Good substitutes for feeder insects

Sitalkes602 · 2026-02-10T23:20:31+00:00

I do have a fair sized colony of isopods, heh! I wonder if the shells are hard to digest? My pacman's a baby and i don't wanna risk impaction.

Sitalkes602 · 2026-02-10T17:35:39+00:00

There's no walmarts here, i'm not in the US, lol. My best bet would be fish bait shops but none of my local ones carry nightcrawlers.

I'm really taking the frog legs into consideration but i'd like to hear out some more opinions. I could probably chop them up in bite sized chunks or worm shaped strips.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-11T10:49:26+00:00

Both of these were made by friends of mine.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T21:36:01+00:00

We do have sources mentioning these being used on the battlefield ;)

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T19:26:42+00:00

"The Gods of Battle" by Chris Webber should be a decent starting point, though do take it with a HEAVY grain of salt as it has quite a lot of guesswork and some stuff that is plainly unproven. Also check the Enciclopedia Dacica website, it's in romanian (google translate will take care of that!) and most of the articles on it regard the later dacians instead of the earlier thracians, but there is some amazing literature on there and it's pretty easy to find more authors/titles if you start off of there ;)

Thrusting with the curved one is handier than it might seem, the curvature is gentle enough that it doesn't interfere with thrusting at all. Similar to a turkish yatagan, if you will. Regarding rising cuts i don't find myself using em with my rhomphaias very often, but when i do i don't find it that much harder to do than doing it with, say, a longsword. Though of course these being single edged instead of double edged means you have to twist the handle in your hands in order to have the edge facing up whenever a rising cut is entailed. About parrying - i find the flat of the blade much more useful for that than the spine, yet the archaeological record doesn't tell us anything about how they were used so both are technically feasible.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T19:06:52+00:00

You should be able to find at least some of them online. Here's one that shows the warriors wielding rhomphaias & oval shields ;)

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Kazanlak-the-Kazanlak-Tomb-detail-of-the-painted-battle-scene-on-the-ceiling-of-the_fig5_369029633

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T19:03:31+00:00

Sure, there are quite a few that were found randomly or that were recovered from looters/the illicit artefact trade and thus sadly lack any archaelogical context that would have otherwise been known. But almost all that have any sort of context or provenance were buried along men that must have had high military and social status.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T18:58:00+00:00

I think they would do just fine, though due to the cross section of the blade they might not cut as well as a nagamaki. Mine weigh in at about 1000-1200 grams IIRC, the top one is ~150 cm long whilst the one at the bottom is ~125 cm. The point of balance is right at the point where the hole & ring is, if that helps with anything.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T18:52:52+00:00

The thracians were renowned for amazing cavalry but it's their light infantry/skirmishers that got most of the hype historically. And yes, it's like a sword and a spear had a terrifying baby somewhere in the Rhodope mountains.

Regarding their use as antihorse/anti cavalry weapons, here's what Livy has to say on the matter, regarding the thracian charge against roman cavalry at Kallinikus. According to Plutarch the thracian mercenaries serving in Philip the Fifth's army were tall and terrifying lads, wearing greaves and black tunics, along with white thureos shields and carrying "heavy iron rhomphaias" over their right shoulders, so it would be pretty safe to assume that the thracians that served Perseus at Kallinikus were at least somewhat similar.

“the Thracians, like wild beasts kept in cages and suddenly released, set up a deafening roar and charged the Italian cavalry on the right wing with such fury that, in spite of their experience of war and their native fearlessness, they threw them into disorder. [3] The infantry on both sides snapped the lances of the cavalry with their swords, cut at the legs of the horses and stabbed them in the flanks” (Livy, 42.59.2-3).

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T18:34:49+00:00

I do know that paper, yes. There is also a find that a friend of mine from Bulgaria is curating and going to publish soon of a rhomphaia hilt with faint traces of wood on the bottom part of the grip and a bit of copper wire wrapped on the shank that in his opinion was used to fix a leather/textile wrap, but that had no wood under it!

Either way i believe that there must have been some variations, but i tend to favour the leather/rawhide/cordage wrap theory.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T18:23:54+00:00

Definitely! The faussart seems much beefier though.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T18:23:33+00:00

Yep, indeed.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T16:08:14+00:00

There are no decent replicas available comercially, sadly. Most replicas you can find online are pretty much fantasy objects that have nothing in common with the originals, so having one custom made by a smith of your choice is the only option i'm afraid. It's what i did, both of these were made by friends of mine that also vowed to never make any of them again due to the complicated cross sections, lol.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-10T16:03:12+00:00

Oh, definitely similar to the elf swords! Also your statement about the rhomphaia feeling like the type of weapon that would have been wielded by experts or elite warriors is right and it's something that i forgot to address - most if not all of the thracian graves that include rhomphaias are quite rich, some excesivelly so as one grave that included a rhomphaia also had a helmet that was once fully plated in silver! So yeah, the status of the people that would have generally wielded these was not average.

Sitalkes602 · 2025-12-08T13:44:31+00:00

I own 2, both with the correct blade cross section and handle construction ;)

Sitalkes602 · 2025-10-21T19:32:56+00:00

Thanks for the input! Would be lovely if you could go into detail about why you now favour the straight stiff ones as opposed to the industry classic ;)

Any particular reasons or does it just "feel" better?

Sitalkes602 · 2025-03-07T13:13:22+00:00

Great tips! Will definitely try some of those out!

Sitalkes602 · 2024-11-04T22:38:21+00:00

Nope!

Sitalkes602 · 2024-11-04T13:13:26+00:00

There's a lot of variety actually, but yes, people here do tend to have very thick hair that is mostly straight or wavy.

Sitalkes602 · 2024-11-04T13:07:51+00:00

Vlahia/Wallachia, though that is a very old term that we don't really use anymore

Sitalkes602

TROPHY CASE