An army in a fantasy land will face threats of much greater variety than in real life. For example, a fantasy Roman legion could fight 12 foot tall giants 1 year, enemies armed with ranged explosives (e.g. hand mortars, casting fireball) the next, and something else entirely the year after that. How would fantasy armies adapt to meet such a range of threats?
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Literally NOTHING beats a shield wall... period.
You think a firewall can get through the gaps of TEWSTUDO? Think again... realistically, it slides right offf!!!!
Do shield wall in the Dungeon and even the Demon King starts shitting himself... cannot be beaten!!!!!!!
>Literally NOTHING beats a shield wall... period.
Elephants did. Giants would be the same.
And Romans would probably adapt the same way, but learning to open ranks to avoid them and harry the flanks.
>Elephants did.
Once.
After that the romans learned how to scare them, attacking the elephants' own forces in the process
weak from underside, a single landmine would absolutely wreck them
What if they carried extra shields so they could lay them down and walk on them across the battlefield? Like tank treads but for Iron Age manlets?
plausible, but they would probably not be able to move at full marching speed
A scutum is made of wood and is 6mm thick. It’s not stopping any real firepower unless it’s enchanted or something
A big rock.
Or a fireball.
The same way armies adapt in real life. We have soldiers who are good at skiing, soldiers good at swimming, soldiers good at door kicking, soldiers who jump out of planes, soldiers who board ships, soldiers for policing, soldiers for the front line, soldiers who do sabotage, soldiers who use snipers, soldiers who use mortars, soldiers who fly tanks and planes and so on. You'd get fantasy special forces who are good at hunting different threats.
For that to be viable you’d need both advanced communication and transportation. Otherwise you run into the issue of the specialists not being where they need to be, either because of the general chaos and din of battle or because the DIst Division “Jack’s Giantkillers” was on the north border of the empire slaying frost trolls and you need them down south to take on the Undying Sultan’s colossi.
Not that those are particularly high bars in fantasy setting with scrying orbs, sending spells, flying carpets, teleportation circles, domesticated flying leviathans, or whatever else, but the level of logistics required can be worth considering. (Ex-)Imperial Enchanter could be a fun background for a mage when the setting demands so many magic items for the army to function, and the implications it carries for the empire’s wealth and culture could be further explored for additional roleplaying/build opportunities.
My favorite? Soldiers that use motorized hang-gliders.
Unless we're taking the route of having heroes that specifically dealt with greater threats then all you have to do is look at classical myths.
Even celtic legends have ordinary humans fighting off monstrosities with tactics, daring and pointy sticks.
Naturally for any civilsation to survive to iron age levels with any kind of monster around it would have to figure out a way to exist alongside them or to eradicate them.
Also if we're talking Rome then didn't have have balistae and other seige weapons? They knew what they were doing, giants wouldn't stand a chance.
Rub good manners on the end of your spear before you fight humans, they'll run from it every time
Loose formation archers and javeliners annihilate both of those.
Romans wouldn't like fighting that way because it would be unmanly, they would fare poorly until they lost enough armies.
Fantasy armies would adapt by creating specialist divisions in relevant regions. The tax burden to pay for the upkeep would be high.
does anyone have the feelings slaughtering logic version of OP's pic?
The humans of my setting use, apart of magic, a lot of animals. Dogs, Horses and cattle(cows, sheeps, etc) have an extra conection with humans (and some humans have totems with different animals/beast) so they are easier to control via magic or simple taming. There are a lot of different Dog breeds than are used to hunt different monsters and humanoids. Borzhoi like goblin hunters, Molossi for ogroids etc
Dracophorms and other flying monsters get hunted with the help of falconry (hippogrifs and perytons are a good monster to tame for that too as they are cheaper to maintain than grifins and other dragons). There are people than use "hive" of magic, wich are called Verms, than are a lot like insects/fungi hibrids. And of course there are magics than let you control insects and the like, bees are specially useful and there are literally hundreds of varieties.
For tactics, humans have a few advantages than the majority of humanoids don't have. Sweat and the ability to use ranged weapons, make humans very enduring and the capability to use heavy armor is a big plus, the ability to outrange the majority of beings is another (ogroids and the majority of "beast-peoples" don't have the muscle composition than make humans such good throwers, they tend to be hunched so no bows or slings, but they can use crossbows).
>ogroids
whats an ogroid? giants ogres big trolls as a category?
Its a whole family of monsters, from Orcs to ogres, and including dwarfs, necrophags, Onis, Sasquatchs, Tartalos and other beings. The most numeros is the orc or common ogre, know for being the most "sociable" of them all, aka, they form groups bigger than a family or an harem. Only some kinds of minor necrophagi also go in groups than aren't a male and his harem (or a few junior males).
Dwarfs, do to titan wars stuff want to be as far as other ogres as they can, as they suffered lots of curses than were brocken or mitigated thanks to humans. Calling them orcs or ogres would be a very big no-no for them.
Trolls and Goblins are from close families but separated, the best way to know it its an ogroid or some kind of goblin is the Tail, ogres don't have or its very vestigial.
whered the term come from?
>Roman legion could fight 12 foot tall giants 1 year, enemies armed with ranged explosives (e.g. hand mortars, casting fireball) the next, and something else entirely the year after that.
Their main strategy wouldn't change. Outlast the enemy despite losing more soldiers than any sane nation could afford to. They lost about 50.000 Romans and 350.000 allies, at the First Punic War alone.
Another winning move they had was adopting any good stuff. The armor, the helmet, the sword, the pilum... The Legionnaire panoply was invented somewhere else. Not sure about the shield though.
And they also turned defeated enemies into allies. Giant tribes, wizards, changelings... Everybody becomes Socii. They won't have an option.