[Glorantha] Re: Army, Cavalry, Block

In message <20060917081400.99326.qmail@web27201.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Jane Williams writes:

>I would point out here that we have a historical
>parallel. Brits trying to resist invasion by Saxons,
>and failing miserably. When someone did turn up with
>the charisma, political ability, or whatever, to join
>up warriors from a range of tribes, mount the whole
>lot and train them to work together, he not only
>kicked the Saxons out (well, back), he's still famous
>for it about 1500 years later, even if the details
>have been somewhat mangled in story-telling
>translation.

I don't think Arthur was the only one. I remember reading about another king who managed it at about the same time. But it requires a lot of gold, authority and diplomacy to get it to happen.

>But until Sartar's magic is back and fully functional
>(not only the Flame lit, but no civil war going on
>betwen rivals to the throne), I don't see cross-tribal
>cavalry units happening. And that's not until Kallyr's
>dead and Argrath (whichever one) is the only claimant
>to be King of Sartar. Which is, I believe, when the DP
>boardgame was set?

The earliest scenario is set when Argrath's appearance has been heralded but he's not yet arrived. It then carries on through the Hero Wars. It's unclear what timescale that's supposed to cover but it talks about many invasions both of Sartar by the Lunars and Tarsh by Argrath so I'd imagine it's a least a decade, maybe twenty or thirty years. Of course not all the counters are used in every scenario.

The other issue which needs to be borne in mind is that the mechanics of the boardgame require fitting the troops available into units which produce a sensible range of combat factors while maintaining interest by having different types of unit. So a counter described as "Sartarite city militia" is probably a conglomeration of city guardsmen, fyrds from several local clans and the odd warband or two.

>> Bullocks, Twin Spears and Sword Brothers are the
>> (non-magical) elite cavalry of Prince Argrath,
>
>I'm less convinced: the Sword Brothers sound Humakti
>to me. All of these sound like cult-specific
>hero-bands. They may well be mounted, but that's
>incidental.

Is there anything which says that Humakti can't be cavalry? Certainly they have the organisation which would allow for proper cavalry training and the cult could have the resources. Indeed as I argue below Argrath is seriously short of real cavalry while the Lunars have plenty so it makes a lot of sense to have one of his most disciplined forces train as cavalry.

>> All of them mounted for quick deployment, but IMO
>> quite a few dismounting for actual combat (except
>> for initial skirmishing.
>
>I still think what you have with almost any Sartarite
>army are two basic troop types, not the multitudenous
>array of TLAs with added brackets. There's the
>warband. And there's the fyrd. There are enough horses
>around that the warband can be moved by horse if
>required. In terms of fighting style, both lots adapt
>to what's required at the time. You want a shieldwall,
>they form a shield wall. Want skirmishers, they can do
>that as well. Need cavalry, the warband mount up. And
>yes, they can change roles mid-battle. Demarcation has
>not yet been invented.

Formal demaraction hasn't but I don't believe even the warband is this incredibly multi-skilled organisation you are talking about. Certainly the fyrd aren't - they can just about keep formation and fend off attacks as long as the Starkvali leader keeps their morale up.

Sure the warband can ride but mounting warriors on horses doesn't make cavalry. That's why they should be regarded as mounted infantry, they might charge an already broken enemy (easier to catch up when you're on a horse) but they won't use cavalry tactics. And they'll lose badly if they ever try and charge a real cavalry unit. Just as an infantry unit has a greater effect when they protect each other and co-ordinate their fighting so do cavalry but it's a heck of a lot harder to keep a bunch of horsemen working together than footmen. Similarly they aren't skirmishers, you can't avoid the enemy easily if you are wearing a lot of armour and anyway what real warrior is going to run away from the enemy?

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/