M Helsdon

One thing to bear in mind is that in Glorantha there isn't any one way to portray the Runes; styles differ even among the Theyalans. These are pre-industrial cultures, and uniformity and stardardization are unlikely to present, save among dwarves... The God Learners probably created a standard 'font', but it is unlikely that many outside the West still use it? For that matter, a Movement Rune with three, four or more arms is still a Movement Rune.

There's evidence that there were entire 'regiments' of Sarmatians in Britannia at one point, and the Romans had adopted their draco standards earlier. But... the entire period lapses into such confusion that finding the real war leader Artorius is nigh impossible. [It always strikes me as amusing that few people realise that C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine sf books have a heavy Arthurian background, in which the reason the terrestrial period is such a mess is the results of time quakes caused by the qhal misuse of the Gates, and the human cultures encountered are developments of Brythonic cultures lost in time and space, sometimes by thousands of years...] Maybe in six months or more I'll have some illustrations to share...

Knight is one of those terms that can be either very loaded towards the idea of a European knight, chivalry etc. or more generally as simply a cavalry soldier (though given the cost of supplying and maintaining a mount, unless the army is heavily state run, often such cavalry are drawn from the elite...) I am tending to use it as an aristocratic rider. Of course a Man-of-All riding a Daron horse is a member of their society's elite, but I am tending to use the term to relate to a talari mounted fighter, but am not using 'squire' or 'page', even though there's evidence of the Sassanid cavalry, for example, having very similar posts, but they come with too much medieval baggage.

I am at the point of detailing Fronelan history from a military perspective; the Kingdom of War (in both of its aspects) will be covered, but I have very little information about it, and at present no insight of its hundred war cults. The little I know of the Army of Tomorrow doesn't amount to very much. Am not certain if it is still canonical.

Am now steadily working on the sequel, though it may take a year to finish, as I'd prefer to have an illustration on every second or third page, and can't think of those at present. I have now 'finished' the sections on the Brithini, Hsunchen, and Seshnela, and am starting on Fronela (resulting in about thirty pages). The main source is obviously the Guide, and material Jeff has published online, so there's quite a bit of supposition, and I would dearly love access to any unpublished material... However, I have made use of an appendix pulled out of 'Armies & Enemies' which was titled 'Beasts of War' as it included some material about the Hsunchen. [Finished means there's text in there, but it is draft and will be supplemented as new ideas and information arrive.] Have heard rumors of a (short) Talor Saga but never had sight of it, though I have seen the incomplete Arkat's Saga, and that means the sections on Arkat present an Arkat who is a bit different to the hero presented in published sources; if this differs from canon it is intentional for reasons explored in the... footnotes. The general structure is a brief assessment of climate and terrain, then history, and then an overview of (mostly) Third Age forces, so for Seshnela there's over a page on talari knights and about two or three pages on the holari Martial Beasts war societies. I am attempting to avoid any late Iron Age flavor. For the Seshnelans the various Persian/Parthian/Sassanid 'knights' and ancient Indian warfare has been used as models. Now suspect that one of the reasons Brithos disappeared was game balance, as Brithini horali are very very tough, with centuries of experience and sorcery backing them up, each perhaps the equal of a Hero, and there were hundreds of them.

Yes, it is confusing, and intended to be so, there's even a footnote about it! The other corps are well established in canon, but the field army corps were derived from a document Jeff kindly shared with me, which detailed the field armies of the south and east. These field armies probably have their origin in the earlier Dara Happan field armies. A level of well defined doubt and uncertainty lends both wriggle room, and realism, as ancient armies (even those of the Successors and Romans) weren't as neat and tidy as modern military organisations. In the Lunar system pretty much any unit, of any of the corps, can be reallocated to another, including augmenting the provincial army, the exceptions being the Cavalry Corps which consists solely of cavalry and of course the Magical. If you have a copy of 'Armies & Enemies' there should be some extras at the back of the latest pdf, including the strengths of the Lunar Army in different regions and years, which conveys just how fluid things are, and the losses, and the ability of the Lunars to rebuild relatively rapidly (though newer units are often basically militia).

All the provincial kingdom armies had a regimental structure, sometimes local, sometimes, as with many Tarsh regiments partially or wholly Lunarized. Some were basically a militia and others highly professional. In both cases, the provincial armies were augmented by regiments from the Lunar Army. As Harald has noted, you may find https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296535/The-Armies-and-Enemies-of-Dragon-Pass?src=hottest_filtered of interest. The Lunar Army was divided into various corps, based on their type and their allocation to field armies. The Lunar Army has a complicated organization.

The books I have (haven’t read all of the last two yet): Warfare in Ancient India – Organization and Operational Dimensions – Uma Prasad Thapliyal Ancient Indian Warfare – Sarva Daman Singh Indian Warfare – S K Bhakari Military Thinking of Ancient India – Shekhar Adhikari Most of the material is drawn from the epics, and I am very doubtful of the claims of rules for just or righteous war, given that one of the books gives details of atrocities - which seem to be normal to humans everywhere in the same sort of time frame, and the fact that descriptions are given of unjust warfare.

Although any publication is a long way off (if it happens) I am (slowly) working on the Armies & Enemies sequel which has the tentative title Men of the West. So far I have covered Brithos, and am working through Seshnela, plus a short section on the Western method of manufacturing bronze swords (based on how Chinese bronze swords were made) to a total of about 25 pages. At present am attempting to capture information, so the actual order of material is likely to alter. Because of circumstances, my free time is severely constrained, so I am only spending an hour or two a day at most. I know that Jeff is working on the West, especially the religions, so I am very mindful of not attempting to capture too much about the varieties of Malkionism (though inevitably it is a major factor). To make things distinctly un-medieval, I am especially reading books about Sassanid and Ancient Indian warfare (most of the latter sourced from bookshops in Delhi! Abebooks is very useful). This highlights a distinct problem if you are not an academic with access to university libraries - it is quite hard to find books about cultures other than European or Near Eastern. Some people have suggested an Eastern sequel, but my knowledge of Chinese and South East Asian ancient history is fairly limited - a couple of Ospreys, a similar book by another publisher on the Tang, and two books on Chinese Bronze Age warfare, neither of which are very illuminating, though the construction of chariots in ancient China is distinct, and the battlefield 'tower' chariots giving a general a raised view intriguing. I could write an article on Teshnan warfare, but it wouldn't be very long. If anyone knows of a decent (and not outrageously priced) book on ancient Chinese warfare I would be grateful.

In addition to being weapons, daggers are 'multitools', used for everything from preparing meat, eating with, doing repairs to equipment, etc.

Most infantry Humakti Battalions carry a throwing spear in addition to their swords. If they can disrupt the front of a pike phalanx with their javelins, they can run in to exploit any breaks.

Yes, that's why the classical phalanx didn't do well against the Macedonian. However, what that doesn't show is that the phalangites were in even closer order than used by hoplites, and hoplites/hypaspists were retained, because they were useful in covering the flanks of a pike phalanx, and a bit more adaptable to more rugged terrain.. The phalangite's shield is a small/medium shield, not large - effectively a hoplite shield without the rim. Here's an illustration from The Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass.

The secondary weapons for many Yelmalion units are based primarily upon Army Lists by Greg and Jeff. The latest Army List I have gives several Yelmalions swords of various types. Giving Yelmalion phalangites swords as secondary weapons is probably mine, based in part because of real world usage, and by the fact that in the press of a pike phalanx, there isn't any room to swing a weapon - instead stabbing and thrusting would be the only way to use a secondary weapon, be it a long dagger or a sword. A phalangite phalanx by its nature provides far tighter spacing even than a hoplite phalanx, because the smaller shields don't overlap and because of the posture required to use a two-handed pike. Regarding training, we have some evidence that historical phalangites went through very extensive training in using their pikes in formation (very necessary, when you consider the length of these pikes and the close spacing between files), but there is little to nothing about any training for their secondary weapons (which they carried), in part, I suspect, because if you are in the press of a phalanx, there's no room for any fancy use of a sword, other than stab, stab, stab. No finesse, no skill as such, just strength and tenacity. If not fighting in a phalanx, a phalangite would probably prefer to use a shorter spear - pikes are pretty useless in one-to-one combat as the duel between Dioxippus (naked, oiled, carrying a club) and Coragus (wearing phalangite armor, using a pike, shield, sword) demonstrated: Dioxippus broke the pike with his club, wrestled Coragus to the ground, and got him in a hold that would have been fatal if Alexander hadn't stopped the fight.

In the HeroQuest Glorantha rulebook, one of the characters is a Lunar renegade sorcerer. The Lunar Empire and the Lunar religion are so complex, there are always going to be individuals and groups who do not believe the mainstream Lunar ideology to be correct. Such people are likely to find it easy to side with anyone who is an enemy of the mainstream Lunar Way, though they will be distrusted and viewed with suspicion, until they prove themselves.

Jomes survived to command the retreat of Lunar units from Boldhome, I believe.

I'm not going to chase the poster for copyright infringement, though I do wish they had checked with me first. They also get the details of my bereavement wrong, but then English isn't their first language. https: website adddress deleted. Additional: the poster has come forward, and I have given them permission to use the material.

Once Rurik is installed as Count, the Vanntar regiments fight for Argrath...

Afraid I have no insight into the process - if it reliant upon me creating a black & white document, then it will be some time, as real life has intervened.

One thing to consider, that in a Bronze/Iron Age setting even the 'same' god will have cults with greater and lesser variations in ritual, dogma, and a variety of other things, so there isn't a Yelmalio cult but a variation of Yelmalio cults. Those temples in Saird will be broadly similar (but not identical) whilst those further away will deviate further, either because the cult has changed due to regional circumstances, and/or because the cult retains features from the past. In that scenario, Elmal is simply another divergent form. I'm probably wrong, but the version in RQ:G will reflect the cult in Dragon Pass/Prax, as, probably, the Cults books will - because attempting to document cultic variations would be of little interest to most readers, and add significantly to the size of the books. It is worth bearing in mind the very different features of a cult that isn't totally dissimilar to Yelmalio: Mithras. Mithras was seen as a god of light, truth and contracts, in addition to being a soldiers' god. You can rest assured that the cults of Mithras within the western and eastern portions of the Roman Empire weren't identical, and these in turn differed from the Commagene cult of Mithras-Helios, Armenian Mihr, the Persian cult of Mithra, the Indian cult of Mitra, the Greco-Bactrian Mithro, the Hittite/Hurrian Miitra, and perhaps even the Buddhist Maitreya...

Hopefully the updated PDF will be uploaded in the near future (and have since found and fixed two errors). Sales of Armies & Enemies are pretty much stalled now, but have reached a respectable number. Am deliberating creating a gallery supplement for Armies & Enemies, but not sure if it would sell/would reduce sales of the main volume. Would probably be about 20 pages.

Here's a preview of the 'gallery page' added to the rear of the document (behind the bonus pages about recruitment of the Lunar Army). There's only room for twelve figures, and unless people indicate otherwise, I don't believe another ten+ pages of these should be added... The latest version has been provided, but might take time to upload to DriveThruRPG.

Doing shameless self-publicity: The Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass suggests possible aspects of magic that might be seen/heard/felt etc. primarily by Element, but also for Chaos, and a few other Runes, and also the Elemental Hero effects that might be witnessed. There are also some descriptions of magics being cast and magical effects. There's a great deal more in the book that just armies and warfare... https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/296535/The-Armies-and-Enemies-of-Dragon-Pass?src=hottest

Would suggest that there are two distinct disengagement situations: controlled and desperate, the equivalent in a battle of retreat and rout. Rout is faster, but your enemy is liable to have the ability to strike you, pursue and strike, and this is when most casualties occur in ancient warfare. Retreat is slower, and you may be able to parry, and be able to get away, if you are either faster, or your opponent chooses not to pursue, and if things go bad a retreat can become a rout.

Afraid my comprehension seems to be affected by the shock of events even after more than a week. Have had to wade through the piles of paperwork of someone's life again today trying to find obscure information for probate. I know everyone has to work through the remnants of another's life at some point, and this is my second, and the worst. Will see what I can do. Tend to run out of motivation at particular times of day, so maybe I will try to create a mini gallery at the back of the book and ask MOB to upload a new version. May take me a week or two. Only a selection of figures will be included.

Those are by Jan.