I am very impressed by Perry Gray's in-depth knowledge of the Byzantine miltary and read both of his pieces in issue #64 with great interest. I am not in a position to argue the point with him, but I am not sure we are in disagreement.

DBM has created a different problem from 7th in terms of declining historical troops in game terms. In 7th, the arguments were fairly clear: was a given spear long enough to be an LTS, or should it be rated as a JLS? Arguments mostly centered on the historical evidence about how troops were armed and armored. DBM has created a whole new field for arguments that are much more subtle. These arguments are only incidentally about equipment, but are mostly about troop roles and usage. Such arguments are much more subtle.

Let us take the Byzantine infantry as an example. As Perry points out, the Byzantine infantry consisted primarily of archers and spearmen brigaded together in a number of different rank compositions depending upon need. The argument involved in taking Perry's information and translating that into game terms is not over how they were armed, but over how they were used.

In DBM speak, the troops described by Peny could be rated as either spearrnen (Sp) with supporting psiloi (Ps), or as Bw(X)/(0). They could even be described as inferior pike with supporting psiloi if the spears were held in two hands. All of these classifications are complete, consistent with the equipment of the troops, the game rating will depend upon how the actual function of the troops is perceived.

As Peny pointed out so well, if one follows the administrative descriptions, the rating as Bw(X)/(0) seems best. If one follows the manuals, then Sp/Ps is probably best.

Which one should be used? My point was that, for general purposes, we should follow the determination made by the rules author unless we have strong evidence that he is clearly wrong. As Perry pointed out so well, there is evidence for all of the classifications and definitive evidence for none of thern. It would have been nice if Mr. Barker had recognized this ambiguity and given both the Bw(X)/(0) and the Sp/Ps as alternative options in the Thematic, Nikephorian, and Konstantinian Byzantine lists. I would suggest that Perry send copies of his research to Mr. Barker for his review. Who knows? Maybe this will convince Barker to make changes to these lists. After all, somebody convinced him that Polish knights should be ordinary and not supenor.