• mabd
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    1482 years ago

    I mean, generally speaking, sending pikemen against a people famous for riding horses sounds smart to me lol

    • ikiru
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      232 years ago

      Yeah, I don’t understand why people are confused by this. Haha

  • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]
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    402 years ago

    meanwhile Gandalf makes a cavalry charge down a waaaaaay too steep hill towards the aforementioned pikemen thonk

    • Norgur
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      242 years ago

      but he had the power of “making it really bright” on his side, and we all know that this is the achilles heel of all pikemen everywhere!

      • Hank
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        142 years ago

        Aren’t Uruk Hai really sensible to light? So the riders had vision, the high ground, morale and momentum on their side.

        • Norgur
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          2 years ago

          Pikes are pushed against/into the ground, so neither morale nor momentum will do you any good against them. Discomforting the pikemen will also not do anything, since pikes and their use in formations are designed for that to happen. If you get charged by a fuckton of cavalry, you are bound to flinch anyway and you weren’t supposed to actually do anything with the pike but push it into the ground if you were charged. The momentum is provided by courtesy of the attacker. So the downhill movement and the momentum are a disadvantage against pikes.

          And I’m not even counting the fact that horses will not charge walls of spiky things. They are living beings with a mind of their own. A fact that we tend to forget nowadays. But I’m willing to let that one slide, perhaps there was some super special sauce training only known to the horse freaks of Rohan that made them go through with the charge.

          • @null_recurrent@midwest.social
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            72 years ago

            “Then he must be a noble beast indeed,” said Aragorn; “and it grieves me more than many tidings that might seem worse to learn that Sauron levies such tribute. It was not so when last I was in that land.”

            “Nor is it now, I will swear,” said Boromir. “It is a lie that comes from the Enemy. I know the Horse Freaks of Rohan; true and valiant, our allies, dwelling still in the lands that we gave them long ago.”

          • SokathHisEyesOpen
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            62 years ago

            Ghandalf did not pass through fire and death to bandy words with a witless worm such as yourself. It was magic light, that did magic things. Okay?

        • @SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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          52 years ago

          The Uruk-hai were more tolerant of daylight than other orcs. I think it was mentioned a couple of times by the fellowship folks, and there was also a scene when they had captured Merry and Pippin and had to keep running day and night. The commander made fun of the others for being weaker against the daylight.

          Also, cavalry can generally defeat a pole arm formation by flanking and using a combined arms operation. They need projectile weapons (arrows/muskets/cannon…) or infantry to keep the pikemen engaged. If the pole arm unit forms a square, it’s largely protected against cavalry but has increased vulnerability to missile weapons and is fairly immobile.

          Or just send in the ents.

      • @DavidGarcia@feddit.nl
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        52 years ago

        obviously Saruman the 4D-chess-mover predicted that Gandalf would flank them with cavalry and that’s why he brought pikemen to a siege

    • utopologist [any]
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      52 years ago

      We need to resist the hegemony of the wizards, these guys clearly have no business making decisions for the rest of Middle-earth

    • mosiacmango
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      12 years ago

      Shit worked, didnt it?

      Wizard apparently knows a thing or two.

      • uralsolo [he/him]
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        12 years ago

        It makes sense narratively and tactically that he timed his charge with the sun creeping over the hill so that the orcs were blinded by it though.

  • @silvercove@lemdro.id
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    252 years ago

    The Battle of Helm’s Deep is full of very obvious errors. There is an awesome Dutch historian, Roel Konijnendijk, who trashes movies for fun that talks about it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPGdOXstSyk

    My favourite one is when they are shouting orders to eachother. There is no way for the Elven archers to hear Aragorn’s commands, or for Aragorn to hear Theoden’s fallback order.

  • Norgur
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    82 years ago

    Every Total War Player knows how this feels “let’s take this city real qui… Wait?! Who the fuck put the pikes into this army?!”

  • keepcarrot [she/her]
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    42 years ago

    Pikes beat horse dudes, Rohan has horse dudes. Unbeatable logic. Dev did not code for horse dudes having different armour off horse.