Auxiliary Armoured Horse Archers

Description

The Sarmatians were a western group of steppe peoples, and occupied the area north of the Black Sea, bordering Dacian and Germanic lands. They roamed this region as they pleased, and had a fierce reputation as cavalrymen almost without equal. They were feared by the Greeks, and often worked as mercenaries or allied themselves to the Dacians. The Sarmatians were always horse archers, but their cavalry gradually adopted heavier and heavier armour as the centuries passed, eventually wearing as much armour as the famed cataphracts of the east. Even the horses wore full suits of scale armour. The riders kept their fearsome bows even as they became magnificent shock cavalry. With each man carrying a kontos, a long two-handed lance, they could smash through almost any enemy foolish enough to stand against them.