The Deadliest Warrior

  • Thread starter Thread starter VH
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lancealot was a myth. Musashi was not.

I chose gothic because they were among the very best of knights.
 
Pirates, knights and vikings.....i'd trade em all for a highland warrior:

print_charge.jpg


They were light weight, fast and heavily armed. They would rush in to range of their enemy, fire their muskets and pistols at them and then charge in a massed charge through the enemies lines...the big fellas at the front and the wee guys behind slicing and dicing as they go!

The highlander has a three pronged attack: first they ram the enemy with their targe (a shield with a spike coming out of the front) then they slash with the dirk (large knife held in the shield hand), then in the same movement they bring their broadsword crashing down (which can sever a man in two)....bang, bang, bang in the same sequence

A highlander could fight on any terrain as they came from mountainous land without roads; could march all day and fight a battle at the end of it; and was used to bad weather and physical hardship. They came from a long and proud martial history. Their homelands were a natural fortress which even the Romans couldn't tame.

Their most dangerous aspect was their fierce loyalty to their clan. The 'highland charge' involved the entire army acting as one giant blunt instrument which would smash regimented armies to pieces

It was a devestating tactic but was misused due to poor leadership at Culloden, when the highland army lost in the last pitched battle on UK soil....if you discount the crofters riot on Lewis in 1888

The highland soldier was then incorporated into the British army and used as the shock troops which built the largest empire the world has seen

During the two world wars the highland soldier, often dressed in a kilt, was known by their enemies as 'devils in skirts'.

They would eat pirates and knights for breakfast and come back for seconds!
 
Well thats kind of anachronistic

The clan system hadn't taken the form of what I'm talking of and the highland charge hadn't been invented

The highland charge was developed as an answer to musket fire. Basically you rush in and get a shot off at your enemy and charge them before they get a chance to reload

The Scots were a bit unlucky in that Alexander III died after falling off his horse in shitty weather. He had been a strong king but this left people squabbling over the succession where they made the foolish error of asking Edward I of England to act as an intermediary. He was a lawyer and knew how to work the law and basically set up a puppet king, John Balliol, in Scotland

However relations broke down when Balliol refused to go south and kiss his arse, when summoned. Leaders rose up as they always have when Scotland needs them...Andrew de Moray, William Wallace and Robert the Bruce and they soon put things right. Next they petitioned the Pope asserting their status as a free nation with a long royal line, in the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320:

'Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom - for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.'
 
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