Thanks for this; interesting commentary.
IMHO, however, the psychological advantage of archers in real life is
likely to be devastating. This is impossible to simulate in any kind
of non-lethal sparring or re-enactment. It's hard to charge when you
know that one hit could kill or incapacitate you, adn the opponent
gets first shot. IMHO this is one of those situations in which many
people lose involuntary muscle control.
Having said that, clearly people did charge archers in RL. Heck, they
even charge machine guns!
Just another 2 cents.
- In hw-rules_at_yahoogroups.com, "Terry Harvey-Chadwick"
<terryhc_at_o...> wrote:
> The archers in question tend to use 35lb bows, with birding blunts,
so yes,> they are a bit slower than "proper" arrows. However, even at
that poundage,> and with rubber ends (about 1/2" across at the end)
it really hurts if you> get shot, and you will get a very big bruise,
so you are concentrating VERY> hard on keeping your shield in the way
of those arrows. Of course, in real> life, if you were facing a
longbowman or crossbowman, you wouldn't stand> much of a chance even
with a large shield, as the arrow or bolt would go> straight through
it and into you. However, I would expect that most of the
> bows encountered in a game would be of the short, or hunting,
variety so> most arrows would simply embed in the shield (although
you will still want> to be very careful of the nasty sharp arrow head
sticking through your> shield). However, Westerners, and possibly
some Lunars, and the Aoleans of> Heortland, might use longbows or
crossbows.
>
> So yes, there will be exceptions to what I posted previously, but I
reckon> that most people will do quite well against a single archer
using CC &> shield.
>
> Terry
>