WG Celtic Warriors as Galatians?

[wargame_insomniac]

Hi- I have a couple of boxes of Warlord Games Celtic Warriors and Cavalry. I am looking at doing some Galatians as allies/opponents for Pyrrhus/Antigonus Gonatus/Antigonus Doson (i.e. 277BC-222 BC).

(Before anyone suggests, I am not looking to depict Galatians fighting naked. I don't care if they were depicted marching naked in the Nick Sekunda book Montvert - The Seleucid army. I have seen arguments stating that this custom was not as common as may have been depicted, but more importantly I have no desire to paint them).

As I am looking at depicting early Galatians I am expecting that these will be far closer to the Gauls (with only minimal Hellenistation) as compared to the later Galatians that appear in Seleucid and Ptolemaic armies. I have seen references in AMPW to the fact that Galatians have few skirmishers and few archers. So I will probably be doing just warbands and light cavalry.

So any tips on what I can do to make the plastics appear as Galatian as possible. I am happy to mix armoured guys at the front and unarmoured/bare chested guys at the back of warband.Will be painting any cloaks blue as I can find many references for these).

1) Helmets- would all those included in the Celtic Warriors box set be suitable. As far as I can tell any Montefortino would be applicable for Galatians.

2) Shields- would all the 4 shields on the Celtic Warrior sprue be applicable?

Thanks very much

James

[wargame_insomniac]

I have carried on researching this. If I stick to just the really early Galatians then there should be very little differences to the Gallic tribes that they originated from. From what I can gather the Gauls would have used all 4 of the shield shapes in WG Celtic Warriors sprue- please correct me if I am wrong.

Likewise all the helmets in the Celtic Warriors look (to my untrained eye) to be variations on the Montefortino style so I should be fine with them.

I will include a couple of spare helmets from my Classical Greek Hoplite box- I don't want to overdo the hellenisation but a smattering will help add variety. I can imagine that the poorer Galatians might have started the invasion with no armour or helmets and if they can salvage some better protection form battlefield salvage I'm sure they would do so.

Cheers

James

[Cubster]

I just want to confirm that I'm not ignoring you, but I have no idea one way or the other.

[wargame_insomniac]

Thanks Cubster.

The problem is that seems not much known on Galatians until they feature in Seleucid and Ptolemaic armies when they feature in the Nick Sekunda Montvert books. A few brief mentions in AMPW 2nd edition on which I am basing my assumption that they look the same as Gauls at this early stage.

Cheers

James

[clivethecelt]

Don't know about the shield types, but, thinking further west, Celtiberian foot comprised around two-thirds "long shield" scutarii to one-third "round shield" caetrati (Lusitanians were the exception to this, using only caetrati, although some of these even wore armour and greaves, and may have been equivalent to other tribes' scutarii). The Celtiberian period is listed in DBM as 240-20BC, Galatians 280-25BC, so there could be some overlap. From the lists, you could have some real fun mixing up other troop types with them, as well as giving some different helmets out - Athenian javelinmen and slingers, Thessalian cavalry and peltasts, captured Seleucid scythed chariots (alongside their own light chariots), and even imitation legions (though that's very late for your intended period, I think!). Marvellous.
Sorry, got a bit carried away. Hope this helps - apologies if you think it's a load of guff; just wishful thinking on my part.
You might find this useful: http://balkancelts.wordpress.com/tag/galatia/
TBH, IO's probably the best person to ask about this, aside from Sir Rick and the other luminaries who occasionally descent from Olympus to dispense wisdom to mortals. Try this over on the HC Forum on "Yahoo!" - someone there might know more about it ...

[bren]

Celtic shields in southeastern Europe and Asia-Minor:

http://balkancelts.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... eld-coins/

http://balkancelts.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/shields/

[wargame_insomniac]

Clive/Bren

Thanks for links. There were a couple of references to Galatians.

Re Celt-Iberians, my understanding is although some Celtic influences, also heavily Spanish influenced. The Scutarii with large oval shield were Heavy Infantry, whilst the Caetrati with small round shield were Light Infantry.

A closer parallel to Galatians would be Gauls, giving that the 3 Galatian tribes had inhabited parts of southern Gaul before migrating eastward. AFAIK the Gauls/Galatians never split their troops as Scutarii/Caetrati, fighting as warbands with few skirmishers, so that comparison is not much use.

I am not looking at doing a whole Galatian army, so the other options you listed for a Galatian DBA army don't interest me. Initially they will be a small army contingent for Pyrrhus, as I want to build up an army to represent his invasion of Greece. So the Galatian element will just be infantry warbands and some cavalry, with few skirmishers.

So unless anyone has specific objections to specific shields and helmets from WG Celtic Warriors sprue for Galatians, then I will be building them straight out of the box.

Thanks

James

[bren]

The tribes who settled in Galatia were actually Belgae tribes. Slightly different from 'Gauls' - closer to the Germani. There will be an article on this soon on Balkancelts.

[wargame_insomniac]

Hi Bren

My understanding was that Galatians were composed of 3 tribes: Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii, and that they originated in Southern France. However just trying to learn more about the subject so happy to get more detailed info.

If the Galatians were Belgae tribes, how would they have differed from Gauls? Any difference in helmets, shields, clothing? Specifically anything on Celtic Warrior sprue that you would recommend NOT using?

Please can you post a link to the Balkan Celts article once it is published?

Thank you very much

James

[bren]

Absolutely right that the 'Galatians' were composed of 3 tribes: Volcae Tectosages, the Trocmii, and the Tolistobogii (-boii), who broke off from Brennos' main army in the Balkans. However, only the Volcae Tectosages were actually a tribe as such. Strabo tells us that the other two were named after their leaders. The Volcae Tectosages were a Belgic tribe, and they in no way (language, culture) differed from the other two. It therefore follows that they were all Belgae. In terms of their weaponry they differed little from the 'Gauls'. The shield, curved dagger, sword etc. are well depicted on the 'Dying Gaul' and 'Suicide of a Gaul after killing his wife' statues which u can see on the above links.

Anyway, I'll be happy to post the Galatia article here in a few weeks for those who are interested.