Trojan War Chariot
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Discuss this First Empires Bronze Age set: https://wargamesatlantic.com/collections/vox-populi/products/trojan-chariot-1-vote
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a couple thoughts:
while in the past the dendra panoply was thought to be a charioteer armor, current archeological thought is that it was in fact used by heavy infantry. it was a myceanian armor, and they didn't really use chariots in war directly the way that the egyptians and assyrians did, rather more to just carry elite troops and commanders to the battlefield. there was some use of them in battle in earlier centuries (16th-14th centyury BCE), but the dendra panolpy that was found dates to right as they were stopping using them in battle. (and right as the historical and archeological record shoiws a marked increase in emphasis on organized infantry.) but no reason that there wasn't some overlap.
but, i'd suggest that there be unarmored crewmen included, perhaps a driver and an archer or javelin thrower for chariot. allowing players who want to simulate later periods or more historically accurate tactical organization to model the chariots seperate from the heavy amror infantry.second, those shields don't really fit the 14th-13th century bce period this is set. archeological finds form the later bronze age myceane and related cultures generally show round shields, like these depictions from 'the warrior vase' found at the site of Mycenae itself.
and this reconstruction derived from such finds and the description of agamennon's shield from the Iliad.
earlier centuries used 'figure eight' shields, with a shape closer to that of the body of a chello..
and a form of tower shield closer to what is shown
indeed we have an image from a silver cup found in a burial that shows early warfare with both, but you'll notice that the warriors lack any sort of armor, most likely relying on their large shields alone for protection.
with a reconstruction of the battle scene done here:
most likely body armor like the dendra panoply replaced the need for such large shields, by moving the protection from a large unweildy tower shield onto the body itself, allowing a smaller lighter shield to be used for active defense and longer spears to be employed.
so shield wise i'd save those large tower shields for a lighter infantry unit box (as it would makes sense for less elite infantry without access to armor to use such older style shields), and give the armored warriors round shields with bronze facings.
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