Building a fantasy army: leaders

[Juliana]

Hi all,

Saw this today: it's the first piece in a series about creating fantasy armies. This one's about writing believable leadership.

Hope it's useful!

http://dankoboldt.com/fantasy-army-leaders/?ref=email

 

[Gonk the Insane]

"A traditional medieval army used three battles (big formations)"

A battle is a military unit/formation? I've never heard or read of that anywhere before. Is he getting confused with battalion? Or are they one and the same?

 

[Vladd67]

He also confuses his Richards citing Richard II when he means Richard III, of course that could just be sloppy editing.
Apart from needing an editor in places this is an interesting blog.
http://dankoboldt.com/science-in-scifi/

 

[Juliana]

Apart from needing an editor in places this is an interesting blog.
http://dankoboldt.com/science-in-scifi/

I found it while looking for genetics info; he has quite a nice variety of guest posts.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

I found it while looking for genetics info

Thanks for posting it, there's quite a broad collection of posts there. Just read one on memory by a neuroscientist that was interesting, and looked at the "Jason Bourne" scenario in detail. I forget who it was by... (apologies, couldn't resist!)

 

[Venusian Broon]

"A traditional medieval army used three battles (big formations)"

A battle is a military unit/formation? I've never heard or read of that anywhere before. Is he getting confused with battalion? Or are they one and the same?

It's correct. It was a term used in medieval times for wot he wrote. It is, I believe the ancestral origin for the term battalion.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

It's correct.

Thanks for clearing that up. But which came first, battle (the formation) or battle (the scrap)? It's the chicken and the egg all over again...

 

[Venusian Broon]

Thanks for clearing that up. But which came first, battle (the formation) or battle (the scrap)? It's the chicken and the egg all over again...

Right, I am definitely not an expert, but looking at the word origin, I'd suggest that the formation came first and then morphed into the scrap after the medieval period - as the battle terms seems to stem originally from the Latin soldier exercise term. Or to be more exact it seems to have morphed from the Latin 'exercise of soldiers in fighting' to 'army, body of soldiers' then finally to scrap.

After a quick recce around it appears that the Roman word for a battle in the modern sense was in fact pugna - 'conflict' . (But I could be way wrong with that! . Looking up the English-Latin translation for battle, no modern Latin term seems to have the battuere verb root)

(Below from the Online Etymology Dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=battle)

battle (n.)
c. 1300, from Old French bataille "battle, single combat," also "inner turmoil, harsh circumstances; army, body of soldiers," from Late Latin battualia "exercise of soldiers and gladiators in fighting and fencing," from Latin battuere "to beat, to strike" (seebatter (v.)). Phrase battle royal "fight involving several combatants" is from 1670s.
battle (v.)
early 14c., "to fight," from French batailler (12c.), from bataille (see battle (n.)). Related: Battled; battling.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

Thanks for the explanation, VB. "Harsh circumstances" seems a fitting description for anyone caught in the middle of one

 

[yorelm]

Thanks for the link. Found a lot of useful info there.