User:Minionman/Human military

The militaries of the human nations have a long and varied history. When the first human nation of Arathor formed, its military was somewhat disorganized, but still effective due to the bravery of its soldiers, and the recent introduction of magic by the High Elves. Over time, human militaries have become more organized, and have changed to meet new dangers and adjust to differing alliances.

Militia
Moreso than other races, the human nations rely on strong, organized militias for their military needs. Unlike more nomadic, hunter races such as trolls or tauren, who's fighters very often learn their skills from hunting or brawling, the human militias are much more organized, with time set aside each week for weapons training and drills. Compared to hunters from other races, human militiamen are often not as skilled individually, but in general have a better understanding of tactics and formations. The high human population generally means that militia will have equal or greater numbers to whoever they are fighting. When skillfully led, and supported well, human militia are surprisingly difficult foes to defeat. During the first orc invasions of azeroth, the orc attackers expected that their own fighting skill, larger size and strength, and demonic bloodlust would overpower "simple farmers", but they were instead defeated several times before better organization allowed them to start winning against their human opponents.

The preferred equipment of militia has changed over time. When the first militias were formed, metal armor and shield were uncommon, and the militias mostly used whatever weapons were available. during the troll wars, shields were introduced, and arathor leaders established communal forges and weapon makers for production of higher quality weapons. When humans contacted the dwarves, dwarven mining and metalworking technology spread, and metal armor and weapons became more common. Over the past few centuries, the preferred militia weapons have gone through phases, switching between shorter, one handed spears and shields, longer two handed spears, and swords and shields. During the past generation, swords and shields have been the most common, as the main long terms enemies have been bandit groups and other raiders, that attack too quickly for large spear groups to organize and be effective. During the orc wars, some commanders suggested that spears would be more effective against the orc's forces, but the wars did not last long enough for this change to occur. Recently, spears have started appearing again as the scourge, burning legion, and other more organized groups become important enemies again.

Professional Foot Soldiers
While most human nations rely on militia to supply foot soldiers, using their professional fighters for other tasks, some nations such as theramore and stromgarde maintain large armies of full time foot soldiers. These soldiers tend to be equipped with similar types of equipment as militia, but generally purchased from more skilled smiths or metalworkers, and the soldiers receive more training, usually in the use of more types of weapons than militia. Full time knights or other horsemen are also trained as foot soldiers, should theneed arise to fight on foot.

Cavalry
Throughout the history of the organized human nations, cavalry has been considered their greatest advantage over other races. While orcs and night elves do use mounted forces, these are mainly used for raiding or hit and run attacks, and the number of orc or night elf riders tends to be far less than the number of human riders. Magic has been given more attantion during the troll wars, hut early human horsemen were also highly successful against the trolls, who never learned to effectively fight against horsemen in open spaces. During the orc invasions, charges against grunts or ogres were often highly successful, with orcs often needing large numbers or magic to win such a battle. In the current day, horsemen in the Hillsbrad region have proved the townspeople's most effective weapon against forsaken attacks.

Several reasons exist for human cavalry's advantage over other cavalry inlarge battles. Most other groups on azeroth use predators as mounts, making it more difficult to maintain a large number compared to grazing horses. Other races have never considered using mounts in the same roles humans have, and as a result have bred mounts for qualities more useful in raiding than full scale attacks. Some races, such as night elves and dwarves, have adapted to fighting in rough terrain, where using cavalry as human do is ineffective. Over time, traditiona and knowledge have built up that continue to give human an edge at using cavalry in large battles.

Most horsemen in human nations are full time soldiers, though the Hilsbrad militia have taken up this role, with the towns of Hillsbrad and Southshore maintaining well guarded communal stables for the militia. Most cavalry comes in two forms, fully armored knights, who ride the strongest of horses, and are fully armored, often with fully armored horses, and lighter cavalry, who use slightly lighter armor than militia, generally using weaker horses. Knights generally are equipped with lances and swords, and involve themselves in the thickest of fighting. A charge by knights is one of the more well known and difficult to resist types of attacks used by human soldiers, breaking up or defeating all but the largest or best prepared groups of enemies. Lighter cavalry is used for hit and run attacks, to attack enemies groups spread out by magical attacks, or to attack the less protected or less skilled rear groups of enemy armies.

Magic
When high elves first taught humans to use magic, they did not expect that a human nation would one day become the center of magic in azeroth. For many centuries until its destruction by archimonde, Dalaran was the center of magical practice on the world, and even today is one of the main centers of magic, along with Silvermoon and the Exodar. Magic has been an important element of human warfare during that time, and until the orc wars, the human nations never fought an equal in magical combat.

Mages in the human nations performed a number of roles in battle, but their most important function was to use powerful area effect spells against tightly packed groups of enemies. If enemies spread out to avoid such an attack, they would than make easy targets for horsemen. Over time, human mages acquired a reputation for preferring straightforward magical power to learning the subtleties of magic, but both groups of lmages contained many skilled in both ways of doing magic.

With the destruction of Dalaran, mages in the human nations have become much more disorganized, and battle mages have become more difficult to organize for battle. Against bandit enemies such as the defias and undead in duskwood, this matters little, but against enemies such as the scourge or Naga, the loss of mages for fighting has hurt human warfare significantly.

Clerics and Paladins
As human society organized, clerics, priests, and other officials associated with a hew "holy light" spread throughout the settled lands. In peacetime, these clerics helped govern and organize settlements, healed illnesses, organized charity or other such assistance, among other functions. During the troll wars, human leaders quickly realized how useful clerics would be in warfare, for their healing abilities, morale improvements, and assistance in removing hexes and other similar effects. Throughout human history, clerics joined armies to provide these services to the soldiers, often traveling with their village or town's militia.

This system worked well until the orc invasion, where clerics proved tempting targets for orc fighters. So many clerics were killed at the beginning of the invasion that when the human alliance was established, several members of it wanted to completely remake clerics to be better equipped for battle. clerics were given armor, taught to use weapons, and several techniques were developed to use their skills with the holy light to enhance their combat abilities. Out of this process, Paladins were born. Paladins proved their worth many times during the orc invasion, and within a few years were fully combined into all human armies.

However, the process of training paladins was time consuming and expensive, so between the wars, clerics and warriors studied ways that civilian priests could join in combat without requiring extensive weapons training or strength training to use armor. Techniques were developed, based off defensive techniques used by mages, that priests could easily learn for use in combat. these techniques were tested in the war with the scourge, and found successful for priests, though the war itself went poorly for the human nations.

Today, both priests and paladins act as healers in human armies and militias, paladins generally act more as full time soldiers, while priests more often act as militia. Unfortunately, the human nations have in recent years had difficulty getting priests and paladins to where they are needed. many have been recruited by the scarlet crusade or argent dawn, and political difficulties often keep the remaining ones from effectively reaching the areas where they are needed.