I guess unicorns use some kind of destructive magic.
Pegasi might drop some things from above.
Mud-ponies just a hand to hand combat?
>>108786My headcanon for midevil pony warfare is that unicorns are battlefield specialists, using AoE spells both offensively and defensively. Pegasi would serve a role mixed between traditional calvery, and air superiority aircraft. They would hit the enemy from the flanks, and rain down damage from the skies. Earth ponies would wear heavy, spiked armor, and would charge at their opponent.
>>108786>handREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEe
>>108786>>108813>Hoof-hoof combatCould be deadly, for the strongest ponies.
>>108765With pony melee weapons. Lances, hoof boots, wing blades for pegasi, literally anything you can think of for unicorns and potentially tail whips. For firearms, semi-automatic developed for use with hooves using either fire and maneuver tactics or firing lines.
>>108881rather than holding the guns with hooves shouldn't they just be strapped to the sides pointed forward? then ponies arre more mobile and they can aim by pointing their bodies
>>108881Lances seem to be a bad idea. How would ponies aim them with no rider on their back?
>>108883Fine aim, reloading and general handling is impossible with saddle mounted weaponry.
>>108885They don't really, they're just strapped to the saddle and are somehow able to aim them. Cartoon physics.
>>108887Saddle mounted works in a futuristic setting.
>>108892It only works if the reloading systems are 100% infallible. In actuality, since they're equines and the natural evolution of cavalry warfare is mechanised, they'd wind up relying a whole lot on that rather than infantry as bipeds do.
>>108765They don't. In the movie, the entire empire was seized by a single invasion on the capital. The ponies have become weak through peace.
02:48 is as close as we get to see a pony war
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h868wvB5PMYI guess that's as much as they can do, i mean, they are just ponies afther all.
>>108786I would expect them to be more like this personally.
Inb4 best faction.
>>109068I like how they had to write out all the guards to make the plot work.
I assume that they aren't that developed militarily, of course if they have canons and firearms they would fight in completely different way, but I prefer more ancient setting.
Also I don't think that ponies had a lot of fighting as a united country, so their combined arms approach is rather limited, and each race have their own ways of fighting.
Also it always irks me when people write, paint ponies holding weapons in their mouth.
It's completely impractical, maybe when only earth ponies fight it isn't such big handicap, but pegasi or unicorns would just destroy them.
Same with them bucking enemies, it surely is great idea to turn your back towards enemy, or try to turn around as a pony when you are in formation.
I think that good idea for earth ponies would be phalanx or some other slow moving formation, ponies take more place than humans, so they can't be packed in formation as tightly as we, they can't use both hooves to hold weapons, and in formation it would be practically impossible to turn.
It would be also really hard for such formation to retreat, but instead of mobility they can use heavier armour, that would also protect them from air attacks.
If they have some sort of shield strapped to one of their legs they can still move forward and when fighting just hide behind the shield with one foreleg firmly on the ground and use other to try to poke spear into enemy formation.
Pegasi obviously can fly, so I don't see why they would try to fight on the ground (unless against other fliers), they can shoot bolts or arrows from the sky, or be used as some sort of light skirmishers/flanking force.
Though they can't really perform big offensives on themeselves, at least not traveling by sky, they as an army still need sypplies, and I don't think that it would be possible to transport them using sky. (Even if they forage, army still needs supplies that rarely can be simply stolen)
Against other flyers it would be bad idea to fight in the sky, especially in clear sky without any clouds, you constantly have two giant unarmored limbs on your back that you can't really hide, even light wound probably ends with falling to your death and it would be really hard to keep any kind of formation when you have another dimension in fighting, so I assume that clashes of two formations of flyers are rather avoided.
Also it makes sieges a lot easier if you can just fly over walls, so races like griphons often build their fortifications inside of mountains and similar places.
For unicorns it depends how strong magic really is, in show strong unicorn would be able to turn whole units into dust, but I don't like this idea especially considering that it isn't like normal fantasy when people with magic talents are rare, you have 1/3 of population capable of using magic, and with some training each of them would be pretty powerfull, so I prefer nerfed magic, and unicorns in supportive positions like engineers, messengers, etc.