Troll tactics

From: Jim Heaton <jmh1_at_bolton.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 12:58:09 +0000

>> his headlong attack. Trolls may be good guerilla fighters but on the
>> battlefield they are headlong warriors and the Orlanthi know this which is why
>> they aren't all dead and trolls don't rule the universe.
>Now this is a problem I've always had with the way the trolls are
>described -- long detail about how the trolls are the ultimate ambush
>fighters, then ZZ is described as the "Hrrrah- over the top and charge
>the trenches!" cult. How many perfectly good ambushes are ruined when the
>stupid ZZers charge on out? And why are _Orlanthi_ smart enough to adapt,
>but not trolls, mmm?

>Me thinks the trolls -- even the ZZers -- are capable of a wee bit more
>subtlety, and that the "headlong warriors" business is a human bias --

I can't say I see the two as mutually incompatible, after all it was an attack from ambush by supposed berserk savages (German tribes) that destroyed a Roman legion in the Teutoberger Wald in the 1st century and an ambush by the traditionally wild tribesmen of the Iceni which Boudicca employed to annihilate Legio IX.

Berserk (or barbaric) is not the same as tactically naive.

Best Wishes,

Jim Heaton.

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