>If you want warrior-monks like the knights Templar, ok. Would
>be a subcult, and about as obscure ast the Templars within
>general chivalry.
The Knights Templar may be obscure now, but at their height, they were not at all obscure. They were arguably the most powerful institution in Europe. They were certainly in the top three, with the Pope and the most powerful secular leader (not necessarily the king) in either France or England (depending on the time frame, which I can't exactly recall). Their current obscurity is due to the fact that they were suppressed, rather ruthlessly, probably by a conspiracy between the french king and the Pope. A good story that has some historical evidence to back it up is that their Paris temple managed to get word ahead of time and fled, leaving an empty building, which was something of a shock to the French king, who was expecting to capture a very rich treasury. (The templars were also Europe's first bankers, way ahead of the Italians.) There is a little evidence to say that they fled by ship to Scotland. Then there is pure conjecture that they fought at (here my British history fails me) the Bannockburne(?) against King Edward the Black (?). The English losers said that they were winning the battle when suddenly a third force appeared on the field. The Scots say it was a bunch of irregular gillies that had been held in reserve. The speculating historians wonder why mounted, armor clad knights would have fled from light infantry irregulars.
David Cake:
>Now, anyone in our world attempting to charge a phalanx would
>almost certainly fare a lot worse.
Nils Weinander <nilsw_at_ibm.net>:
>The romans proved with perfect adequacy that a phalanx was by no
>means undefeatable, at Pydna in 167 BC. As a matter of fact they
>charged the phalanx...
In fact, Roman legionary infantry was the best fighting unit in the classical world. Romans used troops from their (typically conquered) allies to provide troops other than legionary infantry and (extremely lame) "noble" cavalry. However, they made sure that the allies never outnumbered the legionary infantry by more than 2 to 1 (in normal time 1 to 1), in case the unreliable allies would decide the revolt. They could rely on the legionary infantry to quash rebellion among any other troops, including phalanx pike and lancer cavalry.
Pike phalanxes typically carried big ol' heavy shields. Roman pila (javelins) had barbed heads so that they stuck in shields and had hafts of soft metal so that they bent on impact. The result was that they were very hard to remove from your shield before the legion smashed into your front line (especially if both your hands were full of pike). This made using the shield both awkward and tiring.
Note that cavalry at the time had not yet developed the stirrup, so lances were not nearly as effective as in medieval times. This is probably what the grounded pike was not as popular as in medieval times--it was much easier to push the rider off the horse.
From his previous posts, it looks like Jim Heaton may be able to correct the factual errors that, no doubt, infest the above.
Andrew Barton <100010.533_at_CompuServe.COM>:
>David rightly points out that the availability of magic means that
>' ... Gloranthans are readily able to use tactics that simply wouldn't
>work in the real world.'
>
>This is a good point - in fact it's one of my pet arguments that we don't
>take enough account of how magic affects what goes on in warfare in
>fantasy worlds.
The silliest thing of all is major fortifications that are open to the air, like most medieval castles. Surely spells permitting flying, jumping, and climbing like a spider would put paid to the idea that a major fortification can lack a roof.
On the darkwall/lightwall tactics thread, it would make sense for short beings (e.g. dwarves& runners) to cast either type just above their own head height when fighting taller beings (e.g. humans). To see them, the tall being has to stoop or crawl around, which is not a very effective fighting style. The shorties can run around behind them, dodge around an fire missiles, or whatever, without the tall ones being able to both see and reach them easily.
Historically yours,
Chris Lemens
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #270
WWW at http://rider.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/Rolegame/glorantha.faq.html
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