FOG Book : Immortal Fire
Description
A "hypaspist" (shield bearer, or "shield covered") a squire, man at arms, or "shield carrier". In Homer, Deiphobos advances "ὑπασπίδια" or under cover of his shield. By the time of Herodotus (426 BCE) the word had come to mean a high status soldier as is strongly suggested by Herodotus in one of the earliest known uses:
"Now the horse which Artybius rode was trained to fight with infantrymen by rearing up. Hearing this, Onesilus said to his hypaspist, a Carian of great renown in war and a valiant man..."
A similar usage occurs in Euripides play "Rhesus" and another in his "Phoenissae". Xenophon was deserted by his in a particularly sticky situation. A hypaspist would differ from a skeuophoros in most cases because the "shield bearer" is a free warrior and the "baggage carrier" was probably usually a slave. The word may have had Homeric and heroic connotations that led Phillip and Alexander of Macedon to use it for an elite military unit.
This unit, known as the Hypaspistai, or hypaspists were probably armed as hoplites rather than as phalangites or pikemen in Alexander the Great's Macedonian army. In battle they were probably armed with the Greek aspis (shield), spolas or stola body-armor, helmet, greaves and a xiphos although their equipment might be more ornate than main-line soldiers.
It is worth noting that all the references to a unit called "hypaspists" are much later than the period of Alexander, and modern historians have to assume that later sources like Diodorus Siculus (1st C. BCE) and Arrian had access to earlier records.
Arrian's phrase 'tous kouphotatous te kai ama euoplotatous' has frequently been rendered as 'lightest armed' although Brunt concedes it is more properly translated as 'nimblest' or 'most agile'.
There has been a great deal of speculation by military historians since the late Hellenistic period about the elite units of Alexander's army. The hypaspists may have been raised from the whole kingdom rather than on a cantonal basis; if so, they were the King's Army rather than the army of the kingdom.
In the Hellenistic period the hypaspist apparently continued to exist, yet in different capacities and under different names. The name lived on in the Seleucid, Ptolemaic and Antigonid kingdoms, yet they were now seen as royal bodyguards and military administrators. Polybius mentions a hypaspist being sent by Philip V of Macedon, after his defeat at the Battle of Cynoscephalae in 197 BC, to Larisa to burn state papers. The actual fighting unit of hypasists seems to lived on in Macedonia as the corps of 'Peltasts', whose status, equipment and role seems to be almost exactly the same as that of the hypaspist under Alexander. Originally consisting of 3,000 men by the Third Macedonian War they were 5,000, most likely to accommodate their elite formation, the Agema.
Hypaspists in FOG
Hypaspists are Heavy Foot, Superior, Protected, Drilled Offensive Spearmen.
Given that they almost always operate alongside pikemen (Foot Companians or otherwise) it is probably best to use these to anchor one flank of the pike phalanx as it moves to meet the enemy (the phalanx's flanks being the most vulnerable part).
Therefore expect to see hypaspists close to the phalanx on one side or the other.
Movement
Hypaspists move at 3MU
Impact / Melee
As Protected they may only receive a +POA in melee but will still pack a punch (carrying 6 bases or more into combat per BG). The Superior quality element means re-rolls on 1's and being spear-armed in 2 ranks makes them feared by cavalry as much as by foot troops.