Timewaster's Guide Archive

The war has been going on for 6 years and not once have the Parshendi shot fire arrows at the bridges and bridgemen? How is it that the armies can't set up permanent bridges too far outside of their camps for fear of the Parshendi burning them down during raids, yet not once in 6 years have the Parshendi tried to burn the mobile bridges assaulting their plateaus?

A couple points.

One, I don't think the bridge crews have existed in Sadeas' present form for all 6 years.  If that were the case, it doesn't seem like we'd be reading as much as we did about the novelty of his tactic.  I can hardly believe all the other Alethi High Princes would sit by for six whole years and let Sadeas have free reign over the hunts without trying to counter with their own similar bridge crew setups.  As bad as Sadeas is, he still seems to have more honor and decency than some of the other High Princes.

Two, it's not clear to me how effective a tactic it would be to try lighting the bridges on fire.  The gemheart battles seem to happen pretty quickly, and I don't think you're really going to be able to do much damage to a bridge before its crew can get it in place and the troops can start storming across it.  Maybe you could burn it so the troops can't cross back, but except for [GIANT SPOILER] retreating across bridges never seems to be too big a deal.

Fire was an excellent weapon in ancient naval battles, but remember that (a) you're stuck on the burning boat once it starts burning, and (b) there's substantially more flammable stuff going into classical boats, like sailcloth and pitch.  Wood alone just doesn't catch on fire that quickly.