Horse Nomads

### By Vincent Tsao

Let us consider an army, one which overthrew all of its opponents for
a lengthy period, inflicting crushing defeats; an army that created the
largest land empire yet seen in history. I speak, of course, of the
Mongols. True, the Mongols had many advantages that are hard to show in a
tactical game. They had always penetrated their intended targets with
spies for years before they struck, they often invaded in the depth of
winter, when their intended victims huddled around their hearths. Any
ethnic or religious divisions in the target nation were exploited. Sheer
terror was spread before Mongol armies as a policy to stifle
opposition. They routinely covered 50 miles a day for days at a time
when most armies considered 10 miles a good day¹s march and rested every
two or three days. The Mongols also had a disciplined army that
followed orders. Not bunches of high born knights all demanding to be in
the front line. Not blue blooded peacocks who refused to follow orders
from someone whose bloodlines did not trace back to Charlemagne. These
are all things hard to show on a table. So we are left with a tough
horse archer army, but not a killer.

Admittedly, the Mongols were truly unusual in history, and they had a
surfeit of brilliant generals. But even lesser horse archer armies were
very tough. The usual problem of the horse nomads was their lack of
political unity. The sedentary societies were usually able to bribe one
bunch of horse nomads to fight the next. The end of Mongol expansion
occurred when the Khanate broke down into four independent empires, each
equipped with its own Mongol army. Finally, an enemy worthy of their
steel. But on those occasions when the horse nomads unified under one
leader, then the sedentary folks were in for trouble. Attila¹s Huns were
instrumental in bringing the Western Roman Empire down, by chasing the
Goths and Vandals into the empire before them. The Avars terrorized the
steppes for many years. The Khazars ruled a large piece of Southern
Russia for centuries, as a sparse warrior elite ruling over a multitude
of subjects. The Magyars were the scourge of Middle Europe for a good
part of the middle ages. And the Seljuk Turks cowed Christian and Moslem
armies alike. Horse nomad fans out there can point out others I have
not listed who had their time in the sun.

I think that the horse nomad/composite bow combination was the
ultimate weapons system of the ancient and classical eras, not to be
outdone until the development of efficient firearms. The usual cause of
horse nomads' decline was internal division, rather than external
aggression.

This is not an argument for a change in the rules. I do not think
light horse should be upgraded to a killer element. I do want to point
out that rules are created by people, and people tend to concentrate on
certain periods and armies. D.B.A. is a set of rules that favors Roman
Legionaries in particular, and heavy shock troops in general. Actually,
these rules handle light troops in a very nice way. I just don¹t think
they show the true power of the nomadic horse archer armies.

Regarding possible D.B.A. house rules, the only easy way to represent
the Mongols at their apogee is to always let them deploy second. And if
campaigning, let them move twice as fast on the strategic map. A more
extreme house rule would be to let horse archers carry out ranged combat
within 100 paces. If you do any of these, let your opponents play the
Mongols some of the time.