I agree with you Andrew but you are talking apples and oranges in this case - no swordsman can stand alone on the battlefield unless its ritualised like the Samurai combats. However there are situations when a swordsman will have a considerable advantage but I still doubt that even a great weaponsmaster can defeat four or five soldiers at once.
What people are forgetting is that skill doesn't necessarily indicate capability. A weaponsmaster will know countless superlative moves to defeat _skilled_ opponents. Most of their technique and time will be geared around the skills required to defeat someone of their level. Stick them against some guy with an axe and they'll have a very difficult time of it because the untrained or poorly trained man will do instinctual things, unpredictable things and is consequently very difficult to hit indeed - if there are several such fellows, determined and courageous, then they'll bring any weaponsmaster down.
As an example - I teach fencing and there is nothing more frustrating to fight than a beginner because all your "oh so subtle" moves are useless because the idiot you are fighting doesn't even notice that you've just feinted six times and thus does not follow your blade - this has the same effect as a fellow who is superbly skilled and knows by body posture, stance and blade movement when you are _really_ attacking and sees the feints for what they are! Of course an experienced swordsman will beat a beginner to 9 out of 10 strikes but its messy and fraught with risk - a group of them is tough or fatal but you can often win by psychology.
Frex in grand melees in fencing, all people fence all people, whole body is target, all people have a varying number of wounds which you lose every time you are hit - last person with wounds left is the winner. I found that I barely fought for the first few minutes because people saw me coming and avoided me - looked for easier pickings - even though it was in their best interest to kill me quickly so they might win - I only did my real fighting when the survivors turned on me and they were all tired out so usually I won.
Now in Glorantha imagine the impact of seeing a Sword of Humakt on the field of battle or a Storm Khan - wouldn't _you_ avoid these guys? The only people who don't are those looking for a name or the peers of the hard warriors.
Skill is all very well but psychology is even more important - one often leads to an edge in the other but sometimes one can have skill without creating fear and vice versa. The Rune Level is obvious because they emanate such power that deep down in your soul you know you are facing someone who is an expert at what they do.
>As for handedness - for several centuries the Roman Empire at its peak
>depended on the skill of its legionary infantry, equipped with sword,
>shield and javelins, serving for twenty-five years and drilling and training
>nearly every day of that time. We have their drill-books, we have works
>such as Vegetius' 'Strategems' entirely composed of dirty tricks a general
>can play on his enemy. In all this, there's no mention of training your men
>to fight left-handed. If you're going to argue that such training can be an
>effective tactic for large groups of men, you have to explain why it was
>that no Roman ever thought to try it!
I think its more likely that no-one was allowed to be left handed in those days - - people often weren't allowed to in schoold in Britain only up to the 1980s so its hardly surprising that the Romans didn't mention it. However, just because the Romans didn't do it, doesn't mean its not a worthwhile tactic. There are probably cultures in Glorantha that use this approach.
Martin Laurie
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