[Glorantha] Beware, beware...

In message <11289425.1159265274208.JavaMail.www@wwinf3003> Mark Galeotti writes:
>Comrades!
>
>Fascinated though I have been by much of the recent debates on matters
>cultural and military, can I just sound a warning note about excessive
>devotion to partial, particular and preliminary sources?
>
>1. WBRM/DP are great games, but their orbats and unit strengths are as
>much as anything else products of the need for game balance as anything
>else. There seems to me only so much that can be read from them. For
>example, it is clear that there are mounted Heortling units; however,
>the thought that they are as effective or more so than professional
>cavalry seems hard to sustain unless you
>(a) revise what we know about the essentially centripetal nature of
> Orlanthi society and posit large tribal-level standing armies or
>(b) simply assume that the Sartar units represent larger fomations
> than their Lunar counterparts. Or
>(c) just accept that the counters aren't reliable as data at this level.

Or
(d) assume the combat values reflect the effectiveness of the unit

    in the terrain of Dragon Pass rather than their ability as a     particular type of unit. After all the hexes in WBRM/DP are     about three miles across so it's not like a game where units     are lined up on a battlefield.

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