Using Tribals In Classical Hack

Tribals

Recently I was asked by Miguel and Angel in Spain to detail some thing that tribal units can do and how they do them. This is to make clear the diffeences between Classical civilized armies Classical tribal armies. To do this I thought it a good time to figuratively to kill two birds with one stone. Explain how things work and introduce Classical Hack to a friend new to gaming. What better way to play than having someone with no experience run through a game. Chris Thompson was my opponent in this game. Chris ran the tribal army and with little explanation was playing in no time. This certainly is better than playing solo.

The photo above is the basic Celtic set up. I provided Chris with units of different sizes. The Celts were in units of nine and twelve figures for the foot units and six figure units for the noble cavalry.

Why did I use this basic nummerical set up you might ask. While we believe that Celts used a decimal system for raising armies the question goes to why units of different sizes if everything is decimal? The answer is another question. . . how big is a tribe? In a tribal social system it is obvious that there is no fixed numeric size to a tribe. So when gathered together for war Celts would come together as a single army but its units could be only as large as each tribe could muster. Because tribes are of different sizes so would be there units.

The basic army deployment here has infantry in the center in two lines. On the flanks are the more mobile and fluid mounted nobles. To the front are archers and slingers. The idea was simple. Skirmish with the missile units as the army deploys in depth. Then rush the enemy as quickly as possible.