When I saw that the "Mounted Breakthrough" optional rule would be used at the 'Fall In!' tournament, I had a thought. I do not think that there are many scenarios appropriate for the "Camps" optional rule, unless you're playing on a Ping Pong table with around two gazillion points of troops, and 5 players per side. However, if you're going to have "Mounted Break-throughs," it might be worthwhile have a "Supply Train" optional rule to use with them.

The rationale? First, resupplying archers with arrows was done by SI designated to carry bundles of arrows from a supply train, consisting of mules, or camels, or wagons (I'd suggest 3 bases of such rabble to represent this). Therefore, the supply train would most likely be "on the board," i.e., within sight of the troops. Second, if a breakthrough occurred, if the cavalry had a direct line-of-sight on a supply train, there would be a good chance (especially with a mob of medieval horsemen) that they would make a beeline towards the "loot."

Thus, the rule should state that upon a mounted breakthrough, if the cavalry involved has a direct line-of-sight to the enemy's supply train, they must take a morale test. If they pass, they maintain discipline and continue to pursue their troop target. If they fail, they must divert towards the supply train, and stop there in disordered condition. When the latter occurs, no archer unit may be resupplied until the enemy cavalry departs or is driven away from the supply train. This should definitely be an "optional" rule because novices to the rule system have enough to learn already, and this suggestion is merely a refinement designed to add to the complexity of the breakthrough rule.

Comments on Scythian archery:

My approach to the archery question starts with bow construction. S. Kurinski, in his The Glassmakers (1991), p. 65, says "The simple [self] bows the Egyptians used, no more than a strong stem bent back into a single curve, were replaced by superior Semitic bows which were constructed of laminations of wood and bone cunningly and consecutively layered and bent into a composite curve." C. Aldred, in his The Egyptians (1961), p. 142, says, "With the increase of Asiatic influence during the Middle Kingdom [of Egypt] . . . a whole range of novel weapons was introduced from Asia, such as . . . the composite bow. . . . "

The term Semites as used in archeological literature links all the way back to Amorites and Hurrians whose territories bordered and overlapped the grazing lands of the Scythians (and their predecessors, the Cimmerians), and archeological evidence puts the short, powerful, composite bow in the hands of the Scythians in the earliest stages of military history. Renate Rolle, in his The World of the Scythians (1980), p. 65, describes this weapons as follows: "The typical Scythian bow is a small composite bow, i.e., assembled from a single wooden core whose ends were additionally reinforced with special coverings (string wrapped round and glued on, together with plates of bone). We can deduce from the evidence that there were also bows of over three feet (1 m) in length." Also, they carried a large number of a great variety of arrows, some with thorns attached to the arrowhead to make removal more difficult, and some tipped with poison (!). (The Scythian recipe for arrow head poison - including both snake poison and hemlock - has been reconstructed from early Greek literature.)

In essence, the Scythian bow was the historical origin of the Turkish bow. They weree deadly, even from horseback

They were "ambidextrous" in bow handling, and "achieved a remarkable degree of accuracy" in shooting from horseback (Rolle, p. 65). Here's what Rolle says about the range of the Scythian bow (pp. 65-66): "We have only an approximate idea of the range of the bow. . . . an inscription from Olbia on the Black Sea extols the shooting range of the Olbian Anaxagoras, who in a festive competition won the prize for long-distance competition won the prize for long-distance shooting with a distance of over 1640 ft (500 m). Here in the region north of the Black Sea, Anaxagoras probably used a Scythian bow, and the emergence of a new competition of this kind may also have been due to the influence of the indigenous population on the Greek colonials. The arrow would of course have the power to penetrate only at a much shorter distance. A Scythian battle probably began with a hail of arrows, similar to that of medieval horse-riding nomads. This thick 'cloud' of arrows could obscure the sun - a very plausible description - if we bear in mind that a practiced archer, as we know from ethnological parallels, can shoot around twenty arrows a minute."

As a footnote, the common perception that Scythian armies consisted almost completely of light horse has been destroyed by massive archeological evidence. It seems that "since the sixth century BC there was at least a core of heavily-armoured riders in a Scythian army, whose numbers increased in subsequent centuries (Rolle, p. 67)." This reference also provides a detailed description of the manufacture of Scythian heavy scale armour - miniature figure manufacturers please take note.

I haven't found anything definitive yet on Scythian field tactics, but I would be very surprised if their light horse did not invent the "Fire & Flee" tactic, and I would not be opposed to allowing them (only) to have the F&F.