Germanic weapons

[Chinchillax]

Hello,

I am starting a Germanic warband and noticed in the army list that :
– tribesmen have access to swords, but not warriors.
– neither tribesmen nor warriors can get clubs.

Have these options been “forgotten”, considering the description of the Germanic blades in the background section in particuliar, and the clubs wielded by some of my “Hail Caesar” range models?

Cheers

[Nathan]

I searched the pdf and literally no units have access to Clubs or Large Clubs. Which is strange because Warlord’s own line of Germanics has models with clubs. It’s probably an oversight.

It’s similar to the rules for Stunning. Those rules state that some weapons and talents will “stun”, but if you search the pdf, nothing in the book actually causes stun.

[Phil Barber]

Hi Chinchillax… just wondered if you’d got any further with this one? I’m waiting for my bag of Victrix Germans to arrive and had assumed that I would be equipping them with swords. In the background notes in the army list, it says that iron was difficult to come by in Germania, but you would have thought that the Germans would have had access to plenty of swords via other sources (several thousand after Varus’ attempt to march through the Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D.!).
I’d be interested to know what your thinking is before I start building my warriors in the next few days.
Cheers… Phil

[invisible officer]

Archaeologic finds show Roman Military Equipment in depots as metal resource but normally not in graves. Only in the areas very close to the border we find gladii in graves. Most owners might have been former members of auxilia.

The native swords found as used in 1st century AD are mid to long double edged ones and mid length one edge ones. But they are rare. It takes a lot of time to make a sword.
Iron was used for knifes and tools and archaeologists assume that some Roman stuff captured was melted down. But local Iron was not rare in Germania, not like bronze.

The Tacitus words of Germanicus that Germans had spears without metal tips are fuss, the many 1st century spearheads found show that iron was available.

We should not ignore the custom to destroy captured weapons as sacrifice. Orosius Hist V 16 tells us how Cimnbri and Teutones destroyed all the Roman stuff captured at Arausio.

It was still done in EIR time, the largest finding is around 200 AD. 15.000 parts of Roman military stuff found at Adal / Denmark. All the weapons made unserviceable.

Tacitus is the only written source for Germanic clubs but he wrote a lot of fuss about the barbarians, all his information is second-hand at best.

The ones on Trajan column do look like the Roman fustis. Possibly the Romans gave some second rate mercenaries such a weapon that was inferior. Like the British that gave Indian troops post mutiny inferior arms.

Axe, dagger and clubs are not mentioned by other authors for 1st century. Only leaders wore armor of Roman or Celtic origin.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by invisible officer.

[Tim]

I would really like to know if anyone has received an answer to this? I need my clubs!

[Author]

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