Marine Spears

HAVE completed painting a unit of Egyptian marines armed with spears.

The figures are 10mm from Magister Militum

Because most Egyptians lived close to the Nile, it was from the river that the kingdom was controlled.

This meant marines were the elite of the army until the appearance of chariots, and even then were held in high regard.

My marine spearmen have leather body armour and helmets, as well as shields, which allows them to be classified as having medium armour under Neil Thomas's rules.

Other Egyptian spearmen, and close-order archers, are classified as having light armour.

Marine spearmen with their marine-archer colleagues

The marine spearmen are equipped with short spears which could easily be called javelins.

The spears of regular spearmen (right) are much longer, presumably because marine spearmen could be called on to fight in confined spaces aboard ships and because short spears are easier to handle when assaulting from ship-to-land