[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Depending on how much social stratification they maintain, you might potentially have a split force; relatively poorly equipped spear-thrower/sheildman pairs, while those who can put together a hide-and horn corselet, or even a breastplate or the like, along with a decent shield and a passable Seax, Khyber knife, and/or short spear for melee charge in as shock troops in the wake of the missile storm. That may be beyond the bounds of the societies you're envisioning, though.

Not at all. They are sophisticated in their own way, just poorer in material terms than their neighbours.

I see social stratification being very much the norm among most of these societies, with warriors ranking higher than most anyone and with elite warriors able to afford armour and good weapons being nobles and their retinues. Some of that will be cause* and some will be effect**.

There will still be a fair bit of social mobility through personal valour, but it will, of course, be very hard to out-fight the guy who can afford metal armour and to do nothing but raid, train and fight all his life when you are wearing only goatskin and have spent your youth taking care of a few sheep to support your poor family. So even though personal valour excuses poor birth, it's hard to become a successful warrior if your dad is Mukaporis the shepherd instead of Zipyros Trollslayer, a famous noble warrior.

In theory, every Threskeli boy is encouraged to grow up to be a warrior. In practice, a good half of them have little chance of becoming real warriors, either because of physique or lack of wealth and free time, and another half rarely goes on raids even if they may loudly claim to be full-time warrior raiders.

The Assurites are very hierchical and view themselves as the true heirs of Untheri society, with the Gilgeam-worshipping mainstream being decadent and corrupt. They have noble warriors and clergy who trace their descent many generations, often fraudulently thousands of years to one god or another. They just lack the acricultural land and access to good trade routes to really be able to make a complex society with layers of nobility, kings and over-kings work. Their society has farmers, shepherds, warriors, priests and chieftains, with birth being very important.

The Rammanu have known of such societies for a long time, but are far more egalitarian by choice and necessity and have a very small warrior class, in addition to almost completely lacking any dedicated clergy, with religion being a matter of everyday worship by the head of household, as well as special feminine mysteries performed by the women.

In Zouavas society, almost every boy is a warrior, with failure to perform military service being seen as intensely shameful and resulting in being unable to take a wife. Their women are expected to defend tribal lands, as well. Their society, of course, could not exist independently and has for centuries relied on acting as mercenaries for imperial Unther. Since they can no longer do so, they've been suffering a bit, but been able to raid their hated Threskeli foes for much of what they were lacking.

*Good raiders and warriors will become richer through successful raids and/or be sought-after as part of the retinues of the existing nobles, thus leading to their sons growing up with more opportunities.
**Wannabe warriors from the richer families will be able to afford spending more time on swordplay and war-games rather than the needs of day-to-day survival, not to mention go out raiding in finer gear, and thus be more successful at it.

Originally Posted by Dalillama

This is a point, yes. I don't really have an answer for it. Looking at illustrations of peltasts, it looks like the shields were held with a single strap. It's not far-fetched that you could design them such that they could be strapped to the arm initially, but slid down to a buckler grip for close fighting, I suppose.

I think that the pelta shield is classed as a Shield in GURPS, not a buckler. After all, you explicitly can carry spare javelins in the shield hand.

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Good question; maybe javelins are at a disadvantage in the thick forests that were still very common at the time?

That could be.