Best HFY Stories: The Ritual of Steel

First

Can you a seriers about steel guns and Industrial party

First time I seen Pict's represent in an HFY story. Loved this one.

Larping inter galactic

Hey, Vlad! Long time no see 😁

I LOVE this one! So many different warrior types and fighting styles represented! It’s beautiful! Honestly, the only thing I was sad about not seeing was archers and mounted archers representation. Oh well, still super entertaining (especially the call back to the Chinese general who psyched his arch-nemesis out with a cup of tea and a chair outside the gates of a stronghold)

They're literally just trolling them at this point.

"yeah, look, whatever it is you think you got, we did that already".

Humans:

Their first mistake was not reading human history. The second mistake was not going to a reenactment

What people always overlook. That something like this (civilized war with rules) can be enforced, there must be a power way more powerful than both partys combined that enforces those rules. And they need to have some motivation to overwatch those primitiver cilvilisations. May it be to jeep order in the universe or just entertainment for them. Some true eldrich horror.

That one alien just thinking NOPE and walking the other way.

Human ambassador: So. Who wants to find out what we can do with modern weapons and tactics?

"Finally" - every Stellaris player ever.

They got things easy, as there are many other warriors humanity have through history.

Heck, if it’s supposed to be our medieval or we could’ve used Pike and shot tactics because that was invented during the medieval era heck we had sege cannons in the 1200s i believe

What was hard to explain, they kept the Gurkhas and Canadians in reserve.

Do they know the riddle of steel?.

A-

Enjoyed.

They even used winged hussars

I am not that educated when it comes to south american warfare from history. Was it not a poisonous dart that hit the kid, and almost put him in shock?

Psychological warfare.

Fire and wind come from the sky, from the gods of the sky. But Crom is your god, Crom and he lives in the earth. Once, giants lived in the Earth, Conan. And in the darkness of chaos, they fooled Crom, and they took from him the enigma of steel. Crom was angered. And the Earth shook. Fire and wind struck down these giants, and they threw their bodies into the waters, but in their rage, the gods forgot the secret of steel and left it on the battlefield. We who found it are just men. Not gods. Not giants. Just men. The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan. You must learn its discipline. For no one - no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts: This you can trust.

For those who want more iron age formations fighting filthy zenos, look for "Ranks Of Bronze" by David Drake.
It's about a roman legion being kidnapped by space aliens to fight in interstellar wars against other iron age xenos.
Its some kind of prime directive that they are not allowed to use advanced tech on primitive worlds. So space factions send in their own iron age "mercenaries" to do the fighting for them.

And so the space xenos too experienced the frustration of fighting parthian horse archers.
rip.

In the first battle the armies represented; gold armor and red cloaks, Roman; archers on scaled horses with pointed helmets, Ottoman circa 1400; armored cavalry with lances, medieval European?; armored demons with masks of ogres and lacquered armor, Samurai; armored men with maces and hammers, European again?

They’re lucky they didn’t go against the Texas Rangers/Comanche. Even worse if it was the British Grenadiers.

“Some talk of Alexander, and others of Heracles…”

Bagpipers were a glaring omission. I love them, but they would be another form of psychological warfare to thise who hadn't heard them before.

Why do so many aliens on these stories have mandibles

the ritual of
stealing

Fairly sure the Crow Nation finally picked up a new batch of War Chiefs in that mess.

Lol the full contact larping community on earth just had a field day

This is what happens when you let humans re-enact "The Battle of Tutenburg". lol! The xeno emperor would be screaming "Give me back my legion!"

BTW, does anyone think this has a similar vibe to an HFY story called "When the Trees Speak." ?

Didnt even reach the romans.