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Short description

Heavily armored horse archers who can also be used as heavy cavalry.

Description

The Kushan Cataphract is a heavy ranged cavalry unit. The cataphracts (κατάφρακτος Kataphraktos (plural: κατάφρακτοι Kataphraktoi), literally meaning "armored" or "completely enclosed") is a rather generic term for very heavily armored cavalry used in the Antiquity. The main kind of cataphract, among them the Kushan Cataphract, is a mix of horse archers and lancers; they need protection but also speed, so they didn't wear the heaviest armour. The other kind were cataphracts armed with a lance for the impact and who used a blunt weapon or a sword once in melee, they wore the heaviest armour. The Kushan Cataphract wear a scale armour which covers his entire body, and a scale made helmet which leaves the whole face free except for the forehead. His horse his similarly covered with scale, but to make it lighter, the head and the neck are left bare, as well as the legs and the back. The rider uses a kontos for the charge, a four-meter-long lance wielded with both hands. His main weapon is a composite bow, which is smaller than other contemporary bows but as powerful. His quiver is marked with the tamga of his clan, which is an abstract symbol which differentiates each clan and tribe.

Kushan is a region of Asia which stretched from former Bactria to North-West India, along the Himayala. The terrain is a mix of plain and mountain landscape, the former being particularly fit for cavalry. At first one of the farther eastern province of the Seleucid Empire, it quickly rebelled to become a part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom around 255 BC. The Kingdom was strongly influenced by two cultures: the Grek one, and the Indian one. This lead to an original culture with a lot of different religion: Zoroastrianism was predominant, but there were also Buddhism, Greek religion and Hinduism as important minorities. But the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was unstable, and Bactria (or Kushan as it will be named later) was no more than feuding small kingdoms before the end of the 1st century BC. Around 50 AD, a western Chinese tribe, the Guishang, began to conquer all of the former Bactrian territories, led by a man named Kujula Kadphises (30-80). The tamga on the quiver is the one used by this king. The Kushan Empire had diplomatic relations with both the Chinese and the Roman Empire, due to his central position.