Prax Ostrich Combat Jockets = Terrible IRL

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, it's a problem though when we try to apply logic and scientific laws to Glorantha. While Glorantha does seem to operate under some sort of physical laws, and while they appear similar to our own for the most part, there are obviously differences. 15m giants simply aren't possible by our physical laws, let alone mountain sized dragons. 

 

So just about anything that "doesn't make sense" to use or is a "Bad idea" to our way of thinking could be operating under different laws of reality in Glorantha. 

[M Helsdon]

Whilst these smaller versions aren't exactly to scale, they are close enough to illustrate the size differences of Praxian riding animals... Next to do is an ostrich.

It makes it very apparent that these tribes fight using very distinct tactics (note, female sable being ridden by a Sartarite).

Edited December 27, 2018 by M Helsdon

[Atgxtg]

25 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

 

It makes it very apparent that these tribes fight using very distinct tactics (note, female sable being ridden by a Sartarite).

 

It probably makes the various alliances between tribes more interesting too. I wonder how much of it is politics, how much ideology, and how much about finding a complementary force. 

[Darius West]

 

On 12/26/2018 at 4:53 PM, VonKatzen said:

In actual game terms, magic is technology. It has repeatable, predictable effects and can be employed by sufficient resources, wealth and intellectual merit. It's basically an imaginary form of technology. And, in fact, I think that's how magic was conceived of by many ancients, i.e. a means-ends relation based on conceptual rather than mechanical relationships. The idea of magic as non-rational is really a modern invention, to distinguish it from science and engineering. Likewise, alchemy was philosophy and fake chemistry, not theosophical mystery religion. Magic was false science, not anti-science. And in game words, it is real science, because it has statistics and calculable ratios. Whether or not that's what's intended, that's the case. The whole idea of magic as a non-rational force is completely useless in a game with rules, even if it's in the fluff, it's objectively not true.

I have a lot of sympathy with your perspective on this VonKatzen.  Your average Gloranthan has access to magic and they treat it pragmatically and as a fact of life.  They may know some of the deeper mystery behind it, but one of the strengths of RQ as a game is that it is pretty realistic in terms of its underlying mechanics, and to strip that away in the name of some arbitrary narrative device that a game master inflicts on the players that risks breaking both suspension of disbelief and the game logic of the world. 

That being said, your perspective is in keeping with the God Learners.  You have access to the rule book, while the characters don't.  You are informed by a modern engineering based world view that the characters in the game will not be privy to.  It is objectively true that characters will be operating in ignorance to a large degree, and it is the narrators job to keep the world consistent despite this fact.

It is somewhat unfair to say that magic is false science, btw, as magic means "What wise people do", the magi being the Zoroastrian priests who were considered unusually wise and scary by the Romans who fought the Persians and often lost.  Rather than being false science, it is perhaps better to view magic as proto-science.  For example, Alchemists did actually develop a lot of chemistry that we still use today in various forms, but their theory was a mess.  Dyes, mordants, zinc cream and other medicines, soap, metallurgy, brewing and vintning, hermetic seals, glass making, etc etc all owe their existence not to chemistry but to alchemy.  Chemistry comes much later beginning with Boyle, and seeks to slowly rationalize these disparate inventions into an over-arching theory of matter, with a lot of help from Newton's early physics.  Newton himself however was an alchemist in his spare time.  We stand on the shoulders of giants, and that is why we see the past clearly, but we must work harder to see the world as they saw it.  Your average Gloranthan is no Isaac Newton.

On 12/26/2018 at 4:53 PM, VonKatzen said:

If your players have any kind of ability to plan and strategize, they will treat it exactly like science, too. Means/ends cannot be eliminated. Talking about 'non-rational worlds' is literally meaningless, in that it's not just 'unexplained', it is instead a non-sentence with zero content. Whether anyone likes it or not coherence is a property of everything that exists, and if fictional worlds deny that they're just wrong, even on their own terms. Even chaos has rules. I can show you the chart. All this talk of anti-reason/non-reason/formlessness is just aesthetic gibberish, not actual sentences with meaning or import.

I agree that players can, will, and should be able to plan and strategize, and they will make certain assumptions about how their magic works. 

On the other hand, take a step back here... we are talking about magic being used in a fictional world.  The exact rules that govern the use of magic in Glorantha are somewhat known to us and a GM has an obligation to keep rules consistent so as to keep player immersion. Remember that there are no atoms in Glorantha; the fundamental particles are the Runes, and while the world behaves much like our own, the fundamental laws are not the same.  If a person has great strength, it is because they carry plenty of air runes in their man rune frame.  If they are dextrous it is because the same is true of water runes.

As to your example of the Chaos Feature table, I would point out that it is not the limit of what chaos features are possible, and it and the Curse of Thed table are probably best taken as only the first Standard Deviation of what is possible, which is likely a "countable infinity" to drop into theoretical maths-speak.

Now, what does a narrator do when faced with narrative situations of the entirely mystical?  You dismiss the prospect as being aesthetic gibberish.  At some point the rules system must give way to art, as in essence story telling is an art form, and RPGs are a form of interactive story telling.  It is a narrator's job to conjure the world, and the game system gives it a backbone of consistent mechanics, but those rules will never convey how a character feels and reacts when they hear a familiar song in a far away land and discover their cousin's child thought lost forever all those years ago.  Art and poetry must also be given their due, or you will have a flat game indeed.

So the real question is, are you going to ban the Chalana Arry spell "Regrow Limb" as it is outside the realms of what is physically possible for human beings, and you dismiss magic as being impossible?

On 12/26/2018 at 4:53 PM, VonKatzen said:

The supernatural, defined as something undelimited and without causal relationships, is a non-definition, a non-concept, a non-statement. I don't regard such utterances as being anything other than the sort of meaningless noise that comes out of an air conditioner. Anything which is not logical, in the strict sense, does not exist, and it doesn't matter what you call it or how it works. If it works at all, if it exists at all, it is logical and therefor a science and a technology. I reject the premises of supernaturalism, which is not a premise, but gum-flapping disguised as speech. If magic exists, in reality or in fiction, it is logical and it is technical.

I basically refuse to not take things literally.

That is probably the single worst definition of the supernatural I think I have ever read.  The supernatural is better defined as  merely "something that obeys principles outside known scientific laws".  As we as a species do not know every physical principle in the universe (e.g. the Dark matter & Dark energy controversy; the immense problems with string theory; the irreconcilability of Einstinian and Quantum physics etc.) Your deliberate straw-manning of a term with absurdist absolutes here does your argument no credit, as you are beginning from a position of false evidence i.e. a faulty definition, which is no foundation upon which to build a position. 

To the crux of your argument, you are falling into a classically French rationalist trap.  The French Academy was continuously approached by individuals claiming that they had seen rocks falling from the sky, and many of the individuals had even recovered the rocks.  The French Academy dismissed all the claims however, saying that "there are no rocks in the sky, ergo, rocks cannot fall from the sky".  The position of the academy was, however, ill informed, for there were in fact many rocks in the sky, which we know today as meteorites when they fall to earth.  The assumption that if you can't reproduce something in a laboratory, or put it under a bell-jar, that it therefore cannot exist is a dangerous and ignorant approach that denies the natural complexity of the world and the possibility of unforeseen phenomena occurring.

On 12/26/2018 at 2:32 PM, VonKatzen said:

Contrary to Robert E. Howard (one of my favorite authors) civilization is a trump card in conflicts. Every barbarian that's ever managed to defeat a decadent civilized empire has been conquered by his conquest. In literal, economic terms stuff like organization, trade, rationalization is objectively superior in almost all circumstances. Instinct is a garbage guide created by evolutionary mishaps, and usually falters against even very stupid plans guided by reason and technique.

On this point I must make a qualified disagreement on a factual basis again.  The Mongols were not a civilized people, and yet they conquered more of the world than any Empire before or since.  They were able to do so not because of superior technology (which they didn't possess), but primarily through the superior discipline of their fighting men, a meritocratic system of promotion that cut against the prevailing civilized notions of noble houses leading in war, and most importantly due to their superior logistics.  The logistical trick of the Mongols was that meat on the hoof doesn't spoil, and where there is pasture, you can bring a herd.  Thus the Mongols were able to field armies far larger and faster than any civilized power, as the civilized armies were hauling their supplies on wagons, and relying on distant production centers for their military supplies.  More importantly, the Mongols were only one of the great steppe empires, and were proceeded by the Huns and others.  We know that Rome did very badly against the Huns for quite some time, and it was only by incorporating barbarian foederati allies into their ranks that they were eventually able to beat them.  We saw the same thing play out in the American West, where the heavily outnumbered native populations maintained a 5:1 kill ratio against settlers and the US Cavalry, due to their combat skill, and knowledge of the land.  In many cases the kill ratio was much higher, but the settlers kept coming regardless, as the potential gains outweighed the risks and so the Native Americans eventually lost, as they were "drowned in blood". 

If anything, the power of civilization has been more in its ability to absorb, systematize, and civilize barbaric invaders.  China being a prime example.  The rise of civilized powers to be capable of destroying nomads and forest tribes has been slow in coming, and the recent successes are almost all to do with gunpowder, judicious spreading of diseases, and the poisoning of water sources.  

On 12/26/2018 at 1:25 PM, VonKatzen said:

In the case of someone who is sub-100lbs, v. people who average at least 50% more, a huge difference. It would be like me (6', 190lbs) fighting an 11yo boy. Yeah, he could kill me, but chances are it would go the other way. And if we're fighting in groups of roughly equally skilled men the sheer inertia of the heavier/stronger group would allow them to break the ranks of the enemy force, not to mention the larger ones could strike outside the range of their enemies. This is something that I've discussed in other contexts regarding a Makedonian phalanx v. medieval knights, despite the huge reach of the phalanx the massive weight and body armor of an unmounted knight would allow them to wade into the phalanx and push it back, assuming roughly equal numbers, in a way that an ancient army facing the phalangites simply couldn't. The same would be true of primitive, very small warriors fighting heavily equipped iron-age armies; in fact the impetus of the charge and splitting enemy ranks was one of the main tactics of Roman infantry, and their sheer amount of body armor (for the time) was very useful in this. These ostrich riders fighting anyone who isn't a Prax nomad or the like are going to be facing much bigger, stronger, faster opponents with better equipment and more of it.

I think the problem is that you haven't conceptually grasped the way that ostrich riders will fight.  They primarily use missile weapons and speed.  Ostriches are much faster than horses, and their ability to turn/corner is far superior.  

Your argument is a bit like saying that a WW2 fighter aircraft cannot possibly destroy a WW2 bomber, because the bomber is larger, has more engines,  more armor and more guns, and those guns can face in all directions due to being in turrets.  All fighter aircraft has is speed and maneuverability, hell, all their guns even face the same way all the time, what hope do they have?  Yet we know that fighters did very well against bombers, because they used tactics that turned all the bombers' advantages into disadvantages.

Back to the argument you are making.  Shock weapons like lances are of no value if they can never hit.  Also, slow opponents can be flanked very easily unless they fall into a formation like a hollow square and stay there.

As to your medieval knight vs phalanx example, I can offer solid proof that this is wrong.  Specifically, look at the rise of the Scottish Schiltron, Swiss Pike and Spanish Tercio formations of the late medieval/early renaissance.  The fact is that the medieval knight was not a match for these formations, which were not qualitatively different from a Makedonian phalanx, save that they were often worse armored and had shorter pikes.   The fact is that phalanxes had only gone out of fashion because of the capacity for Roman legions to defeat them, and the fact that the Romans had rolled over the Eastern Mediterranean before anyone had figured out how to modify phalanx tactics to deal with Roman fighting styles.  The value of the phalanx is that up to 8 individuals can concentrate their spears on each figure in their frontage, due to the depth of the formation and the length of the spears.  The Roman tactic at Cynocephalae was pretty effective, as it turned this strength into a weakness and forced the phalangites to drop their pikes and shields.

I would not pretend for even a moment that an ostrich rider who decided to charge a rhino rider is going to survive unless they are some sort of hero.  But that is not how an ostrich rider fights, unless they are having a bout of suicidal depression, brain fever, or have activated their berserk spell for some insane reason.  They will stand off at range and pelt the rhino rider with boomerangs, javelins and arrows until their ammunition runs out.  They can even get into close range, as they can consistently stay behind the rhino rider, as their ostrich is able to sit behind the rhino and the rhino cannot corner fast enough to face them, and certainly cannot charge them.  Of course this would change if the rhino rider had a bow, and no doubt that is why bison riders carry bows.  Even then, an ostrich rider can still make a faster target, and consistently stay in the bison rider's blind side (there being a limit to how much a person can pivot their waist in the saddle).  And of course, while the rhino rider is distracted by the ostrich rider who is pelting him, another ostrich rider nips in from behind and cuts his saddle strap, turning him into infantry.

The question becomes, can the larger mount and rider weather the slings and arrows of outrageous pygmies, and when they run out of ammo, chase them from the field, or perhaps if the larger mount has better stamina, potentially wait until their smaller enemy runs out of puff, then trample them.  On the other hand, going into a fight where potentially you must face even 6 speedarted arrows a round (coming in from multiple archer) for 3 rounds is a nightmare for most characters.  It doesn't take many impales and criticals to kill anyone. 

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Darius West

[scott-martin]

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

the slings and arrows of outrageous pygmies,

QFT

Average Viet Cong guerrilla was SIZ 9. Gringos at the time were maybe SIZ 13. 

[Atgxtg]

8 hours ago, Darius West said:

I think the problem is that you haven't conceptually grasped the way that ostrich riders will fight.  They primarily use missile weapons and speed.  Ostriches are much faster than horses, and their ability to turn/corner is far superior.  

No they're not. Horse and ostriches speeds are comparable. Especially since the best speeds for Ostriches don't include riders, while best speeds for horses generally do. So I wouldn't assume a speed or mobility advantage for the Ostrich riders. 

[soltakss]

22 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

No they're not. Horse and ostriches speeds are comparable. Especially since the best speeds for Ostriches don't include riders, while best speeds for horses generally do. So I wouldn't assume a speed or mobility advantage for the Ostrich riders. 

Ostrich Riders don't ride Ostriches because they are better than other mounts, they ride them because they are Ostrich Riders. The mount you ride is a cultural thing in Prax and no nomad worth his/her salt would dream of riding another type of mount.

[Atgxtg]

21 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Ostrich Riders don't ride Ostriches because they are better than other mounts, they ride them because they are Ostrich Riders. The mount you ride is a cultural thing in Prax and no nomad worth his/her salt would dream of riding another type of mount.

Maybe, but if said mount was completely inferior to the other mounts you wouldn't last long in a war. 

[soltakss]

36 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Maybe, but if said mount was completely inferior to the other mounts you wouldn't last long in a war. 

So, don't fight a war.

Seriously, Praxian Noamds generally go on raids for herd beasts, slaves and wives. They don't normally engage in all-out war very often, certainly not against each other.

An Ostrich Battle Group isn't going to last long against full-on Rhino Charge, for example. They don't set spears and close their eyes, instead they run away and pepper the rhino riders with arrows.

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

So, don't fight a war.

Seriously, Praxian Noamds generally go on raids for herd beasts, slaves and wives. They don't normally engage in all-out war very often, certainly not against each other.

Seriously., there will be conflicts, and if one side can't put up enough resistance to make warfare unappealing then they wouldn't have lasted. So all the mounts must have practical vluae relative to each other to continue.  

4 hours ago, soltakss said:

An Ostrich Battle Group isn't going to last long against full-on Rhino Charge, for example. They don't set spears and close their eyes, instead they run away and pepper the rhino riders with arrows.

Exactly, which points to a method of combat where the rider's SIZ isn't as much of an issue. I could easily see smaller riders being effective in such a role. 

Although just how effective rhinos would actually be in a charge is also up for debate. 

[M Helsdon]

More size comparisons. Bison may be a bit small, and ostriches vary in size.

[I always draw the mount and rider separately, so that if one goes wrong or information received indicates it's wrong, the entire sketch isn't lost. Tomorrow the rhino may get a rider.]

[jeffjerwin]

47 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

More size comparisons. Bison may be a bit small, and ostriches vary in size.

[I always draw the mount and rider separately, so that if one goes wrong or information received indicates it's wrong, the entire sketch isn't lost. Tomorrow the rhino may get a rider.]

Pretty sure a bison is slightly bigger: 10-12 feet long and 4-5 feet tall. The 'zebra' is actually a small horse, right?

[M Helsdon]

10 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

Pretty sure a bison is slightly bigger: 10-12 feet long and 4-5 feet tall.

This one is just over 4 feet tall. May make it larger in the final sketch.

10 hours ago, jeffjerwin said:

The 'zebra' is actually a small horse, right?

War zebra are the size of a standard horse.

[Darius West]

On 12/29/2018 at 4:05 AM, Atgxtg said:

No they're not. Horse and ostriches speeds are comparable. Especially since the best speeds for Ostriches don't include riders, while best speeds for horses generally do. So I wouldn't assume a speed or mobility advantage for the Ostrich riders. 

Ostrich= 70kph, Horse=48kph.  I checked it.  Ostriches corner much better than horses.  Note that the people in the video aren't pygmies either.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2018 by Darius West

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

Ostrich= 70kph, Horse=48kph.  I checked it.

Where? Did you check it for ostriches with with riders? And did you check for how long they can do so? 

 

The world record for a horse is 88kph, which is a lot faster than 48kph, and faster than an Ostrich. But it is a sprint. Cheetahs can sprint faster than a horse, but they aren't as fast over any kind of distance. Looking at the video you provided that "race track" is awfully small, and those birds aren't going anywhere near 70kph.

I have serious doubts that a 150kg (SIZ 20ish) bird is going to be able to carry a full sized man for very long. Warhorses get limited use, and can carry about 30% of thier weight, so a 150kg bird would probably be limited to about 45kg (SIZ 7) rider if battle. If the bird was supposed to carry someone around all day, like a rider horse, then the rider would be limited to about 20% of the mounts weight.

 

To be a reliable mount and main means of transportation for a people, and nor just a sport, then the animal must either be able to carry a rider all day, or that a string of such animals can do so.  Real world math indicates that a horse can carry about 20% of it's weight all day (although Less is better), and about 30% of it's weight for shorter durations (such as a warhorse). 

Now does your research shows that Ostrich can carry more weight for a longer time than a horse?

 

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

  Ostriches corner much better than horses. 

With a rider? 

3 hours ago, Darius West said:

 

Note that the people in the video aren't pygmies either.

Nor are they going anywhere need 70kph, or riding for any length of time. 

 

 

 

[Darius West]

42 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Where? Did you check it for ostriches with with riders? And did you check for how long they can do so? 

Ostrich stamina is pretty bad.  Horses aren't great either, but they're much better than ostriches.  There are no absolute stats for this available, only testimony.

42 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

The world record for a horse is 88kph, which is a lot faster than 48kph, and faster than an Ostrich. But it is a sprint. Cheetahs can sprint faster than a horse, but they aren't as fast over any kind of distance. Looking at the video you provided that "race track" is awfully small, and those birds aren't going anywhere near 70kph.

Yeah, the 48kph is for a mounted horse.  Mounted ostriches with small people on them can do about that, but not for long.  Horses are definitely better mounts, though the stamina of the birds used as mounts in Shanghai in the 19th century was supposed to be pretty good, though probably also pretty abusive.

42 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I have serious doubts that a 150kg (SIZ 20ish) bird is going to be able to carry a full sized man for very long. Warhorses get limited use, and can carry about 30% of thier weight, so a 150kg bird would probably be limited to about 45kg (SIZ 7) rider if battle. If the bird was supposed to carry someone around all day, like a rider horse, then the rider would be limited to about 20% of the mounts weight.

Ostriches are able to run with a person of about 50kg on their backs.  There are incidents of fatter people making the birds struggle.

42 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

To be a reliable mount and main means of transportation for a people, and nor just a sport, then the animal must either be able to carry a rider all day, or that a string of such animals can do so.  Real world math indicates that a horse can carry about 20% of it's weight all day (although Less is better), and about 30% of it's weight for shorter durations (such as a warhorse).

Actually, what you have just described will kill a horse.  Horses are not supposed to be ridden all day.  It is no exaggeration to say that marching soldiers travel at the same or better speeds than cavalry on roads, due to the time a horse needs to graze and water.  You get better performance out of horses if you feed them high energy grains in feed bags.  This was a major concern for the British Empire (in whose manuals I found the info) as it was counter-intuitive, but logistics officers were painfully aware of it.  It was quite common in the case of reconnaissance operations for the riders to take 2 mounts each and transfer periodically.

42 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

With a rider?

Yes, ostriches corner at speed better than horses even when mounted.  It is a function of their wings and bipedal gait that horses can't match.  This is not to say that a ridden horse will not outdistance an ostrich rider.

On the other hand, horses in their present form have been subject to many generations of selective breeding from their steppe pony origins.  No horse that was not meddled with by humans ever looked like an English cart horse.  If the same was true of Ostriches, who knows what they might be capable of?  Pure speculation of course, and frankly ostriches are scary enough without turning them into a species of "riding moa".  It seems obvious that the Praxian version, being mythical, can be cut some slack on that score.

Edited December 30, 2018 by Darius West

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Ostrich stamina is pretty bad.  Horses aren't great either, but they're much better than ostriches.  There are no absolute stats for this available, only testimony.

So we might be able to assume that they are a littel faster, but tire qy\uicker. That suggests multiple mounts and skirmishing tactics. 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Yeah, the 48kph is for a mounted horse.  Mounted ostriches with small people on them can do about that, but not for long.  Horses are definitely better mounts, though the stamina of the birds used as mounts in Shanghai in the 19th century was supposed to be pretty good, though probably also pretty abusive.

Ostriches are able to run with a person of about 50kg on their backs.  There are incidents of fatter people making the birds struggle.

So that's about one-third of their own mass, about the same as for a warhorse. And that's about SIZ 8 per RQ3/CoC SIZ.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Actually, what you have just described will kill a horse.  Horses are not supposed to be ridden all day.  It is no exaggeration to say that marching soldiers travel at the same or better speeds than cavalry on roads, due to the time a horse needs to graze and water.  You get better performance out of horses if you feed them high energy grains in feed bags.  This was a major concern for the British Empire (in whose manuals I found the info) as it was counter-intuitive, but logistics officers were painfully aware of it.  It was quite common in the case of reconnaissance operations for the riders to take 2 mounts each and transfer periodically.

The 20% was one of the official guidelines for calvary horses in the 19th century, and what many horse people say is the upper limit for daily riding. Some say it should be 10-15% but most information supports the 20% for a calvary mount. Now, if you assume a 14-15 hands high horse of about 1000 pounds (say  SIZ 34) you get about 200 pounds  (about SIZ 15) for rider and gear. That seems decent for calvary horses. Most soldiers would probably weigh less than SIZ 15, and so they would have a little weight left over for gear. 

 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Yes, ostriches corner at speed better than horses even when mounted.  It is a function of their wings and bipedal gait that horses can't match.  This is not to say that a ridden horse will not outdistance an ostrich rider.

 I'll accept that. It provide more support for their using skirmishing tactics and" hit & run" style attacks, where they can take advantage of their greater mobility and minimize their weaknesses. 

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

On the other hand, horses in their present form have been subject to many generations of selective breeding from their steppe pony origins.  No horse that was not meddled with by humans ever looked like an English cart horse.  If the same was true of Ostriches, who knows what they might be capable of?  Pure speculation of course, and frankly ostriches are scary enough without turning them into a species of "riding moa".  It seems obvious that the Praxian version, being mythical, can be cut some slack on that score.

Yes, grain fed ostriches would probably get bigger, and selective breeding could make them stronger. Using hoses as an example, we could probably expect about a 6 point increase in STR and SIZ for such animals over time. And yes, Praxian ones, could have some in world justification for better speed/endurance than their terrestrial counterparts.

But the same could be true for their riders. It might be that Ostrich riders are small but strong for their SIZ. In fact, considering how horse nomadic cultures developed, it seems quite likely. With RQ rules, as long as the riders are strong enough to use a bow or hold a spear (about STR 9) then they should be able to be effective with a lance charge or as mounted archers. 

Considering the higher speed and lower stamina compared to horses, I'd suspect that Ostrich riders probably have a string of mounts, similar to horse nomads, and probably take advantage of their speed to fight in "hit & run" raids. MAybre lance charge when it's sound, and bows otherwise. 

[Sir_Godspeed]

This is all good, but what is the airspeed velocity of an African swallow?

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

This is all good, but what is the airspeed velocity of an African swallow?

Faster than the Vormaino Flying Swallows? 😉

[Atgxtg]

On 12/30/2018 at 3:56 PM, Sir_Godspeed said:

This is all good, but what is the airspeed velocity of an African swallow?

Which one of the 47 species of African Swallows are you inquiring about, and is it unladed or carrying a coconut?

Also to calculate airspeed velocity we'd need to know what the wind speed and vector was, so we can adjust the ground speed of the Swallow accordingly.

 

 

[Atgxtg]

Oh, clarification: I guess that only two of the 47 species of sparrow than inhabit Africa are actaully called African Swallows, the West African Swallow and the South African (Cave) Swallow. 

Logically, I'd assume you mean the West African Swallow as it would be the closet one to Britian, and  another thousand miles or so makes a big difference if it had to carry a coconut.

 

And yes, there are web pages out there where people have worked out the airspeed velocity of a swallow. Maybe they are planning to cross a bridge?

 

[Joerg]

So what's your favorite color?

[Darius West]

16 hours ago, Joerg said:

So what's your favorite color?

Blue, no Red, Aaaargh!

[Atgxtg]

BTW, that film looks remarkably good on Blu Ray for a 40+ year old film shot on a shoestring budget.  

 

Back on topic, my original point was that pygmies riders wouldn't be impossible (or impossibly bad) as Ostrich riders. That and the fact that it's not like the Ostrich people would have much say in the matter. If the are pygmies there's not much they can do to change it, outside of some serious heroquesting.

[M Helsdon]