Flo's History

Just like Cataphracts inspired the medieval knights in Europe, horse riders evolved from a similar unit employed in warfare during the Bronze Age: war chariots. During the Bronze Age, the time of the first civilizations, chariots were the dominant force on the battlefields. They were the earliest form of truly heavy units, able to crush infantry formations in a devastating charge while also providing fire support, either from javelinists or archers. The first report of chariots used in warfare came all the way back from Sumer, taking the form of a war cart. Despite being relatively inefficient on the battlefield, as the cart was too slow and was relegated to transport, the idea of a mobile platform stuck. The first proper chariots came from one of the great hegemons of Bronze Age Anatolia, the Hittite people. Starting as Indo-European nomads, they were the first to pioneer the usage of chariots, from construction to tactics, before being adopted by their neighboring nations. Taking the...

Heavy cavalry was, for a very long time, the dominant force on the battlefield. Many of such units have reached legendary status, like the noble French knights, whose effectiveness tended to be heavily hampered by their extreme arrogance, or the Polish Winged Hussars and their renowned charge at the Battle of Vienna. Their era of dominance in warfare would be ended with the development of pike-and-shot warfare, obsoleting the unit while lighter mounted units endured for a bit longer. And while heavily armored cavalry has become a symbol of the medieval period, just like crossbows and the feudal system, it finds its roots in more ancient times. Before the knights, there were the Cataphracts, a unit that finds its roots in ancient Persia, and was kept by its successor nations all the way to the Eastern Roman Empire. Cataphracts were straightforward: a rider covered in the heaviest armor of their time, riding a horse protected by fish-scaled armor. Even their name doesn’t deal in subtlety...