That sounds very interesting, I never watched an episode of Rome, I heard it already ended or something though. I would like to see more accurate portrayals of how armies clash. The whole Roman formation makes more sense to me than the hordes running into each other that is seen in a lot of films with epic battles because it looks absolutely suicidal to whoever is in front of that charge while a proper formation at least keeps the front defended and Vikings using the axe pull to break the formation sounds like a sensible counter to it.
I think Rome only had that one scene, regretably, and Vikings a few (naturaly axe&shield) by nature of being vikings.
Rome: sadly their whole set burned up - accidently or "accidently"; but the show is really enjoyable even though the second season did get a bit too dark and drama for my tastes (season is still rather dramatic but has its lighter moments). The whole human drama and storylines are done quite well and they really tried to make the whole setting as authentic as possible (for TV), which imo shows (another authentic feeling show that was well researched even though they knowingly used elements from the wrong centuries: the
old BBC Robin of Sherwood). Oh I recommend Vikings too.
I think a properly made Alexander the Great series would be quite sweet, especially since it'll go against Parsia, meaning interesting visuals too.
I would also like to see how movies would portray skirmishes with archers, usually in movies they just show the typical line formation of archers do a few volleys before charging in. I always read about how Mongolian skirmishers on horseback were one of the most dominating forces in history but I never saw a representation of that (Mongols usually are just portrayed as bad guys, like Russians in a James Bond film. I heard the Marco Polo series is enjoyable but I haven't gotten around to it). Hollywood does like to show off the whole rain of arrows scene, so in my mind I would think the Mongolian archers did something just as crazy except on horseback and mobile enough to kite armies.
Heh, I tried to watch Marco Polo but realized it's one of the rare series' I need subtitles for. >_< But it
did look very non-Hollywood.
Ah, the only "arrows darkening the sky"-scene I remember was in 300.
Btw, wasn't there some older longass movie about Ghengis Khan that's supposed to be good?
When it comes to archers there are quite a few "bad guys" who were good with the bow: Mongolian, Parsian (iirc) and "Arabian" (also on horse).
I think another problem is you need good horse(wo)men for any believable bigger scenes with archers on horseback, otherwise you need to do some(lots of) training of non-maincharacters.
On a random note while researching online(the mistake I guess) greek&medivial warfare: there seems to be a big disagreement on the armourpiercing power of the longbow. (Meh)
