Bronze Age adventures

[rumacara]

Dr. Zombie i havent seen the barbarians from frostgrave but i will check them. Might be usefull.

WimVdB the grenadier barbarians are also usefull (at least some). Many do need a few more animal skins and diferent weapons sculped or they look to much Conan.

[NurgleHH]

Strangely i have almost all the books of Bernard Cornwell as well as Stonehedge and i´ve never read it!!!!
I dont know why but defenetly will read on my vacations next month.
Lets see what crazy ideas might occur to me.

1 band glued and primed (as pictured before) and the other, miniatures chosen, converting phase and gluing.

Stonehenge is very Influenced by the historian Pearson. The story is good, but very fictional. I do not love these very childish acting people. The are single minded and to much influenced by their anger of mighty goods. But it is an early work of Cornwell.
As figures I would suggest the Foundry Europeans Bronceage stuff, very nice

[rumacara]

Not much of a update since my projects are on a standby basis for i´m moving soon to another country, but a purchase of some Steve Barber civilians suitable for this Project plus a celtic priest from BTD.
I will try to paint some soon.

[Rogerc]

Ooo cant believe I have not seen this thread before, my Bronze Age Northern European collection are getting a refresh at the moment for a game at York next month. Pictures on my post and my blog. Some interesting figures here I might check out. Trying to keep mine trouser free but still using figures from other ranges.

http://gapagnw.blogspot.co.uk/

Not the best of pictures but below is Foundry axeman with head swap to add variety to a small range.

[Marine0846]

Have any of you read this article?
Found on TMP.
Very interesting reading.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/slaughter-bridge-uncovering-colossal-bronze-age-battle

[Rogerc]

I have yes, early Bronze armies in the thousands in North Germany, fascinating. Changes perceptions of a small Clan, tribal society with Warfare revolving around cattle raids and the like. Interesting they have found stone headed clubs, none of the bronze age figures are modelled with these. I did find this article quite inspiring for my project and wondered if they had uncovered any more yet.

[rumacara]

Yes i also read that article and my bands are based on it.
I simply have this Project as well as the majority in standby.
I hope to get on with it soon.

Rogerc, i´m following your thread with great interest and thanks for post something here.

Any other is welcome to post here finds, books, miniatures, terrain, etc.
What you think is usefull for the other members.

[zippyfusenet]

I read that article on the Tollense River battle with great interest.

Besides the stone-headed clubs, a number of all-wooden warclubs have been recovered. I think stone arrow and spear points are also plentiful. This is what I would expect for armed commoners in a big 'Bronze Age' army. Fancy bronze helmets, blades, points and axes would probably be limited to the noble lords and their warrior henchmen.

Something that wonders me is that early northern Europeans are often depicted wearing leather garments, or limited amounts of textiles in dull browns and greys, usually just a kilt. I suspect it's the lingering influence of Caesar, who described German warriors as hairy savages half-clad in pelts. Maybe they were, and maybe they weren't.

One of the important advances of the Indo-Europeans, and one that may have been a key to their culture's expansion, was the development of the wooly sheep. Early domesticated sheep were not especially wooly. It seems that the Yamnaya people bred a new type of sheep that produced abundant wool, and exploited the new resource to produce cloth.

Oetzi the Iceman, a neolithic European farmer c. 5000+ BP, was dressed head-to-toe in leather. The Taklamakan mummies, starting about 1000 years later, are head-to-toe in expertly woven and tailored woolen clothing, much of the cloth woven from colorfully dyed yarn. Look for yourselves:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=taklamakan+mummies+textiles&qpvt=taklamakan+mummies+textiles&qpvt=taklamakan+mummies+textiles&qpvt=taklamakan+mummies+textiles&FORM=IGRE

The Tarim basin people are thought to have been Tocharians, early Indo-Europeans. The weave of their cloth is a twill, similar to that used by Celtic peoples in western Europe.

I understand that a lot of wool cloth has been recovered from the graves and bogs of northern Europe. I just wanted to point that out to any figure sculptors who might read this thread...

[Duncan McDane]

Extremely interesting read, thanks. The European Bronze Age seems to be a much more dynamic period than I previously thought. Love the models & modelling in both threads  .

[Richard in Sachsen]

Thanks Zippy,

That's just the type of information I love to have when deciding on a pallet. Thanks for the contribution, this is really a great website... so much info and so many knowledgable people.

[zippyfusenet]

You're welcome. Few wargamers study textile technology, but it's an important subject if we want to understand how to accurately dress our little toy soldiers.

I speculate that the development of the wooly sheep greatly increased the material prosperity of early Indo-European cultures compared to earlier neolithic farmers, not only by providing a new and abundant source of fiber, but also by more thoroughly harnessing the time of the culture's women to productive labor. With fiber plentiful, women could begin to spend nearly every waking moment spinning yarn and other thread with hand spindles, as they cooked, cared for children, or walked on their way. The former ubiquity of this activity in pre-industrial times is illustrated by now-archaic references in English to the 'distaff' (female) side of the family, and to unmarried women as 'spinsters'. "Oh, Miss Mouse, are you within?" "Yes, kind Sir, I sit and spin." Um-hum.

An interesting read on the Taklamakan mummies, their culture and especially their textiles is Elizabeth Wayland Barber The Mummies of Urumchi:

https://www.amazon.com/Mummies-Urumchi-Elizabeth-Wayland-Barber/dp/0393320197

Not coincidentally, another work by the same author, Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years - Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times is a fascinating popular history of the development of textile technologies. I believe I lent my copy to my mother, who was an accomplished needle-worker, and one of my sisters got it when they cleaned out her apartment (her memory remains fragrant). I'll have to replace it. It's that good:

https://www.amazon.com/Womens-Work-First-Years-Society/dp/0393313484

[rumacara]

Zippyfusenet, thanks for the info and indeed textile technology has a great influence in both historical context and miniatures painting.
Knowing the fabrics and colors really makes our models more historically accurate.
More usefull info to us.
Keep it coming.

[Rogerc]

Hi All. Great thing about this is the uniform police can’t really tell you you’re wrong. You do your research and go with what you think it looked like.
I spent a bit of time researching this before jumping in and buying figures. There is a great article by one of the Perry Twins in an old Wargames Illustrated which includes Colour Prints. Issue 115 from April 199, it even has sample army lists for Warhammer (by the way Warhammer ancients has some nice images for this period). This and a book I picked up “Bronze Age Warfare” By Richard Osgood Which is an excellent reference have been my inspiration for the SAGA warbands I have built. To help me I have used a bit of Irish Mythology to create my forces with Warlords, Queens and Hero’s names and characteristics. There are some great images to support the above on-line if you dig. I will try add a couple here.
The view I have is of warriors in knee length kilts or tunics, shoulder length hair and relatively few beards. So the long haired, long bearded barbarians in trousers and skins don’t really fit for me. These are the later Teutons and Celts wearing warmer gear as the climate became colder at the end of the bronze age. Warlords and Hero’s might drive around in chariots, these look a bit more like the ones from the Mediterranean rather than the later Celtic ones (plenty of Scandinavian evidence for this). Their elite warriors (Hearthguard in SAGA) would have helmets and body armour, possibly in bronze but also in toughened leather. If mounted, they have javelins and swords and carry small rectangular shields. On foot they have round shields with circular patterns and either carry Slashing Swords or in the slightly earlier period double handed axes. I have a unit of each to pit earlier settlers against new arrivals.
Most Warriors carried spears and shields, the size and weight of the spear heads found suggests these were used two handed with shields slung on backs in an almost phalanx style. These warriors will often have helmets mainly of toughened leather.
Skirmishers will be either javelin men, archers or the youth of a tribe armed with slings.
The last three have the fewest options in the Foundry range (Two each of javelins and archers with one slinger) but has the most number of simple options from other ranges. Lots of these in Mediterranean bronze age ranges and a few Picts mix in ok as long as I don’t have too many bearded types, I even have some Mahdist plastic javelin men, you would really never know to look. I have done quite a lot of head swaps and simple conversions to add some variety to the basic foundry range.
Each War band then has a Leader in a chariot, supported by a hero in his chariot. A unit of 4 mounted Hearthguard and a unit of 4 foot Hearthguard, 2 or 3 units of 8 warriors with double handed spears and a unit of 12 skirmishers. A nice rounded force which looks the part.
Couple of pictures below illustrate how I picture it.





I think this illustrates the earlier point around the textiles.

[Marine0846]

Hi Rogerc,
I love a man with a plan. You have a well reasoned plan to collect and paint the figures needed.
As more of a gamer I would tend to go with a collection of figures that would look cool but not that historical.
If you are interested, Black Tree USA is having a sale on figures.
About half off of many them.
Lots of Picts and Germans, sadly all have beards.
I really look forward to following what you do, sure it will neat.

[Rogerc]

Cheers, I don't mind bears too much, will need some with beards and can always use headswaps for some. Will check them out, I have a small dark age Pictish collection anyway...