Thomo's Hole

There have been a lot of tweets recently, wargame based, dealing with ancient history and ancient wargaming. Most (if not all) have been Eurocentric. I can understand this as the largest market for wargame figures and for the consumption of Ancient History, have been Europeans – be they in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.

The wargame figures and related publications cover Europe, and the Middle East across to India (think Alexander the Great).  Even Central and South America gets a look in with Aztec, Maya and Inca, although I suspect that is mainly because Aztec and Inca were conquered at the time by European freebooters.

The coverage of Asian warfare and Ancient History, with a few exceptions, is lagging far behind that of Europe and the Near East. The Japanese, Mongol, Korean and Chinese armies were the first of the Far East armies to start to be covered, in part because there was enough accessible information in English to provide information to the figure manufacturer and wargamer. The effect of cinema must also bear some responsibility here as well along with the achievements of some of those Asian nations.

Other areas have lagged behind. Burmese, Thai and Khmer armies have been researched and modelled at least in 15mm scale (in part, perhaps because of the Khmer maiden guard). Cham and recently Sumatran and Javanese.

Sitting here in the Philippines for the past 6 years I have slowly been acquiring some information about the pre-Jesuit Philippines. This has not been easy to acquire. One reason given has been the lack of written history, and/or the inability to write it down. The Laguna Copperplate Inscription (Filipino: Inskripsyon sa Binatbat na Tanso ng Laguna) from about 1200 years ago  certainly belies the ability to write things down here.

In December 2014 I hunted through the National Bookstore for some information. Alas, I am still searching for a good reference work, preferably in English, my Tagalog is not up to anything that complicated yet, covering the pre-Jesuit Philippines. There were, it seems quite a few kingdoms, sultanates etc. across the archipelago in the past, with influences from India, China, Arab, Malay and of course, local.

A rich history I am sure, and one with much trading, political skullduggery, feats of arms and such but so little written about it. A history that likely touched the Indonesian Archipelago as well.

Any references gladly accepted – and lets remember that Ancient History is worldwide!

In my preferred wargame scale of 6mm, as far as I am aware, Baccus 6mm, and Heroics and Ros only model Samurai. Rapier Miniatures make Mongols and Irregular at least cover more areas, namely, Samurai, Chinese, Mongol, Tibetan, Burmese, and Khmer. Koreans, Sumatrans, Javanese are in short supply.