The Bronze Age Catastrophe - MeG Players Podcast Episode 8

Welcome to the latest Mortem et Gloriam Players Podcast. In this episode Ray, Richard and Nik look at “The Bronze Age Catastrophe” in the early 12th century BCE which saw the Sea Peoples invasions and the collapse of a number of long standing civilisations.

The lists discussed, figure suppliers and suggestions for reading material are all below.

If you've not already listened to it, you can follow this link for the podcast.

Lists

Here are the lists that the guys drew up - these are Maximus sized lists. As ever there may well be errors with these (as noted during the podcast) as they haven’t been list checked, so you have been warned …

And the same in Pacto version. As usual these are a straight conversion from the Maximus lists and so have not been drawn up to a specific points value so will probably need a bit of tweaking before actual use.

Figure Suppliers

15mm

Essex Miniatures Biblical range is a good starting point for this period of history - https://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/collections/15mm-ancient-biblical

Fighting 15’s do figures for the lists looked at and more, and at a good price to boot - https://fighting15s.com/product-category/gladiator-miniatures/biblical/?v=79cba1185463

Lancashire Games is another low-cost supplier who does figures for all the lists - https://lancashiregames.com/lg/15mm-biblical.html

Museum Miniatures do an Egyptian range; this includes some Sea Peoples but not a dedicated range - https://www.museumminiatures.co.uk/chariot/egyptians.html

Irregular Miniatures have an Egyptian range - http://www.irregularminiatures.co.uk/

Khurasan Miniatures do an Egyptian range that is based on an earlier part of the New Kingdom - https://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/newkingdomegyptian.html

Time Cast Models have all 3 armies - http://www.timecastmodels.co.uk/og15ancients_5/og15ancients_5.html

Magister Militum have all 3 armies in the old Chariot Miniatures figure range - https://www.magistermilitum.com/

28mm

Newline Designs do all 3 armies - https://newlinedesigns.co.uk/product-category/newline-designs-28mm-ranges/newline-designs-28mm-ranges-biblical/

Warlord Games also do all 3 in the Bronze Age section for Hail Caesar - https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/hail-caesar

Foundry have all 3 - https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/pages/biblical

Essex Miniatures have Hittites - https://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/collections/25mm-ancient-canaanite-syrian

Casting Room Miniatures also have Hittites - https://www.castingroomminiatures.com/collections/hittites

Books

Starting with a recommendation that isn’t actually a book. This is for the SoA Slingshot journal. Over the decades it has published many very good articles on Bronze Age chariot warfare which are well worth reading. They publish an archive DVD of ALL the journals from the very first – but it is only available to members; yet another excellent reason to join.

An influential book was Robert Drews’ “The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe ca. 1200 B.C.” - https://www.amazon.co.uk/End-Bronze-Age-Changes-Catastrophe-ebook/dp/B0851TH1ZD/ - which put forward reasons for the collapse of the Hittites, etc. in the face of the Sea Peoples. However, the military reasons are unconvincing.

The “wargamer’s standard” book on the period has to be “Armies of the Ancient Near East, 3000 B.C.- 539 B.C” by Nigel Stillman and Nigel Tallis. However, this is long out of print and getting a copy is difficult. It is also a bit out of date now on some aspects of chariotry – for example it was written back when it was believed that Hittite chariots were “heavy”.

A search on Amazon (or similar) for books on Egyptian warfare of the period should bring up quite a selection as this is a perennial favourite for authors.

Another non-book resource is a podcast about chariots where Mike Loades talks about them and his experiences with recreations. Worth a listen as there aren't many people who have actually ridden a proper chariot. This can be found here.

Additionally, here are some notes on chariot tactics provided by Richard.

Osprey has several books applicable to the subject of this podcast, some more directly relevant than others:

Hittite Warrior - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hittite-Warrior-Trevor-Bryce/dp/1846030811/

Bronze Age War Chariots - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bronze-Age-War-Chariots-Vanguard/dp/1841769444/

New Kingdom Egypt - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdom-Egypt-Elite-Mark-Healy/dp/1855322080/

Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age Mediterranean c.1400 BC–1000 BC - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peoples-Bronze-Mediterranean-c-1400-BC-1000/dp/1472806816/

Qadesh 1300 BC: Clash of the Warrior Kings - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Qadesh-1300-BC-Warriors-Campaign/dp/1855323001/

Other useful books that are not too academic that are relevant to the subject are:

Old Testament Warriors: The Clash of Cultures in the Ancient Near East by Simon Elliott - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Old-Testament-Warriors-Cultures-Ancient/dp/1612009549/

War in Ancient Egypt: The New Kingdom - https://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Ancient-Egypt-Kingdom-World/dp/1405113723/

Kingdom of the Hittites - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingdom-Hittites-Trevor-Bryce/dp/0965064107/

Other useful links for MeG gaming

Mortem et Gloriam Wargames Page on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/763293233817810

MeG Website - https://mortem-et-gloriam.co.uk/meg/ ; there are ready made lists to download and links to other resources.

MeG Forum - https://mortem-et-gloriam.co.uk/smf/index.php

MeG YouTube videos - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPemvpT3ANJ45P9XXGgTcLA ; introductory videos from author Simon Hall on how MeG plays.

Society of Ancients - http://www.soa.org.uk/joomla/ ; the bi-monthly Slingshot journal is a great publication for the ancient/medieval period.

The SoA also have a forum - http://soa.org.uk/sm/ - useful for asking questions and where you can get info.

Podcast Feedback, Suggestions, etc.

Email us at MortemPod@yahoo.com with any feedback/ideas relating to the Podcast – we are always on the lookout for ideas for content – or questions for the guys to answer in a future episode.