Skallagrimson
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2006
- Messages
- 2,043
1. A sword is sharper when attacking a city than when defending it. This is due to the geo-magnetic effect on the blade's sharpness, such that when pointed toward the center of a town, it has more cutting power, but pointed away from the center of down, the weapon becomes an overweight iron club, and ineffective.
2. An axe has the reverse sharpness polarity of a sword. When facing toward the center of a city, the axe is useless, but pointing away from the city, the axe can cut effectively.
3. The effective firing range of a bronze pike is farther than that of a rifle used by a 19th century-era cavalryman. These pikes are imbued with special magic that enables the point of the weapon to elongate past the 100 meters or so that the cavalryman can effectively fire his rifle. In order to carry these 100+ meter long pikes, the pikemen go into a special trance that invokes superhuman strength. In the presence of a mace, however, the pike shortens to about an inch and a half, and the mojo of the mace causes the pikeman to shrivel up into a bed-ridden dwarf scarcely able to carry his own bodyweight, let alone wield a weapon effectively. Heisenberg discovered this principle in his physics lab but his discovery was overshadowed by Schroedinger's Spear Beats a Tank When His Cat is Watching from the Ceiling, abbreviated over time to simply, Schroedinger's Cat.
4. When a catapult or trebuchet launches its missile at a defensive position, if the missile misses its mark, this causes the siege engine to spontaneously explode, killing the entire crew.
5. There is no effective stand-off range for catapults and trebuchets, such that an axeman hiding behind a wall can cause catapults to spontaneously explode when launching their missiles at them. The mojo of the axe comes into effect, of course, because it's facing outward from the city.
6. Two or three 19th century cavalrymen are guaranteed to eventually overrun a machine gun position. A machine gun can only kill one attacker, after which all others, no matter how outdated their weaponry, will make it past the hail of machine gun fire and slaughter the machine gun crewmen. This is because the hundreds of rounds of ammunition, after killing their first cavalryman, are required by international law to fire straight up into the air, on pain of incarceration at the Hague.
7. City walls disappear in the presence of muskets, and reappear in the presence of swords, spears, and catapults. The sorcerers causing these alternate transformations are busy day and night in their deep-underground bunkers watching every city everywhere and switching the space-time continuum and vibrational frequency of matter, several times per minute in the heat of any given siege battle. Some erroneously believe that musket balls are able to pass through several feet of stone city wall, but this is only an illusion generated by the hard-working city-wall-disappearing sorcerer's guild, whose job is thankless and unsung.
8. When field artillery does collateral damage to units, enemy field artillery is immune to it. This is due to the hyperspace quantum force field generated by artillery wheels that render its crews 100% invulnerable to shrapnel.
9. A couple of artists in a nearby city are far more able to conquer a neighboring city by writing a few plays, than a large army of swordsmen and catapults. Art is a magical power known throughout history for its world-conquering abilities. The Romans especially were deadly to the Gauls when fielding their 18th Sculptural Legion which created lethal statues that toppled the highest of Vercingetorix' city walls. Only the modern French with their elite existential novelists division were able to withstand the Roman military artistic assaults, and everyone knows the Cold War was about who could paint the prettiest paintings. During a siege, it isn't the city walls that protect against catapult volleys, but sailor's ditties, limericks, and dancing a jig.
10. Borders cannot be negotiated as conditions of peace talks. These are settled by artists' guilds in a dancing contest. When a city flips due to culture-conquest, the unanimous cry by the conqueror is: "You got served!"
11. The cost of maintaining a couple of peasants with spears is exactly equal to the cost of maintaining the same number of soldiers driving around in modern tanks with sophisticated targeting systems, depleted uranium munitions, special fuels, and early warning systems. This is due to the power of a spear to beat said tank!
2. An axe has the reverse sharpness polarity of a sword. When facing toward the center of a city, the axe is useless, but pointing away from the city, the axe can cut effectively.
3. The effective firing range of a bronze pike is farther than that of a rifle used by a 19th century-era cavalryman. These pikes are imbued with special magic that enables the point of the weapon to elongate past the 100 meters or so that the cavalryman can effectively fire his rifle. In order to carry these 100+ meter long pikes, the pikemen go into a special trance that invokes superhuman strength. In the presence of a mace, however, the pike shortens to about an inch and a half, and the mojo of the mace causes the pikeman to shrivel up into a bed-ridden dwarf scarcely able to carry his own bodyweight, let alone wield a weapon effectively. Heisenberg discovered this principle in his physics lab but his discovery was overshadowed by Schroedinger's Spear Beats a Tank When His Cat is Watching from the Ceiling, abbreviated over time to simply, Schroedinger's Cat.
4. When a catapult or trebuchet launches its missile at a defensive position, if the missile misses its mark, this causes the siege engine to spontaneously explode, killing the entire crew.
5. There is no effective stand-off range for catapults and trebuchets, such that an axeman hiding behind a wall can cause catapults to spontaneously explode when launching their missiles at them. The mojo of the axe comes into effect, of course, because it's facing outward from the city.
6. Two or three 19th century cavalrymen are guaranteed to eventually overrun a machine gun position. A machine gun can only kill one attacker, after which all others, no matter how outdated their weaponry, will make it past the hail of machine gun fire and slaughter the machine gun crewmen. This is because the hundreds of rounds of ammunition, after killing their first cavalryman, are required by international law to fire straight up into the air, on pain of incarceration at the Hague.
7. City walls disappear in the presence of muskets, and reappear in the presence of swords, spears, and catapults. The sorcerers causing these alternate transformations are busy day and night in their deep-underground bunkers watching every city everywhere and switching the space-time continuum and vibrational frequency of matter, several times per minute in the heat of any given siege battle. Some erroneously believe that musket balls are able to pass through several feet of stone city wall, but this is only an illusion generated by the hard-working city-wall-disappearing sorcerer's guild, whose job is thankless and unsung.
8. When field artillery does collateral damage to units, enemy field artillery is immune to it. This is due to the hyperspace quantum force field generated by artillery wheels that render its crews 100% invulnerable to shrapnel.
9. A couple of artists in a nearby city are far more able to conquer a neighboring city by writing a few plays, than a large army of swordsmen and catapults. Art is a magical power known throughout history for its world-conquering abilities. The Romans especially were deadly to the Gauls when fielding their 18th Sculptural Legion which created lethal statues that toppled the highest of Vercingetorix' city walls. Only the modern French with their elite existential novelists division were able to withstand the Roman military artistic assaults, and everyone knows the Cold War was about who could paint the prettiest paintings. During a siege, it isn't the city walls that protect against catapult volleys, but sailor's ditties, limericks, and dancing a jig.
10. Borders cannot be negotiated as conditions of peace talks. These are settled by artists' guilds in a dancing contest. When a city flips due to culture-conquest, the unanimous cry by the conqueror is: "You got served!"
11. The cost of maintaining a couple of peasants with spears is exactly equal to the cost of maintaining the same number of soldiers driving around in modern tanks with sophisticated targeting systems, depleted uranium munitions, special fuels, and early warning systems. This is due to the power of a spear to beat said tank!