Battle of the burning plains II

Composition of opposing forces

After having discussed the size of the opposing forces it is time we discuss their armaments. We are led to believe that the people fighting in the Inheritance trilogy are generally swordsmen defended by shields and chain mail armor, if available. While there are a few pikemen and a few archers generally Paolini has made his heroes fight in a pseudo-medieval way, as is raher common in fantasy literature.

The main offensive weapon seems to be the one hand sword. Swords needing two hands to hold are not mentioned. A few pikemen are mentioned near the front line, and Eragon has to defend himself by arcane means from showers of arrows but these seem to be the exceptions. This applies to both humans and dwarves. Only the elves are mentioned to be mainly armed with pikes (and indeed are shown so earlier, when Eragon enters Du Wuldenvarden) but they do not take part in this battle except for Arya, who mainly fights with her sword.

As for defensive weapons all soldiers seem to be armed with rather small shields. The large round shield of the hoplites of antiquity are absent and their tactics are not applied. Chain mail armor all the way to the feet is part of the standard armament of the dwarves, but we are led to believe that this is not so for human armies, whether the Varden or Surda. Plate armor, whether the bronze armor of archaic hoplites or hardened leather of classical and hellenisitc hoplites or the iron armor of the late middle ages and the renessaince are not mentioned except as Saphira's armor. The armor or the weapons of Orrin's cavalry or the Urghals are not mentioned, but we are led to believe that they too armed with swords.

Generally since both armies are rather symmetrical in armament and composition (except for the cavalry and the Urghals) one cannot really hope to use an inherent difference in the tactic of each formation to gain advantage. The ancient Greeks repeateldy defeated numerically superior Achemenid Persian armies because the much more heavily armed and superiorly disciplined hoplite would run to the enemy formation (to avoid arrows) and then breach it, causing it to disintegrate into a chaos of fleeing men who would enjoy numerical superiority but have little will to fight. Though Nassuada has the ace of the cavalry, the Kull and Eragon the infantry battle is bound to become a bloody series of individual jousts between swordsmen unless she uses some brilliant tactical move (that she does not).