Not actually mentioned that often in primary sources but either a Manchurian style simple bent down blade or a hook (the samples Duncan illustrated are good but rather wide ranging in date).  Or a North Chinese Ji.

#3 Typical arms for a Mongol trooper are  bow, sword and long lance (used two handed).  Maces (two handed) usually signal officers; a long heavy Iranian style 'saddle sword and shield (round, central grip) was a common addition later.

#4  Most Mongol troops were cavalry (armoured horse archers), but repeatedly mounted columns deployed artillery (light man powered stone throwers and large frame mounted catapults mostly).  Infantry would be with allied forces or in the troops mustered from subject towns etc.

Tom..

[Paul Vinton]

Thank you gentlemen!

Visual aids always go well for army development rather than me trying to figure out written descriptions from various books.  I appreciate the artwork posted on here!  Little tidbits add to the flavor of the army/unit too, maybe I should model some lassos also to rope foes from their horses?  And then add some odd hooked lances throughout too.....

Agreed about the common basing idea too, if you can spread the wealth of basing across the field of several game systems, when you get one favorite (or two) one(s) picked out, you're ahead of the game!

Tom, the old 1979 Ral Partha troopers are very basic grungy figs, I'd say they were the basic outflow from the steppes at the initial foreign expansion(s).  Plain horses with little harness, quivers, bows, shields and hands are open to receive a lance (which I need to find some in my bitz box).

The RAFM models seem more well armed, the armor is probably post Chin invasion, metal armour predominates with these figs, both the light horse archers and medium/heavy horse.  The odd dozen figs I figured out are Old Glory, so more light cavalry 1st expansion style Mongols.  Scattered among the RAFM models are some with mace, most will have lance/bow/shield setup. 

I saw some Mongol artillery on the Old Glory site, they seem very basic though compared to what I've been reading about for both sieges and field battles. 

Thoughts on some good manufacturers for Mongol artillery?

[tadamson]

General use of shields is rather later, but most people won't know.  Anyhow shields were issued for campaigns from about 1206 onwards.

Rope pulled catapults etc..  You can use the images at Washington http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/miltech/miltech.htm
Most of the images are later copies of Song documents..