Nordic Bronze Age Army List?

[FanatiChris]

To the Great Powers, I prostrate myself and make humble plea....is there room in this panoply of hosts for a Nordic Bronze Age army list, covering say 1500/1700 BC to 500/700 BC.

By my reading, the Hallstat/La Tene lists are more central/southern/western European and definitely iron age, the Urnfield Culture was European south of the Baltic, and the Pre-Viking Scandinavian list doesn't start until 450 AD. From what I've been able to Google, there seems to be good archaeology for the region and period and we know it was an active period militarily with a heroic culture often compared to that of Mycenae. Battles were between small clan/family groups, sometimes joined to do Viking-style raiding and there was apparently frequent conflict over control of the Amber trade routes from Scandinavia into central Europe, as illustrated by the large finds at Tollense. And at the start of the period, you had significant northward migration into the Region from Europe and at end of the period you started to see climate-induced tribal migrations into central Europe. I'm no expert, but am interested in the period and geographic region, and would love to field a army of early Northern barbarian heroes in Vikso helmets. Wiki offers this introduction to the period https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age

And a couple of articles that caught my eye:

https://sciencenorway.no/archaeology-br ... gs/1698522
https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowled ... ronze-age/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9X19302470
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... ode=rdja20

[David Kuijt]

Might be fun, Chris.

I'll look at your sources when I get a chance, when I get back from Canada in a few weeks.

However, I'll point out that you're most likely really looking for a squad level game, not a game with a single stand representing 100 to 1000 people. Battles of one town of 100-200 adults against another are the maximum of what happened in the period you're looking at. There is one exception, a battlefield they've found with archaeology where there might have been more than hundreds of people fighting -- but last I read about it, there still was nowhere near enough information to create an army list based upon that dig.

If you have a town of maximum 100-200 people, then there would usually be 20-40 fighters at most. That ain't a Triumph battle; that's a battle with 6 squads as the maneuver units. The Dark Ages fights are already at the lower end of what Triumph can effectively represent, and those are ten times as large as the available military population in the era you're describing.

[FanatiChris]

A few more links to help inform the proposal:

https://tidsskrift.dk/dja/article/view/111834
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... _inquiries
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10. ... ode=rdja20
https://www.dandebat.dk/eng-dk-historie9.htm (note petroglyph showing early Bronze age fleet of 97 ships facing off an opponent of 26 ships.
https://www.rockartscandinavia.com/imag ... al2018.pdf (study of Bronze age sea raiding evidence, including sea battle depicted in the Tannum petroglyph)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9X19302470 (analysis of Nordic bronze, showing extensive interaction with European sources)
https://www.rockartscandinavia.com/imag ... /a17ub.pdf (refuting notion that spears were an Iron Age weapon not common to Nordic Bronze Age.)
https://bornholmarch.eu/wp-content/uplo ... weapon.pdf (Warrior rituals in prehistoric scandinavia)

also...Tollense is the only battle of that period that archaeologists can attest to that is geographically proximate, and there's no OOB beyond the finds confirming footmen with bronze-tipped spears and arrows (also flint), flint and bronze knives, wooden clubs and hammers, and even a few swords - long/straight blades and short scyth like blades, as well as remains of a few horses suggesting mounted troops (or leaders). Many of the skeletons showed healed wounds, which archaeologists took as evidence of "professional" warriors (or at least folks who had been in other battles/skirmishes). The problem with Tollense is that its in Germany and that most of the DNA tested so far suggests modern day Bavaria and Serbia as points of origin for the combatants. See https://indo-european.eu/2020/07/local- ... b-and-i2a/

As to the numbers issue of army/battles versus household bands/skirmishes, I would agree that a Nordic Bronze Age list wouldn't stand up to the Triumph element troop scale (nor DBx's), but that is probably also true of a number of established lists to a greater or lesser degree.

Lastly, an appeal to the gamer's sense of utility and appreciation of "cool-looking" figures....I contend a historical purpose must be found for these 15mm figures by Mark Copplestone: https://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/l ... =68&page=1

[Andreas Johansson]

Lastly, an appeal to the gamer's sense of utility and appreciation of "cool-looking" figures....I contend a historical purpose must be found for these 15mm figures by Mark Copplestone: https://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/l ... =68&page=1

I saw a DBMM Early Northern Barbarian, European Bronze Age variant, army made from Copplestone's Barbarica range. Very pretty, however historically dubious.

Speaking of pretty, there's also someone making a figure for the Egtved Girl, which should be obligatory in the camp of any Nordic Bronze Age army.