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BrutalityInc — Pikeman

#fantasy #medieval #pikeman
Published: 2016-06-23 14:08:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 1380; Favourites: 16; Downloads: 13
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Description Another HeroMachine 3 Creation from sometime ago, made for an abandoned fantasy world-building project that never really got off the ground. 

Early medieval warfare was fought with the heavy use of knights, and then the less noble but professional Men-At-Arms, supported by serf infantry. By the 14th Century High Middle Ages, however, cavalry had declined in importance in favor of infantry, and in several famous battles saw them being thoroughly routed by formations of infantry.

This military revolution was brought about by a combination of factors: among them, the devastation of European population by the Black Death caused shortages of men, while an intense period of warfare occurred in the 13th and 14 centuries with long sieges and campaigns. Both of this increased costs of medieval warfare and led to a shift in preference for common infantry to knights and cavalry, which are cheaper to outfit and organize in terms of men and materials for distant wars. 

Among many notable infantry troops of the medieval era, such as English longbowmen to Genosse crossbowmen, there are the Swiss pikemen, which became famous throughout medieval Europe serving as elite mercenary formations. Unlike most medieval armies, Swiss pikemen are professional, highly disciplined volunteers with high morale. Their elite drilling and discipline, combined with high quality weapons and armor, makes them capable of standing up to even heavy cavalry in combat, most notably through the use of their famous Pike Squares, which allowed the Swiss to defeat Charles the Bold of Burgundy's powerful heavy cavalry forces in the 1477 Battle of Nancy, and many wars and battles afterwards.
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Comments: 4

SomeRandomMinion [2016-06-24 03:37:35 +0000 UTC]

Gotta love halberds. If you can't have a gun or a bow, a seven-foot meat-cleaver is a damn close second.

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BrutalityInc In reply to SomeRandomMinion [2016-06-24 03:54:05 +0000 UTC]

Especially effective in a Pike Square. They'll make mince-meat of any cavalrymen...

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SomeRandomMinion In reply to BrutalityInc [2016-06-24 03:55:51 +0000 UTC]

And any who managed to retreat would get yanked off their horses and gutted by the hook. 
AWESOME!

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ardashir [2016-06-23 18:20:45 +0000 UTC]

Nice art here, and good to see someone remember that the original Swiss 'pikemen' were more commonly halberdiers. And despite the rise in the use of infantry in the later Middle Ages, I still have some admiration for the French gendarmes of the compagnies d' ordonnance. They could fight very well on the battlefield, especially when supported by competent artillery such as the French possessed.

It was one such French army, a mercenary Armagnac force, that beat a force of Swiss at the Battle of St. Jacob-en-birs in 1444. In a several hours long fight that combined French use of archery, artillery, and cavalry charges that finally ground the Swiss down. Still, 1500 Swiss accounted for something like 4000 Armagnacs, and none of them surrendered.

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