Warlord Games: New Thorakitai Medium Infantry Released

Warlord Games: The term Thorakitai – plural Thorakites – is used sparingly by Polybios to refer to Achaian and Seleucid troops of the mid-second century BC. That they were armoured is plain enough – Thorakitai means ‘cuirassier’ – and Polybios describes them as acting in support of lighter troops. 

It is likely they were armed with the long shield – the theuros – and in that respect they might be thought of as a more heavily armoured version of the Thureophoroi (shield bearers). Duncan Head – in Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars (Wargames Research Group 1982) – uses the well known tombstone of Salmas from Sidon to reconstruct the Thorakitai – and this is also the source we have used as the basis for our models.