Re: (TFT) Miscellaneous Comments

[Brett Slocum <brett.slocum@gmail.com>]

If you're going to be this nitpicky about specific damage types, just play
GURPS.
On Oct 21, 2015 3:32 AM, "David Bofinger" <bofinger.david@gmail.com> wrote:

> ​Various thoughts:
>
> * On one-hex charges: remember that the characters may have been charging
> toward each other for six turns, and just happen to have finished last tu
rn
> two hexes apart. For more realism we could say that to get double damage
> from a charge the characters need to either start three hexes apart or at
> least one of them must have not been engaged during the previous turn.��
> �‹
> Would that work?
>
> >> a
> ​
> n impaling attack is far more effective in killing an opponent than a
> slashing attack is.
>
> ​Not sure that's true: the stab might hit something vital but it 
mi
> ght also
> miss everything critical and the slash is very likely to open up an arter
y.
>
> What slashing attacks can't do is penetrate ​decent armour. Again
st
> unarmoured opponents they were fine, hence their use in the gunpowder era
,
> by Japanese who only wore light wooden armour, by stone age cultures like
> the Aztec, Inca and Polynesians.
>
> ​"​
> ​
> If you look at history the spear, halberd and even the pike were never th
e
> dominate weapon in the field post bronze age (Greeks and Romans) ...
> ​
> The fact is they just weren't as effective as the cutting and bashing
> weapons in producing damage."
>
> There are so many things I disagree with here it's hard to list them all.
>
> ​* Romans aren't bronze age. Not sure if this affects your argume
nt
> .
>
> * There's a bewildering diversity of polearms. Even if no individual type
> is dominant, add them all up and they're huge.
>
> * Halberds were pretty important for quite a while​. When hardene
d
> plate
> got good (I suspect this is the time you're thinking about) then halberds
> couldn't penetrate but they didn't just die out, they mutated into the
> pollaxe, which is basically a halberd optimised for armour penetration. T
he
> pollaxe (not poleaxe, it's from a Danish word meaning "head") took over
> from it for a while before guns made the armour go away and opened up the
> field again. These are all pole weapons.
>
> * If a halberd is not a cutting weapon, what is? If you want a bashing
> version, it's called a lucerne hammer.
>
> ​* Spears were very big during the dark ages. I don't know what o
th
> er
> weapon you'd call dominant.​ Sure, short stabby swords and proto-
ar
> ming
> swords and the occasional axe were all about but none of them beats the
> spear for importance and ubiquity.
>
> >>
> ​
> As far as bronze age cavalry goes, other than horse archers, they really 
we
> ren't
> >> very effective until the Goths brought the stirrup with them as they
> ​>> ​
> invaded the Roman Empire.
>
> * There's a long gap between the bronze age and the Goths.
>
> * There's also a substantial gap between the Gothic invasion of the empir
e
> and the Avars bringing the stirrup to Europe.
>
> > ​
> Imagine, if you will, a knight without stirrups trying to charge someone.
>
> * Don't need to: they existed and we know what they looked like. They wer
e
> called a deghan (Persian), clibanarius (Western Roman? I forget) or
> cataphract (Byzantine). There were definitely effective without stirrups,
> though admittedly stirrups later made them better.
>
> ---
> David (the other one)
>
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