12:7 - Artemis vs. Odin

[UMPIRE]

SEASON 12, ROUND 7

Artemis

Slot: The Team's Deity
Season Wins: 1
Season Losses: 0
Fantasy Team Page
Read more about Artemis at this Wiki
Official Site: Public Domain

Odin

Slot: The Team's Deity
Season Wins: 1
Season Losses: 0
Fantasy Team Page
Read more about Odin at this Wiki
Official Site: Public Domain

Battle Terrain
Deities: Followers Battle

[Twogunkid]

Now this is an interesting matchup. Artemis is a goddess of the hunt and Odin is a god of kings and wisdom. Both have a large number of followers who are warriors. I suppose it comes down to a tactical matchup and battle terrain.

 

Viking Longships favoring quick raids as versus field battles. Ancient Greeks favoring massive Pike formations that remained an effective and essential component of warfare (in part) until after the Napoleonic Box when the bayonet as an anti-cavalry measure finally stopped being a key component of war.

If we are to assume a neutral battle terrain (ie not the hills of Greece or a coastline) I give the edge to the side more known for disciplined military formations and field armies.

[Mercenaryblade]

I give this to the allfather the old Norse were a warrior culture, and Odin was an essential figure. 

[Mercenaryblade]

7 minutes ago, Twogunkid said:

Now this is an interesting matchup. Artemis is a goddess of the hunt and Odin is a god of kings and wisdom. Both have a large number of followers who are warriors. I suppose it comes down to a tactical matchup and battle terrain.

 

Viking Longships favoring quick raids as versus field battles. Ancient Greeks favoring massive Pike formations that remained an effective and essential component of warfare (in part) until after the Napoleonic Box when the bayonet as an anti-cavalry measure finally stopped being a key component of war.

If we are to assume a neutral battle terrain (ie not the hills of Greece or a coastline) I give the edge to the side more known for disciplined military formations and field armies.

The Vikings weren't exactly undisciplined brutes charging in without a plan despite what Hollywood would have you think. They had a firm grasp of tactics and strategy, shield walls and countering shield walls were part of their tactics. Just ask the Saxons who lost a good part of their territory to Norse raiders. 

If this was Odin vs Ares I'd agree with you, and while Artemis was favored by archers she is Goddess of the hunt and not battle.

[Twogunkid]

38 minutes ago, Mercenaryblade said:

The Vikings weren't exactly undisciplined brutes charging in without a plan despite what Hollywood would have you think. They had a firm grasp of tactics and strategy, shield walls and countering shield walls were part of their tactics. Just ask the Saxons who lost a good part of their territory to Norse raiders. 

If this was Odin vs Ares I'd agree with you, and while Artemis was favored by archers she is Goddess of the hunt and not battle.

I mean if we say it is the hunters of Artemis you have a guerilla war of expert shots sniping at Vikings. I didn't portray them as loose berserkers, but rather as hit and run raiders. In which case we have two hit and run tactic squads fighting each other.

[Culwych1]

Artemis was also revered and worshiped by soldiers, and you can count the Spartans and Athenians amongst them. 

"Besides their military training, it was customary for warriors to sacrifice a goat to Artemis on the front lines of the army where the enemy was in view before unleashing an attack" (Artemis and her Cult)

"At Sparta and Athens (after the Battle of Marathon of 490 BCE), Artemis was worshipped as Artemis Agrotera and regarded as a goddess of battle, a goat being sacrificed to her before an engagement by the Spartans and an annual 500 offered to the goddess by the Athenians." (WorldHistory.org)

So essentially, an army of these: 

vs an army of these: 

 

No other reason than I wanted to post these two awesome pics. 😁

[Mercenaryblade]

1 hour ago, Culwych1 said:

Artemis was also revered and worshiped by soldiers, and you can count the Spartans and Athenians amongst them. 

"Besides their military training, it was customary for warriors to sacrifice a goat to Artemis on the front lines of the army where the enemy was in view before unleashing an attack" (Artemis and her Cult)

"At Sparta and Athens (after the Battle of Marathon of 490 BCE), Artemis was worshipped as Artemis Agrotera and regarded as a goddess of battle, a goat being sacrificed to her before an engagement by the Spartans and an annual 500 offered to the goddess by the Athenians." (WorldHistory.org)

So essentially, an army of these: 

vs an army of these: 

 

No other reason than I wanted to post these two awesome pics. 😁

They're both equally awesome in my opinion 

[Twogunkid]

3 hours ago, Mercenaryblade said:

They're both equally awesome in my opinion 

Vikings vs Greek Armies we are in for a treat. It will be a cool fight either way.

[Twogunkid]

But to that end, an army of Greeks is a greater field force than the Viking forces. Viking forces while well planned targeted civilians and lightly defended areas. Hoplites are a dedicated field army

[Pizzaguy2995]

I second TGK, the Norse were raiders not soldiers. Their’s a reason why Alexander the Great conquered the known world with Hoplites and not Vikings.

[Mercenaryblade]

Let me remind everyone this isn't a who would win a battle between vikings and greeks. This is which deity can get the most followers. 

[Twogunkid]

5 minutes ago, Mercenaryblade said:

Let me remind everyone this isn't a who would win a battle between vikings and greeks. This is which deity can get the most followers. 

This one kind of is who would win a battle

[Mercenaryblade]

1 hour ago, Twogunkid said:

This one kind of is who would win a battle

I misread for some reason. 

Vikings for the win, phalanx has a glaring weakness, that being its easy to flank, vikings hit and run tactics would whittle phalanxes down. The Romans beat the Greeks because their legions were far more versatile, and their javelins opened up gaps in the formations.

Also Vikings would have steel weapons

[Twogunkid]

So this is a rare chance for me to bust out knowledge of St./King Alfred the Great.

 

Alfred had such a successful defense against their raids that his son was able to crush the last Danish army to invade England at the battle of Tettenhall.  The Danes launched many armies into England and found themselves frequently encircled and then forced to surrender or fight to the death. At the Battle of Buttington, Alfred kept the vikings from reaching their ships and so was able to force a large host to surrender. (He let them go on the condition they not raid England again. Spoilers: They did not keep their end of the agreement). He would repeat this strategy of separating the Vikings from their ships to crush invaders. The Danes would proceed to invade again once Alfred died and engage in a bloody battle and narrow victory at the Battle of the Holme (sources are lacking on this one, we are stuck with just one Anglo-Saxon chronicle of the event which portrays it as a narrow Danish victory with both sides suffering heavy losses)

His sons and daughter then lead the battle of Tettenhall. The Vikings are cut off again by pike formations and kept from escaping to the sea. The important thing in all these campaigns was denying Vikings access to the sea. Without an easy escape to water the Vikings are not the hit and run masters they need to be to best the Phalanx formation. The Vikings forces are not known for being a standing field army. They are best as raiders and commandos. They are not suited to taking on disciplined military formations. Alfred and his children achieved success against the Vikings by keeping an army organized and denying the Danes the ability to retreat.

I may grant that steel > bronze, but pikes are an infantry weapon with staying power. They are the dominant weapon from 400 BC until the 16th century when Pike and Shot was the next development where it still saw key play through the Tercio strategy and continued to be used through the early 1700s. (with a few niche uses when bayonets were in short supply afterwards). The Phalanx was a dedicated and disciplined infantry formation which saw success against numbers far greater than its own.

The Roman infantry formations upon encountering Phalanxes under Pyrrhus did lose their first few encounters (which were costly, hence Pyrrhic Victory). The real battles between Roman formations came when they invaded Macedon under Phillip the V for allying with Carthage.  The armies meet at Cynoscephalae (probably horribly misspelled) and are of comprable strength. There is a large hill separating the armies. Phillip takes the hill but in the process exposes the left flank of his army.

The Romans advancing up the hill are slaughtered by the Macedonian Center and Right.  The left was still climbing the hill and had not entered the phalanx and they are what ultimately breaks. Seeing their left routed, the phalanx is slow to respond. That is where the legion beats the phalanx, but Viking central leadership is lacking. So their perceived mobility and responsiveness fails with the lack of a dedicated officer corps and a style of combat that focuses on avoiding the enemy rather than fighting them. 

 

[DSkillz]

11 hours ago, Twogunkid said:

So this is a rare chance for me to bust out knowledge of St./King Alfred the Great. 

 

Alfred had such a successful defense against their raids that his son was able to crush the last Danish army to invade England at the battle of Tettenhall.  The Danes launched many armies into England and found themselves frequently encircled and then forced to surrender or fight to the death. At the Battle of Buttington, Alfred kept the vikings from reaching their ships and so was able to force a large host to surrender. (He let them go on the condition they not raid England again. Spoilers: They did not keep their end of the agreement). He would repeat this strategy of separating the Vikings from their ships to crush invaders. The Danes would proceed to invade again once Alfred died and engage in a bloody battle and narrow victory at the Battle of the Holme (sources are lacking on this one, we are stuck with just one Anglo-Saxon chronicle of the event which portrays it as a narrow Danish victory with both sides suffering heavy losses)

His sons and daughter then lead the battle of Tettenhall. The Vikings are cut off again by pike formations and kept from escaping to the sea. The important thing in all these campaigns was denying Vikings access to the sea. Without an easy escape to water the Vikings are not the hit and run masters they need to be to best the Phalanx formation. The Vikings forces are not known for being a standing field army. They are best as raiders and commandos. They are not suited to taking on disciplined military formations. Alfred and his children achieved success against the Vikings by keeping an army organized and denying the Danes the ability to retreat.

I may grant that steel > bronze, but pikes are an infantry weapon with staying power. They are the dominant weapon from 400 BC until the 16th century when Pike and Shot was the next development where it still saw key play through the Tercio strategy and continued to be used through the early 1700s. (with a few niche uses when bayonets were in short supply afterwards). The Phalanx was a dedicated and disciplined infantry formation which saw success against numbers far greater than its own.

The Roman infantry formations upon encountering Phalanxes under Pyrrhus did lose their first few encounters (which were costly, hence Pyrrhic Victory). The real battles between Roman formations came when they invaded Macedon under Phillip the V for allying with Carthage.  The armies meet at Cynoscephalae (probably horribly misspelled) and are of comprable strength. There is a large hill separating the armies. Phillip takes the hill but in the process exposes the left flank of his army.

The Romans advancing up the hill are slaughtered by the Macedonian Center and Right.  The left was still climbing the hill and had not entered the phalanx and they are what ultimately breaks. Seeing their left routed, the phalanx is slow to respond. That is where the legion beats the phalanx, but Viking central leadership is lacking. So their perceived mobility and responsiveness fails with the lack of a dedicated officer corps and a style of combat that focuses on avoiding the enemy rather than fighting them. 

Heh, did you just talk up Merc's guy?  

[Twogunkid]

1 hour ago, DSkillz said:

Heh, did you just talk up Merc's guy?  

A little bit, but a massed pike formation was proven effective against Vikings.

[UMPIRE]

Match Final Results

Artemis: 5
Odin: 8