[Ansteorra-archery] Couple things

[Sir Morgan Buchanan]

First of all...holy cow, can some of you learn to crop a message?  You don't 
need to quote an entire digest to send a 1 line reply.  Please?

Second... Volley fire.  Volley fire doesn't need to be like some 
braveheart/agincourt high arching thing.  I'll add the caveat that I don't 
KNOW if it will work, but hey, I haven't seen it tried, and I have a few 
ideas of what MIGHT happen.

If a small group of archers... say 10, or more if possible, were to prepare 
a volley fire where they were all ready to fire at a point on a front, it 
could createa moment of opportunity.  Here's what I envision.

The archer corp congregates behind a point in the line where some fighting 
is going on.  They prepare to fire.  They give commands.  At this point, I 
know some of you are thinking, "Morgan, this won't work.  They'll see us and 
all they have to do is cover up."

Well, you might be right.  But let me tell you 2 things.  1...  if the 
shieldmen see a mass of archers and their reaction is to save themselves, 
that will expose the poles and spears as well as the commanders behind them. 
In point of fact, I'll go so far as to posit that the desired effect of a 
mass of archers is to make the shields afraid for their lives and do just 
this very action.

If the shields hear the "ready....aim...." command and cover up...they'll 
likey cover up until they hear "FIRE" and sense that the volley is over, or 
something else happens.  This point is time is an incredible opportunity for 
the front line fighters to press an attack, execute a pulse charge, 
whatever.

Success in a tactic isn't predicated on the kills that each individual 
potential killing shot has, but on the success of the whole attack.  If you 
mass 10 archers, fire a 10 shot volley, none of the 10 arrows kill ANYONE, 
but because the volley caused a shield wall to cower in fear for 3 to 5 
seconds, and your front line shields execute a pulse charge at that point, 
which collapses the line, that sounds pretty successful to me.  That sounds 
like the kind of attack that can re-take a flag in the ravine, in fact.

It takes coordination.  It takes timing.  It takes skill.  We posess all the 
tools.  But we'd have to put them together.  Of course, I could be wrong. 
:)

Kind regards,
Morgan