Of course. The situation is a little like medieval Europe, when there was little good infantry, and no good light cavalry (except the Magyars or genitours). Dismounted knights were able to serve as okay heavy infantry, but they were unable to act as a unit on foot and could not charge very quickly -- it was very hard for them to launch an attack, though mounted troops couldn't usually make an impression on them. Good missile troops (like Genoese crossbowmen) were usually mercenaries.
When good infantry (like the Swiss) or good cavalry (like the Moslems) showed up, the European goose was cooked. During their wars on the Arabs, the Crusaders learned the importance of light troops, and stationed crossbowmen near their infantry. They eventually developed Turcopoles -- warriors who used crossbows from horseback as an effective answer to the Arab horsebowmen.
Now, the Loskalmi have an army in two parts -- there are the squires and farmers on foot; poorly-drilled, poorly-equipped, and not expected to be "real" fighters -- however, these guys are probably not missile-armed -- maybe a few archers here and there, but they're ostensibly heavy infantry. Then there are the knights on horseback, who are exclusively heavy cavalry. One hopes they at least know how to charge as a unit.
The Kingdom of War only has heavy cavalry and light cavalry (we know they are almost exclusively mounted). Their heavy cavalry should be able to do a number on the Loskalmi infantry, especially after the light cavalry disrupts their formation with missiles, and the light cavalry should be able to deal with the Loskalmi knights. For that matter, the KoW heavy cavalry is probably a match for the Loskalmi knights, though it may be fewer in number.
The campaign will be very much similar to the fights of the Mongols vs. the European soldiery, and we know how _those_ went.
>Trolls are an interesting case - they probably often amount to the
>heaviest light infantry you'll ever see, as they have strong, well
>armoured skirmish and missile troops.
A good analysis. Zorak Zoran gangs might be reasonably treated as heavy infantry. One point about the trolls is that they generally stick to raids, rather than open set-piece battles. Another is that because of their nocturnal habits, they can often pick a fight at a time when human cavalry or missile troops are worthless -- which means the only effective human troops would be heavy infantry, which are, of course, hindered in fighting the troll "light infantry".
David Cake
> Harrek's control is not total, but powerful enough that most
>mortals would have little chance of affecting him. A good example
is >when Tatius (?) tries to attack him with a massive combined
Sunspear >- Harrek and his companions are affected, but only pretty
minimally
I'm not sure Harrek was a superhero at the time that Tatius blasted him. If he had been, I doubt he or his companions would have been touched at all.
Martin Laurie
I've been asked by more than one person _not_ to take this discussion off-line. Go figure. So I'll just answer Martin's questions briefly, and attempt to apply this data to Genertela afterwards.
>(1). If the Persians were _all_ light inf why did they stand and
>fight at Plataea.
The Persian infantry were _all_ archers. This is not really subject to debate as practically all sources agree on this, including contemporary sources, both Greek and Persian. Read Delbruck, Xenophon, Persian martial poems of the period, etc. They had "native troops" inside the empire proper who fought in regimented ranks as a sort of piss-poor heavy infantry. The Greeks did comment on the Persians' lightness and of course they would -- the Greeks were used to a style of war in which there was _only_ heavy infantry.
That said, the Persians did also carry swords and spears as secondary weapons, and thus were able to double as both heavy and light infantry when the occasion was needed. At Plataea, the Persians used some of their archers as infantry. They made poor heavy infantry compared to the Greeks, but this wasn't the cause of their losing the Persian wars.
>2) If a majority of lights were superb missile men how come there
>were any heavies at all?
First, my statement that skilled and disciplined archers were the norm was a response to your apparent claim that most light troops historically have been trash. I was trying to point out that light troops are no likelier to be trash than heavy troops, that's all.
Second, light troops unsupported are easily massacred by heavy cavalry. They are also unsuitable for holding or taking positions, as the nature of their fighting style and weaponry forces them to be very mobile on the battlefield. Light troops need to have heavy soldiers present to defend against heavy cavalry, just as heavies need archers nearby to protect themselves against other archers or light cavalry. If the enemy has both light and heavy infantry, an army composed solely of archers is at a serious disadvantage.
>(3). I didn't say "peltasts rarely beat _unsupported_ hoplites"
cos >they did as you pointed out but only a complete banana would
deploy >unsupported heavies. What I was saying was that several
commentaries >after the Spartan defeat by the Thebans said (wrongly)
that the heavies days were numbered.
My point is, and has always been, just that unsupported light troops beat unsupported heavy troops, all things being equal. On the occasions where peltasts encountered hoplites by themselves, the hoplites were discommoded. The Thebans who beat the Spartans did so with heavy infantry, not archers, and anyone claiming the Spartan demise at Leuctra meant hoplites were useless deserved what he got when the Macedonians came to play.
>(4).The Immortals were melee troops as well as missile and their
>gear was well lighter than a Hoplite. Light troops can melee (like
>peltasts) and cos of their mobility they could beat heavies by
>flanking them. An example of this was the Romans against the
>Macedonian phalanx. They were being pushed back by the heavier
>phalangites until the Roman inf used their mobility to flank and
>break up the heavy formation.
All the Persians were melee troops as well as missile. But their primary function in battle was as missile-users. The bow was their main weapon, their symbol of war.
I can't think of a single time in history where light troops beat heavies by meleeing against them, unless the heavies had already had their formation disrupted by missile fire or something. The Romans vs. the Phalangites does not boost your point because of course the Romans were heavy troops, not light. Saying that the Romans were better than Phalangites is not a matter of different types of troops, but simply shows the interacting of two sub-varieties of heavy infantry.
Within each of the four categories of ancient war, there are better or worse quality troops. Thus, the Roman auxiliary archers were inferior to English longbowmen, but better than Viking archers. The heavy cavalry of the Saracens was inferior to the Crusaders' knights. The heavy cavalry of the Lunar Empire is probably inferior to the Bison and High Llama riders. But the Lunars' possession of good infantry means that they can beat the Praxians in almost any set-piece battle, no matter how good a general the Praxians have. Of course, the Praxians throughout history have tried not to fight such battles, but have stuck to raids.
Look at the experience of the Praxians vs. the Lunars. When they fought the Lunars at Moonbroth in a big conventional fight, the Praxians were whipped. Then, when the Lunars came marching through the desert to the Paps, warbands raided the Lunar wagons, cut off and killed isolated bands of men or foragers, and managed to harass the Lunars to such a great extent that by the time they arrived at the Paps they were eager to sign a generous treaty.
>5) I would like to point out that very few armies were purely
>professional, especially in the dark ages to medieval period. Most
>countries had a _core_ of professional troops and filled up the
>numbers with militias,
I'm not sure what the point is you're trying to make here, but no one could mobilize militia for foreign wars, and plenty of countries had full-time warriors, at least if you count knights as full-timers. Hardly anyone had a standing army -- just advanced nations like the Byzantines and Turks. A lot of nations relied on mercenaries in the later middle ages, but this wasn't a sign of unprofessionalism. There were a number of wars fought exclusively with mercenaries. Mercenaries were reliable troops, highly-skilled, and frequently nations would hire the same mercenaries year after year for decades on end, on a very long-term scale.
As far as the much-maligned "levies" and "militia" goes, they weren't all that bad. The Dutch city levies were quite effective in open warfare, and were known to defeat polished mercenaries. No one thought they were as good as the Swiss or Landsknecht, but they were pretty darn good for Sunday soldiers. The German states had a practice in which each village had a man -- basically a squire -- who was armored and equipped for war, and when war came, the squire, who was also the village's leader, judge, etc. went to war for his country. At the disaster of Tannenberg, thousands of these squires died, and the effect devastated Germany. Basically, thousands of little villages lost their leaders in one fell swoop.
>(6). Stragetically there_ is_ a difference between heavies and
>lights, mobility for one, staying power and defensive capability
for >another.
"Staying power" and "defensive capability" have nothing to do with strategy, except insofar as you generate a strategy based on your tactical abilities.
>(7). I refute the statement that my example of Alexander against
>the Scythians was "poor" . Am I missing the fact that Alexander had
>suddenly gained a large body of horse archers from somewhere?
Go read on the subject, instead of theorizing. Alexander had plenty of light cavalry than he had heavy. Most were javelin-armed, which is perfectly effective as a missile weapon. You don't need equal numbers of a particular weapon system in order to achieve balance.
>My main objection to all this is the persistent attempt to
simplify >a complex issue. Troops cannot be so easily classified
into >lights, mediums and heavies. Is a man using a poleaxe in close
>formation but with no armour a light? But he's in close formation
>so he must be a heavy? So I take his axe of him and give him a
bow, >he's then a light? Blaaa
See? You don't understand. YES a man using a poleax in close formation with no armor is heavy infantry. Armor has NOTHING to do with whether you are light or heavy. It only increases the power of heavies vis a vis one another.
If you take the axe away from a man and give him a bow then yes, he's now a light. That's the whole point. Missile-armed men are light troops. Melee-armed men are heavy troops. Naked Gauls were heavy troops. Chainmail-clad Turcopoles with crossbows were light troops. Don't Blaaa me until you know what you're talking about. I'm getting a little annoyed (just a little, tho). Please Martin, go read up on the subject.
Miniatures and wargame definitions of "light, medium, and heavy" are based primarily on armor and weaponry. I'm not using that terminology at all.
>Horse nomads and baggage trains: Your right of course, they (Sun
>Nomads) would have access to baggage train but this would severely
>limit their strategic mobility.
Sun Nomads, like all other mounted nomads since the world's beginning, doubtless carry out their raids without any baggage at all, relying solely upon foraging to maintain their animals and army. Hence, they must keep on the move at all times. If they can be trapped against a river bend or a mountain range, you can force the horse nomads into attacking you in order to get away.
A NOTE ON GENERTELAN STRATEGY
In the good old days on Earth, and in modern Genertela, it
is extremely difficult to force an army to engage in a battle that
it does not wish to fight. The problem here is that, assuming both
sides' armies are of roughly equal mobility, which is usually the
case, in order to engage in battle, you must (a) catch up to the
enemy, (b) form your army into a line of battle, and (c) engage.
Forming up into line of battle takes quite a while, and the foe can often get away while you're doing this. Rear guards since time immemorial rely on this fact to save their army. A rear guard sets up in a defensive position. The enemy comes upon them. To fight the rear guard, the army has to come out of march order, and into line of battle. Once you are all formed up and ready to fight, the rear guard marches away, the bastards. So you have to chase after them again until they set up another defensive position. Sometimes they fight for a little while and then run away, and sometimes you can cut them off and kill them all, but the point is that the main bulk of the enemy army is getting away while you waste your time on the rear guard.
Generals have only a limited number of ways to force battles in Genertela, and here are the most common ones.
Now, unless magic can force an army to fight, Genertelan battles will occur for these same reasons. Sadly, Dragon Pass and the other Gloranthan wargames do not simulate this particular aspect of ancient war, but instead are much more like a modern war, with a rough front line, small numbers of men fighting at any particular point, etc. Considering how long ago Dragon Pass etc. were designed, this is understandable, I guess.
Mark
>Anyway, I was hoping that Sandy, et al, might include some
comments >about which Genertelan cultures actually practice an Art
of War
Okay, here's my picks. The Lunars. The Kralori (they have an Art of _everything_). The Loskalmi. The Brithini. The Mostali. Maybe no one else, not formally. This isn't a fatal handicap, of course -- the warriors of medieval europe were neither innovative nor well-educated, but it is quite clear that despite their crude armies they were often masters at maneuver, strategy, and tactics. The tactics weren't sophisticated as possible, considering the primitive material they had to work with (infantry that could barely advance, no skirmishers, exceedingly unruly heavy cavalry, and armies that melted away after the summer months).
Now, the Lunar art of war is probably pretty sophisticated, along the lines of Machiavelli's rules. The newest manual on the subject is probably written by Hon-Eel, with notes by Jar-Eel.
The Kralori art of war is very traditional, stilted, and formalized. Does not mean that they're incompetent (remember Sun Tzu), but their soldiery may not be the greatest, considering their competition.
The Loskalmi have an art of war book that is probably almost completely bogus, like the British cavalry manual before WWI which pointed out solemnly that the power of the horse and terror of cold steel would easily overmaster the machinegun.
The Brithini have an art of war written ages ago and left unchanged, that works okay for them and would be unusable for anyone else. Stuff in it like "All soldiers who have not participated in at least four battles over the previous three centuries must undergo a refresher course."
The Mostali art of war is probably much like the Brithini in tone and usefulness, though not in specifics.
KINGDOM OF WAR
I agree with Peter Metcalfe that the Kingdom of War has no
formal staff college or military training. I am convinced that their
system of military leadership and promotion is as follows:
If the troops under your command fulfill their orders, you may be promoted.
If the troops under your command fail to fulfill their orders, you are executed, unless the blame clearly lies with a superior officer, in which case HE is executed.
A supreme commander _must_ win every single battle in which he commands, and he must have _always_ won every single skirmish in which he ever commanded. It does not matter if he won because he was skilled, clever, lucky, or just able to bribe the enemy general. It only matters that he won. By use of this technique, Death on a Horse now has a number of generals, ALL of whom are skilled, clever, or at least lucky, and all of whom are undefeated.
End of Glorantha Digest V2 #160
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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