Paintings of medieval battlefields
He does not recommend deploying Mormonts against them (no matter how effective)-instead, they should be engaged by swift horsemen, infantry with ranged weapons, or ballistae (essentially giant siege crossbows). “Elephants by their vast size, horrible noise and the novelty of their form are at first very terrible both to men and horses.”
PAINTINGS OF MEDIEVAL BATTLEFIELDS HOW TO
Vegetius had very little to say about undead giants, but he did talk at great length about how to use, and to defeat, the closest thing their world saw: War Elephants. On display at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds. 4)Įlephant armour (bargustawan), Indian, Mughal, c. In 1066-riding into battle on horses, but dismounting to fight on foot. Like the Anglo-Saxons did at the battle of Hastings Have seen them on undead-horseback clearly that means they must fight We’ve only seen the White Walkers fight on foot, though we
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Walkers) Next, on Wight Rider… Image: HBO. The flesh of the living from their very bones, they might have been a bit moreĪround 100 heavy infantry with javelins (White Perhaps if they had been bestowed with an unrelenting hunger to rend Medieval light infantry were often conscripted from the local populace,Īnd were therefore only rarely effective on the battlefield-at least by modern There were no standing armies for the vast majority of the MiddleĪges. 2)Īn unfathomable number of light infantry (horde In 1489, for example, the attacking forces lost about 3,000 people fighting theĮnemy, but a further 17,000 to typhus. “Camp diseases” like typhus could devastate both sides during a long They did this to feed their people (as they were essentially cut off from supply lines) and to weaken their French opponents.Īlso, the army of the dead don’t, so far as we know, catchĭiseases. The attacking English armies in the Hundred Years war went to great lengths to scour the countryside (in a tactic they called chevauchée) for food and supplies. Vegetius writes at length about protecting the supply chain, and implores commanders to have their men eat before a battle. By contrast, supplying a medieval army was of the utmost concern to medieval commanders, as armies lived or died on their stomachs. But this is actually their chief advantage the Army of the Dead are, as the name would imply, dead. So let’s take stock of the advantages of each side-discounting any and all plot armor: The Army of the Dead 1)Īlready dead They’re only mostly dead.
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“what benefits you harms the enemy, and what helps him always hinders you.” The army of the living follows none of his advice.Ī good place to start is one of Vegetius’ key maxims: Over four volumes, author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus (known commonly as, simply, “Vegetius”) lays out everything an aspiring commander needs to know: how to raise, equip, and train an army, how to construct fortifications, and crucially for us, how to win or resist a siege.
PAINTINGS OF MEDIEVAL BATTLEFIELDS MANUAL
Probably the greatest, and most widely used manual of battle is the late-Roman book Epitoma Rei Militaris ( The Epitome of Military Affairs). In fact, had they learned even a little bit from actual medieval tacticians, the battle could have gone a lot better for our heroes. But even if you take the show’s universe at face value-wights and all-the tactics seen on the field of battle leave a lot to be desired.
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But watching the battle unfold, I couldn’t help but wonder… why is everyone being so dumb?īefore you cry foul and mark me as yet another historian trying to “ruin” fantasy, I know that we’re not dealing with actual reality here. The battle was plenty bloody (though surprisingly few main characters bit the dust-“plot armor” seems very tough to defeat indeed). In this week’s episode of Game of Thrones, “The Long Night,” viewers were treated to one of the most intense medievalesque battle sequences since the battle of Helm’s Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for Game of Thrones, Season 8 Episode 3: “The Long Night.”