We all know the samurai, knight, hoplite/legionarre and viking

I'm so tired I thought for a muddy second you were proposing we crossbreed Hussars with Samurai and Knights and Legionnaires.

Like, what the fuck kind of hell army would you even want to try that with.

Basically open a Age of Empire wikia and go through their units if you want a rather broad rundown.
Afterwards start reading books.
For example the Aztec has the Jaguar and Eagle Warrior with Macuahuitl and Atlatl as their unique.

Here's the Age of Empire 2 list:
ageofempires.wikia.com/wiki/Unique_Unit_(Age_of_Empires_II)

yeah some are somewhat unique and cool like jannisaries which had their own history,culture,caste, and infamy
but then you have so many retarded units like chu ko nu which is literally just crossbow-man or the viking berserk which never even existed

>Kroea's nation-specific warrior was a wagon

which is pretty weird considering korea is known for archery these days

Chu ko nu was added to underline the extensive modification to the crossbow.
But yeah not historical accurate but nice to show some general list furthermore the fluff blub in the game was ace

Jomsvikings?
Gallowglass of Scotland?

(This is very much the fantasy, pop-culture take, so if any anons know more accurate info I'd love to hear it!)

The Janissaries were elite Ottoman warriors, initially recruited from enslaved prisoners and later expanded to a tithe of non-Muslim children within the Empire.
They were indoctrinated into the culture of the Empire and drilled harshly from childhood, becoming a corps of highly disciplined and effective soldiers.
Because they were neither entirely slave nor freemen, and were not entirely considered to be Muslims either despite learning the ways of Islam, the Janissary were often deployed extremely aggressively, taking high casualties but breaking the enemy lines in critical points.

The Janissaries began as archers, but quickly adopted firearms and used them in addition to sabers and axes. They were an influential part of the Ottoman empire from the 14th-19th century, but grew hidebound and resistant to change, eventually becoming increasingly ineffective against modern armies. Due to several revolts among their number, the Sultanate came to see them as a threat and eventually they were forcefully disbanded and destroyed in the 1820's.

Pic related is some sort of fantasy snake-cult version, they'd make good villains for a late medieval/renaissance era campaign.

Janissaries weren't exactly 'not considered Muslims'. They were devout followers of a rather unorthodox sect of Islam that was popular amongst the lower economic classes, and its heterodox manner made it easy for those used to foreign cultures to become part of it.

The whole 'taken from children' thing ended in the 1570s, when an Imperial Decree made it possible for anyone to 'join' the Janissary Corps through enrollment. This quickly made them turn into mafia.

I mean you had Holy Roman Empire armies that sort of did this I guess?
Pike tactics (hoplites), heavy and light cavalry (Knights and hussars) heavy infantry with big scary swords (Samurai/Legionnaires)
Throw in some crossbows and we cool.

More or less correct. The word 'janissary' is a butchered Anglicisation of the Turkish 'yeni çeri', or "new soldier". The Ottoman military had initially been made up primarily of volunteers and levies (one of the major reasons for their early success was that their beylik were located on the border with the Byzantine Empire, which attracted a lot of gazi, or holy warriors, who preferred to fight and die against Christians than against other Muslims).

Although the Ottomans continued to make heavy use of volunteers and levies until very late in their Empire's history, the Sultans also realised that, given the size of their empire, they needed to have a standing army capable of responding to unexpected threats at great distances apart. Levies and volunteers, while very useful in padding armies for campaigns in which the Ottomans had the initiative, were by their nature slow to mobilise and move to where they were needed.

This prompted the creation of a permanent, highly trained, highly disciplined, force- the janissaries. Janissary recruits were taken as children from non-Muslim (especially Balkan Christian, for a variety of reasons) villages in a process known as devşirme, then raised as Muslims (of a kind- the Ottomans were always fairly relaxed about religious policy, and the janissaries tended to follow the Bektaşi Sufi order rather than orthodox Sunni Islam), and trained for the service of the Sultan and the empire.

Although the janissary corps started off as a military unit, and that was always their main purpose, the devşirme pulled in children with all kinds of talent, not just the physically strong, and janissaries often rose to high positions as administrators, scribes, artists, and architects, as well as soldiers.

No i mean like literal fusion. Like shit son here's a Hussar with Gaelic-painted muscleplate an obsidian-flecked katana and tower shield riding an elephant down on your ass with a six shooter in his back belt and fuckin' snow shoes on.

Athanatoi AKA Immortals, the persian elite heavy infantry (armed with spear and shield)
Hetairoi AKA Companions, the greek elite cavalry (armed with the xyston, an early lance, with a kopis [curved slashing sword] in case the xyston broke)

Besides their education/training and implicit loyalty, one of the major incentives for the Sultans to see the high levels of Ottoman administration staffed by janissaries was that janissaries could not pass on their status to their children (technically, they weren't supposed to have children at all- though they always did, not being eunuchs, and the Sultans were willing to turn a blind eye, those children were not supposed to be formally acknowledged). This ensured that the administration would remain meritocratic, rather than being hereditary.

In combat, the major advantages of the janissary corps were its discipline and its reputation. Though they were well-trained, that was not unusual- many, if not most, of the Turkic soldiers who made up the bulk of early Ottoman armies were at least as skilled, and the turbulence of the post-Selcuk period meant there was no shortage of people with combat experience. What the janissaries had was the willingness and capacity to perform complex manoeuvres, and hold ground, in a way that the gazi or başı-bozuklar could not. Once handheld firearms became widespread, the ability of the janissaries to unleash massed gunfire significantly increased their effectiveness.

As for their reputation- it was widely known that the janissaries were the elite of the Ottoman army. Even in Central Europe a village was able to deter an approaching army by simply dressing up most of its men in janissary uniforms and having them parade outside the village.

Unfortunately, as other fa/tg/uys have already said, the later history of the janissary corps is much like that of the Praetorian Guard- corrupt, greedy, and militarily ineffective, but able and willing to overturn emperors they didn't like. Eventually, they were annihilated by a newly-formed artillery corps, which was the core of the Nizam-ı Jadid (New Army) during the Tanzimat period.

>big scary swords (Legionnaires)
what, the biggest sword i recall legionnaires wield was the spatha

Apparently they were as gay as the romans, greeks, and japs were

>Samurai
>heavy infantry with big scary swords

They were mainly mounted archers, if they had to go melee, a polearm like the yari or naginata was their first option, the katana is mainly a sidearm.

That's pretty gay.

Scottish Highlanders... basically group up and run straight at the otherside while screaming. Works fairly well up until you encounter a unit on open ground that have firearms & discipline who alos outnumber you and haven't been uup all night marching like you have. After that your nation dress, music, culture and language is banned. Then ethnic cleansing depopulates your lands.

This is a hoplite.

This is a legionarie.

>Xochipilli was also the patron of both homosexuals and male prostitutes,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xochipilli

I can see it. You don't have a god of homosexuals unless you accept homosexuality on a massive scale.

The hoplite was heavily reliant on the phalanx formation where in every soldier was protected by the shield of the person to his right. For this formation to function properly it was vital that the battle was fought on a plain field as hills and other obstructions would break up the formation.

The Legionaries meanwhile fought in a relatively loose formation (compared to a phalanx) where the fighting abilitiy of the individual held much more importance. This flexibility also allowed them to fight in uneven terrain.

As you can see from the pictures the equipment of the two types of soldiers are vastly different. The hoplite is a spearmen, protected by a helmet, a large round shield, and hopefully a linothorax and greave/s while the legionary is a swordsman who before he closed with the enemy threw the type of javelin known as pilum, equipped with a helmet, a large rectangular shield, and normally a chainmail allthough in the pic in question he is depicted with a lorica segmentata.

Hoplites didn't use pikes mate.

its okay user.. just let it out

The Macedonians did.

Those aren't hoplites.

ive always wanted to learn more about the cossacks.
were they slavs, were they turks? were they a nation or a caste? were they a military unit? from anything i read it just seems like they were a bit of everything

>from anything I read it just seems like they were a bit of everything
They were nomads living under the control of non-nomadic governments (Russia, P-L Commonwealth, etc)

Being nomads, they had a fairly militarized culture and were all expert horsemen, so they tended to end up on battlefields

Let me tell you where you are wrong
First of all, they were not nomads. They did not perform seasonal migration, they mainly worked land as opposed to mainly breeding cattle (as nomadic people do), they lived in villages and towns\
Second, there were nomads that were drafted as irregular cavalry by Russian Empire, but they were not cossacks (example: Bashkirs)

Simplest way to define cossacks would be through their relationship with state. Cossacks were a special kind of estate that were characterized by:
- living on the frontier; when area was no longer considered a frontier, cossacks were usually offered a relocation to another frontier or becoming peasantry
- having military duties consisting of a) protecting/expanding that frontier b) participating in military campaigns of the state or serving as a police force (ex. name for a patrol policemen in russian empire came from "city cossack" when "cossack" part atrophied)
- having fiscal privileges, a measure of self-governing and other various rights, stretching centuries back

Winged legionaries!

There is and was an ethnic component to origin of cossacks. Although it may be debatable, they probably started as a mix of slav people and nomads on the borders of the princedoms of Rus. From the other hand, cossacks were also an inclusive community, which famously accepted those running from serfdom (hence famous saying "there is no return from Don") and whoever wanted to join them.
Cossacks were defined (naturally!) by Orthodoxy, and were self-styled "knightly brotherhood of defenders of the christians against pagans" (mostly that's how Sech defined itself).

Cossacks usually dwelled on the rivers. In fact, all cassack warhosts i know were affiliated with rivers - Don, Dnier, later Yaik, Amur etc. So: their main opponents were steppe nomads, who moved freely over the land - whereas cossacks moved over water and took refuge in the riverlands. Later on, when steppes became safe for settling, cossacks became more accustomed to cavalry warfare (napoleonic wars period). In fact, there was a number of cossack martial traditions as their environments were changing. From warriors-on-boats to light cavalry to light infantry (plastuns), stealth and infiltration specialists

The Brazilian cangaceiro (meaning Yoke man).
They roamed the deserts of the Brazilian northwest. Many of them served as fired guns for the colonels of the region. But the most famous ones where bandits. Lampião (Oil Lamp) is the most famous one, and in hueland's northwest his stories are told as if he was some kind of Robin Hood (the truth is considerably more darker).
They dressed fully in lether, used funny hats, several bandoliers, carried carbines and fight both on foot and on horseback.

They're slavic pirates. It's generally accepted that they began as a meritocratic, womanless, egalitarian society out on the steppes. They made their living on the offal of war, but shrank from the butchery of it.

The military duties bit is inaccurate. Cossacks were exempt from the soul tax, they weren't levied, couldn't be conscripted, not regimented, and were known for running from aggressive disciplined forces. This is evidenced during the napoleonic campaigns when they fired on their own lines to clear a path for their frequent retreats from the disciplined bonapartistes.

cossacks confirmed for chaotic evil?

actually the colonels hunted down the cangaceiros because their rampaging was bad for buissness as they usually attacked small farming comunities, and sometimes the people that worked for the colonels would join them for they offered a different possibility of life.

they're just gunslingers with more bloodlust than sense of fashion.

>Hussars with Samurai and Knights and Legionnaires.
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth army?

No, really.
The entire armed forces of the Commonwealth was composed by a really colourful patchwork of different units from different nations fighting in completely different style, spread so thinly they've barely were able to cover the borders.
Let's see
>Hussars
Well, duh
>Samurai
All kind of Tatar auxiliaries - bowmen, on horseback, giving full on Mongolian vibe
>Knights
All kinds and sorts of foreign mounted mercs, since literally quarter of the army, the so-called "autorament cudzoziemski" or "foreign forces", was just hired westerners, fighting in contemporary western style and arms. That included foreign carracole raiders and heavy-armed charge cavalry
Plus Hussars can easily do double-time
>Legionnaires
Again, autorament cudzoziemski, which provided for Poles highly trained foot-soldiers, fighting in typical tercio composition, as compared to loose formations of wojsko komputowe or kwarciane (a peasant-based conscript army)

So it pretty much happend historically

also there was an aesthetic element to the way they fighted. they had various knives for different occasions, one for food, one for skinning, one for executing important foes (such as colonels or other high ranking officers), etc...

More like chaotic stupid.
All their hosts were your typical small scale "anarchy state", which on one hand was unregulared by anything, on the other somehow was still highly militarised society.

This eventually bite them in the ass big time.

Franks.

> heavy infantry with big scary swords
>(Samurai/Legionnaires)
Samurai used daikatanas but that was rare. And legionnaires used short shorts then transitioned into "normal" size ones.

The easiest way to describe cossacks is land-based pirates. Not evil, but lawless. For hire, but unloyal. And chaotic as fuck.

landsknechts for all of central and southern continental Europe. Equivalent mercenaries are also acceptable.

Also, the legionarie (post-Marius, at least) was what we'd call a combat engineer (and as such, a part of complex and varied army system). The real quirk of the legions were their skills in construction, not that they were heavy infantry.

Its all of it. From being good heavy infantry/engineers/occupation force/roving rape party/colonization force its everything.

It was always there, even before Marius. His reforms simply institutionalise it.

those are some badass hats tho

Thanks user! Happy to learn a bit more. Like I said, my knowledge of them is pretty much the sexy pop-culture version, not something based on even casual study.
Interesting. Could you put the divide between their beliefs and orthodox Sunni in laymen's terms? Was it a serious theological split or something more like "we take slightly different holidays" kind of split?

Cuirassiers in the Napoleonic era. A cavalryman that wore a heavy breastplate (cuirass) armed with a sword, but also wielded a pistol. They gradually phased out the rider's heavy armour down to just the breastplate as guns became more effective and reliable.

They mostly flanked the ever living shit out of infantry, and laughed at other cavalry because their swords and lances didn't do shit to their heavy armour. And then shoot them.

Zulu impi warriors. Badass enough to take on gun-wieldin British and win.

>>Interesting. Could you put the divide between their beliefs and orthodox Sunni in laymen's terms? Was it a serious theological split or something more like "we take slightly different holidays" kind of split?

Sufi orders (tariqat) cover a wide range of theological positions. Probably their most important defining feature is mysticism- a belief that knowledge of God is achieved through ritual and meditation of various kinds (the 'whirling dervishes', who are Mevlana Sufis, are practising a form of meditation).

Orthodox Sunni Islam is an extremely academic religion. The Qur'an itself is the subject of intense exegesis, to say nothing of the study of the hadith (sayings/doings of the Prophet and his companions), and the tradition of jurisprudence deriving from it. Islamic scholars like Bukhari produced truly massive bodies of work on the subjects. There is no formal hierarchy of clerics, let alone a church- though individual clerics may well be held in higher regard than others on the basis of their acknowledged learning/wisdom, their formal authority is no higher than that of any other member of the ulema, and conclusions are determined and accepted through majority consensus, rather than being made by any single individual (as in Catholicism).

Most Sufi sects reject 'book-learning' as a path to knowledge of God, and some rejoiced in rebelling against established practice- one Sufi sheikh, while on pilgrimage, deliberately fell asleep with his feet pointing towards the Grand Mosque (a grave, possibly blasphemous, insult, in Islamic culture). When shaken awake by the innkeeper and pressed to explain himself, he apologised profusely, and said, "Please, point my feet in some direction where God is not." That kind of mysticism, borrowing heavily from Buddhist and Eastern Christian traditions, as well as Central Asian shamanism (Sufism first took hold on the eastern fringes of the Islamic world), is typical of Sufi traditions in general.

>and laughed at other cavalry because their swords and lances didn't do shit to their heavy armour.
makes no sense, heavy cav was never impervious to other lances, especially with no shield

However, we shouldn't mislead ourselves into thinking of Sufis as all being free-thinking, dreamy, Khalil Gibran types. The Naqshbandi tariqat is notoriously conservative, and its adherents tend to be take an extremely hard line on a whole range of socio-cultural issues- the Ottomans, who had a very tolerant religious policy, considered them to be troublemakers, but their reputation for piety made it hard to actually get rid of them.

Additionally, Sufi mysticism can easily blur into obscurantism- while orthodox Sunni Islam holds that the whole truth of God is revealed to any who would read the Qur'an, with the exegetical works serving to aid comprehension, many Sufis believe that the truth of God is at least partially hidden- and that only they, or their sheikh, truly understand it. Needless to say, this can create issues.

The Bektaşi order, to which the janissaries largely belonged, was a rather free-wheeling form of Sufism, with much in common to the Alevi sect of eastern Anatolia (related to, but not identical with, the Syrian Alawites). They were frequently condemned by more conservative clerics for practices that were seen as flouting Islamic commandments - they had no particular prohibition against alcohol, for example - but they did adhere to the Five Beliefs (belief in Allah as the one and only God, belief in Adam as the first man, belief in the Angels as God's servants, belief in the Prophets as bearers of God's word, and belief in the Qur'an as the revealed word of God), and to the Five Pillars (the declaration of faith, charitable giving, fasting during Ramadan, making a pilgrimage to Mecca, and performing the five daily prayers). Unfortunately, our knowledge of the sect is relatively limited, because they were suppressed when the janissaries were annihilated.

Guess what - it worked for the Napoleon so well, French kept cuirassiers up until fucking WW1.

>. The real quirk of the legions were their skills in construction, not that they were heavy infantry.
Their skills with construction/machinery is what makes them heavy infantry

That post made me gay for the hypothetic übersoldier. How am I gonna explain that to my wife and children?

The Nizam-ı Cedid was not the Army of Mahmud II - that would be the Asakir-i Mansur-i Muhammedi, which roughly translates to the 'Righteous Soldiers of Muhammad', a precaution taken by Mahmud II to appease the clergy compared to Selim III's 'New Order' Army, which had connotations that did not appease the statists.

I should clarify that- their skill with those things makes fighting with tactics generally associated with heavy infantry extremely viable

Technically, every military has nation specific warriors.
A brazilian fusilier isn't used in the same way as an US rifleman or a french grenadier voltigeur. Even if they all are basic infantrymen.
And then you have enormous doctrinal differences every 20 year or so.

Anyways, have some musketeers. The Dumas kind. So, XVIIth century, mounted soldiers, fighting with rapier, main gauche, and every gun available at the time, light armor (their hats often had metallic framework). Noblemen, so expect fancy mustaches.

Why is d'artagnan holding four rapiers in his hand?

You are correct. I would argue that it was to all intents and purposes the same thing, but I appreciate and readily concede to your greater precision. Thank you!

(Okuyanların arasında bir Türk varsa, kusura bakma!)

What do you mean bouquets can't be swords?

They just kicked some cardinal's guards butts.
Trophy taking standard french swashbuckling practice, Cyrano of Bergerac did the same with a hundred hats.

I guess you could say they didn't have a lot of loyalty

Maybe if you have them real bouquets, your lady friends would stop betraying you. I bet Richelieu give folks real flowers

Marines. As a Canadian, there always seemed to be something quintessentially American about them.

How many thousands of impis did it take per brit to win tho?

Siam/Thailand had a unique and rather elite troops called Jaturungkabart who were formed by King Naresuan during his wars against Burma. They were initially tasked to protect Naresuan and his elephant against enemy attacks and are highly trained in their own form of martial arts, including Muay Thai and Krabi Krabong, usually arming themselves with a dhab sword and staff for self-defense. This however made them more or less lightly armored as bodyguards, probably to allow more movement since skirmishes are frequent in the Burma-Siamese wars. They are generally given the title "Sema" meaning "Protector" to indicate their status as Naresuan's guards. Sadly, documentation of these warriors are limited unless you try to delve in Thailand's archives for them.

Roughtly 4:1

Think about it. A semi-modern army armed with rifles was routed by bunch of spear-waving natives.
Repeatively.
Shows that technology means nothing if you are an utter shit in tactics.

Those are Phalangites, not Hoplites.

It could also mean that home court advantage is very, very real when it comes to warfare

>Knight
>nation specific
user...

I mean, if we're gonna call classical Greece or Japan a nation, we might as well call Europe.

Or shows how stupid your commander is if he can't fight on open plain against all-infantry, all-melee army, while having total and utter technological and range superiority.

Because we are not talking about some ambushes in the jungle and slow attrition warfare, but pitched battles on open plains.

>but pitched battles on open plains.
Still require supplies and logistics

That's how Boer Wars went, where literal handful of irregulars was capable of constantly curbing regular army due to nothing more than homefield advantage...
Well, that and not having stupid high command making retarded decisions.

Brits really fucked up hard in South Africa.

The other european nations have their wars closer to home. Makes marines not that necessary.

Which is just yet another reason of putting red coats in really bad light.
Think about it - a global-spanning empire unable to properly supply their own army an getting shit wrecked by bunch of natives with spears, who without any technology were capable to supply themselves.

Besides - that was one of those things Reds have done right and they were never badly supplied throughout that conflict. They just literally sent the most stupid motherfuckers to command their troops and as long as those idiots were alive and thus in charge, shit was going grim.

>. They just literally sent the most stupid motherfuckers to command their troops
This really is a recurring theme with the British empire.

Berserkers existed, just not as over hyped as they are today.

Man, Protector was a good movie.

I will not be able to surpass the info granted by the other user, so I will just mention that Jannissaries had one of the first military music bands of history. And pretty badass songs.

youtube.com/watch?v=wPbTOblCN8o

As a fanboy of the Spanish Empire, I completely agree that 16th century janissaries can make for formidable villains (16th century ottomans in general, really).

Landshnekts and their elite version the Doppelsoldner are pretty cool. They aren't really "nation specific" as all German nations (and some others) employed them in the 15th and 16th century. When you want good mercenaries, these are what you get. Colorfully dressed, well trained, battle hardened, and expertly equipped. The bulk of them used pikes with support from halberdiers, gunners, and zweihanders. Underneath that fancy uniform they have solid plate armor.

The word Landshnekts means "Lowland-Soldier" to differentiate them from the even more elite Swiss mercenaries from the highlands. Doppelsoldner literally means "Double pay men" as they cost twice as much as a normal mercenary, but are worth it. Dopplesoldiers make up 25% of the Landshnekts and are generally the sword swingers who run into battle first and try to break the enemy formation.

In short, Germanic mercenaries are the best.

Korea had Hwarangs, which were like if you tured a k-pop boyband into samurai archers.
They just lost horribly in their first war so the hwacha and turtleships are seen as more important

Very interesting.

Tercio's and any troop resembling them are closer to the macedonian phalanx than to the roman legion to be honest.

Marines (And shotguns) are both american military devised units. If cowboys are america's samurai, marines are america's redcoats. Especially if they have shotguns.