> First off, SCA fighting is pretty stylized--no elbows to the face (or body to
> body contact of any kind), no tripping, no hitting below the knee. This is to
> keep people from reaally getting injured, but they are all things I'm sure
> were used in real fights.
One might say of certain practisioners of "realistic" martial arts: I think this covers your whole act. Such restrictions are going to be less significant in armed combat, but their absence, and perhaps more so, that combatants know they needn't worry about or try to anticipate such tactics, must make a considerable difference.
> I do agree absolutely about the long weapon observations. The difficulty I
> found in keeping the swordsmen away from me while trying to hit teme with a
> poleaxe was the inspiration behind the RQ 3.75b "Maneuver" skill.
I've seen several attempts in games of various sorts try to represent this, with generally limited success. While the RQ strike rank system isn't wholely satisfactory, I think that the incidence of people using polearms and oversized spears in one-to-one combat should be low enough to justify sweeping the issue adroitly under the carpet. Failing which, factoring it into the weapon skill sounds like a plan.
Sandy Petersen:
> Lunar File Length
> I think that because of the monitors, the 7-man "file" is
> quite common in the Lunar army, as close to standardization as makes
> little difference.
I don't myself think this is true. Perhaps the majoriry of the "Pelandan" 8-man-filers have been "reformed", but the Dara Happan Yelmic units are likely to show quite a bit of resistance to change. Furthermore, your earlier stipulation that some units have one monitor per two or so "files" (per 14 or 16 men, that is) suggests that these units, if monitors are the deciding factor, are indeed organised into 14 or 16 men files, even if the usual formation is half that depth.
> 7 or 14 would be easy
> enough to manage. And perhaps they can get by with 10-man files,
> since this results in two 7-man files in front, with two 3-man files
> behind, and the monitor behind _that_ to cast spells on his two 3-man
> files. So it's not really a 10 man file, but a 10.5 man file.
Sandy and I, while discussing elementals and the like, had the thought that phalanxes were able to deploy in more open order than the norm, especially for those Oh Shit, Incoming moments. If a phalanx has time to anticipate such a situation, they may form up at about half the usual density in both ranks and files, with say about one man per two metres in either direction. If you do this, there's no point in massing in great depth either, so it may be the norm to use a three man half-file (or quarter file) in such situations, with the extra man, the monitor, behind the two mini-files of the men to which he was assigned.
Possibly they use a close order "3.5" man file on occassion, but this sounds a dodgy enough proposition that you'd only do so if you were desparate to cover a lot of width of field with the doubled frontage.
Adrian White enthuses about the idea of arranging people in regular
polygons of degree six:
> A hoplite
> regiment formed in hexes with a spears length between each hex" could have up to
> 5 or 6 times the frontage of a unit in columns of files. If depth was required,
> they could have a second row of hexes, say 10 foot back, which would create a
> formation with more depth and length than a Phalanx in the standard formation.
This is a pretty gap-ridden formation, if one considers how it will deploy the hoplites, and the relatively low density of pike-points beyond the men. I fancy I can hear the animal nomads giggling from here, in fact.
> If a lunar army was about to be attacked by a mass of pentian light cavalry,
> the hoplites could use this extra frontage and depth to create a wall around the
> magic units that they are protecting. The gaps between the hexes would allow
> pelasts and light cavalry to withdraw behind the hoplites when they were
> threatened with encirclement, but wouldn't be big enough for the pentian's to
> get through without fighting. If any got through the first line they would be
> trapped between two "inward" facing lines of hoplites.
This seems to suggest one line of hoplites facing out, then two facing in, then the troops being protected inside _them_, after pike-length gap. That would be, it strikes me, both a horrendously inefficient use of manpower, as only a third of the men are defending the outside from the cavalry charge, which would furthermore have only a single line of pikes to breach, and also a recipe for chaos inside, as converging inward-pointed hafts get tangled up.
> Of course this formation is largely defensive and immobile.
The question is why would they bother, when the phalanx formation is of proven defensive value, and relatively mobile, to boot?
The only merit I can see in the "hexes" idea is if a small group of hoplites, say up to about a half century, have to fight alone, and particularly if they're engaged out of formation. Here they would be in danger of being overrun before they could form up in close formation, even even if they manages this, would be in acute risk of being outflanked, due to a lack of unit frontage. Standing back-to-back in small groups (up to six or so, indeed) would be a plausible defensive measure under such circumstances, but this isn't the sort of fight hoplites would pick, given any decent alternatives.
Lewis says (and indeed occassionally SHOUTS):
> WRT:
> Problems integrating Old Dara Happan Legions of 1111 men with new Lunar
> Legions of 2450 + 1 General (optionally + 7 senior officers).
Let's first clarify that this is _not_ the Official New Lunar Legion Size, but something that (at least) Paul Reilly and I have (independently) mooted as an amusing thing they might try, or have once tried.
> Since the Lunar Legion is composed of 7 cohorts of 350 men I would
> suspect that this breaks down into 3 or 6 phalanx cohorts of heavy
> infantry who who fight together. In addition to the heavy infantry
> there might be up to 3 cohorts of Auxiliaries. In addition to
> auxiliaries there might be cavalry or SPECIALIST cohorts.
This isn't a bad idea, and fits quite well with the Lunar philosophy of Strength through Diversity. It also, for enthusiasts of the Soviet Analogy, vaguely like how the modern(ish) Red Army organised its (for example) armour batallions, by including an infantry company as well as the three tank companies.
In any case, this certainly isn't the norm, as cavalry and magic regiments are represented in Dragon Pass as separate units at the phalanx-scale level, and aren't attached to other units.
> So integration is not a problem and the new Lunar legions have the
> advantage of being self contained units with the ability to fight
> smaller scale engagements without having to rely on other troops to
> fulfill non-phalanx roles.
A problem with this model, however, is that it isn't necessarily desirable to intermingle phalanxes and other troops on this "fine" a scale. In a large scale engagement, one would probably want to deploy all the phalanxes together, and the peltasts elsewhere, so one would in any case have to disperse the mega-legion.
Sandy gives a Key Insight into the psychology of beating it:
> "What the hell am I running for?" [...] Next time I'll keep running.
On the Sedalpist catechism:
> The very start of their catechism (which is all I can go into
> here) is different from any others.
You mean the rest is Secret, or you've mis-filed it?
[Potted summary of Greg (creative, lazy, forgetful, and not anal about consistency)]
Additionally, he does also speak of liking to make people question their assumptions about Glorantha (and perhaps in general). Of course, this could be making a virtue out of what's made a necessity by other factors.
Alex.
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