Re: The Glorantha Digest V6 #620

From: Roderick & Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_jps.net>
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 17:58:57 -0700


Philippe Bourgeois aka yarblek asks:

>would any of you know of some good references on the gloranthan art of
warfare,
>from the cost and methods of recruiting an army, the cost of keeping,
general
>combat tactics. I don't know if there is glorantha-specific info about all
this
>but i would be interested to find out. My guesses would be that loskalmi is
like
>renaissance style english cavalry(before the rifles), the lunars would akin
to the
>roman, the orlanthi to the celts, picts, vikings etc, and the nomads by the
>mongols. these description gives a good estimate but naturally don't
include magic
>in their tactics which can make a huge difference.

There are no real hard and fast rules (hey, this is Glorantha we're talking about, and Greg...).

Most magic tends to cancel out in the battlefield, rather than being a game-winner. Formations play a big part in magic, and magic in formation. For instance, the simple Line formation is an Earth-magic formation, so a pure Air or Solar unit might not use it. The Solar formation is a circle, and of course there are variations (a filled circle, a one-rank circle, etc). Squares and lines are Earth formations, etc. Each formation has its advantages and disadvantages, and each has one type of formation that it can overwhelm, and one that can overwhelm it. Greg explained it as a Elemental wheel that goes:
Water ->Fire->Dark->Earth->Air->Water. Elements beat the element that follows it in the series. So if you know you are facing a primarily Earth army, you could hire some Darkness mercenaries who will have the greatest effect. The Elements also have mystical powers that beat the other elements, so Earth has the ability to stop flying things (an Air power).

Units have "feats" (for lack of a better term) that are magical/divine/mystical in nature. Each unit usually has a number of feats that it can employ, but may only use one at a time (it depends on the Esprit of the unit, most can only "concentrate" on one thing at a time). Each feat has specific rituals that attend it, like being in a specific formation, or doing or not doing certain things. *When* a unit performs the rituals for its feat determine how long the feat will last. If the unit spends days or weeks before the campaign working on the rituals, the feat might last a full year. If they spend hours before a battle, it might last all day. If they decide to perform the feats in the middle of the battle, it might last only a few minutes or an hour.

The Tactics of magic are When to call on the feat, and Which feat to call on. If you have one feat running, you can't just switch to another, you have to drop the one and perform the rituals for the other. Some commanders like having units with Campaign-long feats running because they can use those units to try and disrupt the enemy's rituals, other commanders like to keep their options open and only perform the rituals for short-term gain when they see an opening.

As far as equating Gloranthan cultures to Real world ones, there are many equivalences that can be made even within one culture. Some people like to have Myhtic Irish Orlanthi, some like Icelandic, some like Greek City state, etc. The Solar culture tends towards spearmen and horses, but there are so many variations on *that* theme that you can play with whatever you feel like. The Lunar Empire is big, and has room for all types, so a Lunar army might have old-style Solar Schiltrons (basically round phalanxes), Sun-worhipping nomadic horsemen, reformed Orlanthi hillfolk, peltast skirmishers, slinger skirmishers, dragoons (mounted infantry, who dismount to fight), Earth squares, etc. You can't really point to *one* exemplar and say "this is the way it is", since every city or province has its own styles of fighting, armor, preferred magic, etc.

As Hero Wars gets products out the door, you should start seeing more information flowing, but for now there are few definite "facts" for you.

Roderick


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