>
> From Sandy Petersen's comments on ancient-style warfare
>
> http://www.pensee.com/dunham/glorantha/aow.html
>
> don't "light"(missile armed) troops defeat "heavy"(Melee) troops by
> retreating steadily before them?
>
In HQ we have two categories of missile armed foot soldiers as occupations, the disciplined archers who look to me like they fight in close packed ranks to maximise damage and the irregular skirmishers who fight in open formation all the better to scatter should they need to avoid a charging enemy.
The archers may not fit Sandy's "light infantry" mould very well because they do not necessarily fight in loose order. Loose order is great for moving quickly and avoiding close combat, less good for maximising the damage you do to an enemy and useless if the enemy charge does catch up with you. There are plenty of historical units of archers for whom breaking ranks to avoid a charging enemy would have been a serious offence (I know that English longbowmen of the 100 years war were occasionally put to death for just this crime).
-- Nic
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