[Glorantha] Re: Glorantha Digest, Vol 12, Issue 384

[John Machin]

On 9/16/06, Donald R. Oddy <donald at grove.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I see the Pol Joni (who I believe come from a Pentan background) as
> light cavalry while the Elmali are mainly medium cavalry. Of course
> some of the Pol Joni will be armoured light cavalry.

Sort of Sarmatian influenced then? Mostly skirmishing lighter cavalry
with the wealthy as more heavily armoured lancers?

> This is the sort of thing I object to about most sets of wargames
> rules - making everything fit the classical troop types. Hedkoranth
> are not light infantry, they are a warrior cult and will fight with
> the rest of the clan warband. Just because the Greeks and Romans
> didn't generally have mixed units doesn't mean no one else did.

Well sometimes Alexander's pezetairoi would fight as pikemen, and
other times they'd deploy less coherently as a kind of heavy peltast
(I kind of want to say "like thureophoroi" but I don't believe they
used the thureos shield).

Hedkoranth slingers could always deploy seperately to ambush or to
deal with big monster things (if they Lunars have "elephant
equivalents" for example)?

> I'm not sure what you mean by "Auxilia" here. Weaponthanes are
> the basis of the clan warband fighting in a loose formation as
> suits the individual and the situation. AIUI this is precisely
> what the "Warband" troop type in wargames rules is supposed to
> represent. However that seems to have become a "horde of mediocre
> barbarians" unit. The Orlanthi warband represents an elite,
> well equipped and trained, superior in the right circumstances
> to long serving regular soldiers.

Auxilia [Ax], which in my opinion is a pretty poor choice of name on
the part of designers, represent:
"foot able to fight individually hand to hand and to skirmish but
emphasizing mobility in difficult terrain rathen than cohesion or
aggression"
Which sounds a lot like how I imagined "modern" Sartarites who seemed,
to me at least, to be out of their "crushing empires" phase for the
moment (recalling the whole "they have nothing we want" but from
Thunder Rebels).

To continue with the pseudo-military-history blither...
Defensively oriented clans might have such troops amongst their
warband (Iranian and Indo-Iranian hillmen are often classed as
auxilia). The grading of the troops (superior/ordinary/inferior, etc)
tends to determine whether a given bunch of troops are mediocre or
not. Despite their apparently lesser Combat Factors (although Ax are
identical to Wb in this respect), Ax do not receive the heavy
penalties for fighting foot in rough or difficult terrain. I suspect
that this would make grading as Ax a popular choice for Sartarites
since I would expect them to make use of their rugged native terrain.

> The way I'd organise an army would be around clan units of
> spearmen (the fyrd) with subunits of warband and skirmishers.

In some cases, such as drawing an enemy to battle in bad terrain, Ax
are superior to Sp (mechanically), and I also think that the mix of
spear + shield + javelins (i.e Ax) represents the fyrd better than
grading as Sp.

I think that a clan on the defensive might prefer deployment as Ax,
with a core of Wb(F) for counterattacks; while a clan on the offensive
might prefer a lot more Wb(F) with a little Ax for protecting
baggage/sacrificing priests/etc. Ancient Orlanthi might have been
Wb(S) in their full panoply of magic and mail, but I think that these
days are behind (or ahead?) of the Sartarites for now.

> OK a strong leader can persuade the clans to detach their
> warbands and skirmishers to form up together but I'll bet
> it involves lots of argument when it happens.

I have no problems with saying that only a certain "grade" of king can
require his followers to do such things. :)

-- 
John Machin
"Nothing is more beautiful than to know the All."
- Athanasius Kircher, 'The Great Art of Knowledge.