Historically, there are three main groups of walker-fighters in Prax: Sun Domers, Morocanth, and Men-and-a-half. There are also the various groups the land-within-the-wall, but they don't count becaue they hide.
The men-and-a-half are naturally fleet of foot and use missile weapons. They are problably closer to a greek force that has a mix of weapon types than naything else you see in Prax. Fortunately, there are not many of them. Also, note that they usually travel with some group of nomads.
The Morocath fight afoot, and have two advantages. First, they have hide, not skin. That's not enough to shrug off missile combat entirely, but impala arrows aren't as scary for them as they would be for someone else. Second, they tend to stick to territory that is difficult for mounted riders: dense undergrowth, marshy areas, and the like.
The sun domers, though, have none of these advantages. They are normal, slow walkers. They don't really use missle weapons much. They are pretty easy to poke holes into. But worst of all, they are tied down by settlements, so can't really pick their terrain (though they can prepare the ground that they know they will have to defend). At first glance, their phalanx-style combat seems singularly unsuited to Prax.
My thought is that it does make sense if you assume that the Sun Domers always rely on allied nomads to cover their flanks and skirmish (much like the late republican Romans did around their legions). Nomad bachelors are always moving around, so it seems likely that the sun domers would have the opportunity to acquire these kinds of troops, assuming that they can afford them. I have to assume that the sun domers have crafters that create things that the nomads don't have and can't easily produce. My guess would be metal, since a good smithy is pretty tough to move on an impala. Salt might be another. Pepper and other spices that must be carefully grown and harvested might be yet another. Bachelors can easily transport this stuff when they move on to the serious business of finding a bride.
So, why would the sun domers stick with a phalanx at all under these circumstances? Why would they not pick something that allows better movement? Put another way (since I know they would be bound to tradition), how did they survive having made the decision to stick with the phalanx? I think there are a couple of reasons.
The small reason is that, sometimes, they do get to pick their terrain and they have been able to fortify some areas. So, they may be able to oppose a river crossing or stop a clan from coming through one of the easier paths into Sun County. In that situation, a phalanx seems pretty good. I would not want to be a bison clan charging uphill at a phalanx that is protecting the local population. I'd rather find an easier target.
The more significant reason is the rhinos. The rhino tribe is pretty spread out. They travel in very small groups with clans of other tribes. Their function is specifically to lead a very heavy charge into any enemy formation that gets stuck. Usually, that is due to terrain. If you manage trap a bunch of impala against a cliff, you really want the rhino khan leading your charge into them. (Hey, they're wiry. And they still have a lot of arrows.) If the sun domers had no counter-point to the rhino khans, they would get routed every single time. Imagine facing, on foot, the charge of, say three rhinos with a hord of high llamas right behind them. A phalanx is probably the second-best defense against a rhino charge. (The best one is to run away, which the sun domers can't really do.)
A further note is that sun county was historically likely to appeal most to the Morocanth. There's a river; there was probably marshy ground before it was thoroughly cultivated. So, another reason they adopted phalanx combat was to fight the morocanth. That's probably less significant today and does not explain why they could survive in that form -- just an original motivation. This might, though, help explain why the Praxian Sun Domers are different from Sun Domers elsehwere (to the extent there is any difference -- I don't know).
For MGF, there was a time when it appears that nomads ruled Sun County. IMG, this is because some wise-ass sun dome count decided to trust in the purity of the phalanx and fought a nomad horde without allies covering his flanks. He got the predictable result.
Chris Lemens
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