Malkion,missiles, and melee

From: Steve Lieb <styopa_at_iname.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Oct 1998 10:11:36 -0500


>From: Bryan Maloney <bjm10_at_cornell.edu>
>
>Would it be unreasonable to posit a combination of Stygian and "Saint"
>style worship somewhere in the Lunar Empire?
If you haven't seen them already, Nick Brooke's extensive Malkionism pages have the House Zemady campaign detailed, and their sect is a Lunarized Malkionism.

breaks inserted to make life easier for digest-skimmers
>>Certainly I can't think of a Gloranthan reference to archers winning a
>>battle (such as Agincourt), but I'd be surprised if Dara Happa doesn't
>>field some archers.

I think one has to note that meterologically, England and northern France (the only places where archers DOMINATED) are pretty darn calm. It makes a *huge* difference if you are shooting in a prevailing 1-2 mph wind vs 10mph winds. Japan, India, etc all had very significant archer forces, but I don't really think they commanded quite the position the "Longbowmen" did, but this too might be simple historio-cultural blinders. I think this is worth considering.
In Glorantha, Genertela is subject to pretty high average winds for most of the year (except really only earth season, when people are busy bringing in crops!). Now in this context, one might think that societies that live entirely in sheltered areas (say, for example forests....like the Aldryami...logical connection there...) or perhaps Fonrit (where the winds are pretty moderate most of the spring) might have developed strong bow-using forces.
The fact is that the calmest part of Glorantha during "war season" (Fire) is east of Magasta's pool.

That said, I would also suggest that would be an explanation for large complements of slingers in Genertelan armies (better in wind), short-missile troops (short ranges are less affected by wind) and crossbowmen where technologically possible (Loskalm? Safelster?).



>RPGs rules were generally extensions to skirmish game rules when they
>came out. A lot of Wargamers liked identifying with the combatants and
>boiiiinnnnng, RPGs were born. Now, this isn't to say that traditional
>Wargamers won't enjoy HW: They probably will, but not for the combat
>system as most would have a laugh at the level of abstraction in HW for
>small unit actions.
>

There's a question - there used to be a lot of discussion about the WarHamster rules for simulating larger scale combats - how would this work in HW (pardon me for being a wargamer):)

>------------------------------

Powered by hypermail