I was thinking last night about why infantry in combat in Warband finds itself always circling in individual fights and why no battle line is ever really established and why formations don't work at all.
In ancient warfare and martial tactics formations would collide with each other in tight formations before breaking and loosening up the ranks. I refer you to any manuscript detailing phalanx formations of any of the great Attican or Arcadian city-states, as well as Sparta, or Thracian or the famous Macedonian lines. Or perhaps Roman cohort formations of tightly packed legionaries. Go to the solid shield walls of the Nordic and Britannic warbands of the Dark Ages, there are countless tails of strong shield walls.
My point being through out history the hardest hitting tightly packed crack soldiers are often victors. Going back to how this relates to Warband, essentially I find that its all because the infantry has no real physical weight there is no push factor. I mean that you have no way of knocking down an opponent. I feel like this is a largely overlooked part of martial combat and without it infantry men are just going to run around and swing much like we do currently. Perhaps introducing a quick charge or sprint while blocking to give a knock down charge. This is different from a shield bash because it requires the whole body to move and sprint. And this raises another question about Warband. Why was there never a sprint button? Going back to my suggestion, defending against a shield charge would require dodging it or returning with your own shield charge perhaps.
Maybe I'm talking out of my ass but I think combat needs to be redefined to attune to something similar to this instead of what we have today. Thoughts?
In ancient warfare and martial tactics formations would collide with each other in tight formations before breaking and loosening up the ranks. I refer you to any manuscript detailing phalanx formations of any of the great Attican or Arcadian city-states, as well as Sparta, or Thracian or the famous Macedonian lines. Or perhaps Roman cohort formations of tightly packed legionaries. Go to the solid shield walls of the Nordic and Britannic warbands of the Dark Ages, there are countless tails of strong shield walls.
My point being through out history the hardest hitting tightly packed crack soldiers are often victors. Going back to how this relates to Warband, essentially I find that its all because the infantry has no real physical weight there is no push factor. I mean that you have no way of knocking down an opponent. I feel like this is a largely overlooked part of martial combat and without it infantry men are just going to run around and swing much like we do currently. Perhaps introducing a quick charge or sprint while blocking to give a knock down charge. This is different from a shield bash because it requires the whole body to move and sprint. And this raises another question about Warband. Why was there never a sprint button? Going back to my suggestion, defending against a shield charge would require dodging it or returning with your own shield charge perhaps.
Maybe I'm talking out of my ass but I think combat needs to be redefined to attune to something similar to this instead of what we have today. Thoughts?