Fierce warriors from the Anatolian highlands, these tribesmen make courageous and skilled skirmishers and their axes can do terrible damage under the right conditions.

Hardy
Sapping Ability

These fierce tribesmen come from the ancient land of Kappadokia, the Hittite, Katpatuka 'land of the beautiful horses'. The tribal warriors raised in the mountains of Kappadokia know the terrain and are well equipped, with javelin and axe, for mountain warfare. They will not do as well away from these heights, as they lack the heavier armour of the Greek infantry. Their axes and javelins will allow them to give a good account of themselves but heavy melee should be avoided.

Historically, while some of the tribes living in the mountains were hostile towards the Greeks, others cultivated very close relationships with them. It is from these mountain warriors the Tibareni and Chaldaei tribesmen, the Mossynoecians, Makrones and other tribes residing in the eastern part of Northern Anatolia, that the skirmishers of Pontos are recruited. The terrain of Pontos is well suited to the style of warfare these men are practiced at. The Pontic Alps stand as a wall between the interior plateau and the rich, narrow plain bordering the sea. These tribes ward the mountain approaches and the kings of Pontos know well the value of such friendship. Xenophon too found such frienship of great value in his passage of these regions. Many of these mountains are thoroughly impassable and altogether precipitous, and there are extensive areas devoid of human habitation, only plunging ravines from which it is impossible to climb out, forested heights and impassable chasms.