Art De La Guerre

[wuzhuiqiu8888]

Hello, although the list mentions "Warriors with bow and/or tomahawk, there are only two choices, i.e. medium swordsmen and archers. Why is there no combined option? It seems likely that some warriors would have carried bows and tomahawks, not only when in a war sanctioned by the clan mothers, but also for self-protection while hunting or travelling.

Also, while writing of this list, why not treat the wooden armour of the braves as a pavise option?

[Mark G Fry]

I suspect that the reason is one of game balance.

MF swd & bow is a relatively rare (but effective) troop type and is generally used to depict formations, such as Japanese Samurai, Scots Highlanders or Ottoman Janissaries, where the troops are 'close fighters' but also excellent archers, but in relatively loose formations (but still capable of standing up to other close fighters in the open).

The issue (as I see it) with the American armies is that primarily the historical troops being depicted were more used to fighting in much looser (individual skirmish) formations and the archery was also less coordinated (not in commanded volleys), so making them MF swd & bow, especially in the numbers indicated in the lists, would potentially create a 'super' list.
Bowmen is probably a much more realistic option, maybe making a few of them elite would be ok, but I suspect that if you were to look at these armies with a hard eye, this troop type would probably actually be better represented as LF not MF.

If you were to have these Woodland Indians as MD swd & bow, I suspect that designating them as Mediocre is probably the best option. There is a president for this with the Tupi list, where the Warriors are either MF swd HCW or Bowmen or MF swd & bow mediocre.

The issue of protection for Bowmen is also a difficult one - the use of the pavice designation is used very sparingly to represent armoured archers (without actual pavices) mainly (such as Roman Auxilia Sagittarii or a very few others), but which were uniformly armoured. Again, the challenge with the Woodland Indians would be that there is no uniformity and the very tribal nature of the 'units' means that even wooden armour is not uniform across all individuals in the formations.

But as I state, the above is only my supposition, as I am not the author of the original lists
Cheers
Mark