Quote from: Elliot WilenBTW, this is an interesting angle--I wonder how, to what extent, Gygax's awareness/pride of his Swiss heritage had to do with his polearm fixation.

Well, it´s all there in Chainmail already. The Swiss/Landsknechte get EXTRA rules, they are DESIGNED to pwn everyone because of CONSTRUCTED kewl powerz.

So my take is that he read something about the military revolution of the Burgundian wars, but was not exposed to Delbrück-ian thoughts ("The revolutions of the Swiss was the rentroduction of massed infantry as a tactically body of infantry with offensive qualities. The reasons why the Swiss could do this wer the following... ") As this could be reproduced by High German states (Landsknechte), it´s not a "genetic" thing, but rather an organizational and motivational development. One could assume, Gygax did not fully grasp this; at least that´s not how it was modelled in Chainmail. He retro-fitted the Chainmail model when statting up the Swiss. If the failings lie in the modelling or his understanding, I´m not sure.

There´s hints that he knew more about it. The polearms article in the DMG alludes to most important facts, but does not explicitly state them:

- main difference is between long-spears (pikes) and pole-axes (halberds)
- long-spears were wielded by the avantgarde, the best and strongest warriors
- once the avantgarde opended up a breach in the enemy ranks, the halberdiers slaughtered and hacked the enemy to pieces in wild & wolly charges; the avantgarde would open a gap so the halberdiers would flow into the enemy formation
- formations continually cut back on the halberdiers, and enlargened the long-spear-carrying element (the halberdiers were oftentimes interested in plunder & violence without taking the main risks)

Gygax does say, that understanding the "when and which" of polearms leads to understanding of military history of the late middle ages. I concur, but I wonder why he didn´t add some paragraphs to set it into context?

To sum it up:

- Gygax already knew it wasn´t only the Swiss
- Gygax knew polearms were important and different polearms were used for quite different battlefield duties
- Gygax didn´t state the "when and which" explicitly (IIRC)
- Gygax modelled the Swiss in Chainmail exception-based.

Actually the interesting part would be to sooth-say , whether the basic Chainmail rules were a Perren contribution, that was made more colourful by Gygaxian exception-based design of the Swiss and the Fantasy supplement.

I'd have to doublecheck the exact period Chainmail covers, for all I know it might end with the Swiss still ascendant. I think there were some early articles on Swiss & Renaissance wargaming in early issues of The Dragon (& Strategic Review) & TSR used to have a wargaming magazine co-currant with The Dragon for a time. Gygax wrote several of those articles.

Cavaliers and Roundheads, while not technically the right period or location may cover war from the end of Chainmail through the ECW. I don't have it though. It is TSR's first product, something of a successor to Chainmail, but isn't as rare as their Barsoom rules.

Wikipedia entry for it. Can't seem to find an Acaeum entry for it.

Quote from: Elliot WilenBTW, this is an interesting angle--I wonder how, to what extent, Gygax's awareness/pride of his Swiss heritage had to do with his polearm fixation.

I knew it!!

That is, I didn't specifically know that Gary Gygax was of Swiss origin, but a few years ago there was in my firm a guy from Switzerland called Karl Gygax. When he told me his surname I must have opened my eyes like plates :eek: