> I ask myself, though, whether flying cavalry in an
>engaged battle is really a bright idea. (Mind you, if
>it's possible, it will happen.)
[snip]
> The major advantages of such cavalry might are their
>inherent manoeuvrability, plus great recon. Once the
>two sides are engaged, flying archers are mostly just
>a danger to both sides.
Depends on your battlefield tactics. I see the Grazelanders operating as hordes of light cavalry so mostly riding round shooting arrows and hurling javlins. Doing that from above is perfectly practical. They do have "regular cavalry" but not "shock cavalry" so they don't have much incentive to actually engage - at least not until the enemy are running away.
> I can see one other huge danger they can present - a
>crushing ground charge into an unprotected rear. If
>both sides have flying powers though, then you have
>dogfights all over the air. As in WWI, with not too
>much effect on the troops below. Both sides need the
>air abilities, but once both have them, not a lot
>changes. It's still the ground troops that take the
>battlefield.
It's tempting to think of all flyers as a single troop type but they aren't - at the very least there will be the three different ones mentioned in the HQ rules for cavalry (regular, skirmish and shock). Few cultures will have all three. And then there will be the ways of countering flyers - different depending on which flyers the culture is used to facing.
I can imagine this will mean that a lot of our images of Gloranthan warfare are inaccurate - anything as fundamental as magic is in Glorantha means certain RW tactics won't work and new ones will be possible.
I'm sure there's a facinating discussion of how magic of all sorts affects tactics but it's far to esoteric to be appropriate for this list.
-- Donald Oddy dyhttp://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
Powered by hypermail