Month: August 2020

War pigs – the ancient secret weapon

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Deploy the war pigs

Warfare was a little different before rocket-propelled grenades and tanks were a thing. Instead of explosions and long-distance sniping, our ancient forebears used things like the longbow, gladius, or sarissa. They also used animals, especially giant, intimidating beasts like elephants. What’s scarier than the prospect of being stomped into jelly by a raging tusker?

Every tactic has counter-tactics, so when faced with a bunch of angry pachyderms, supposedly the solution was to deploy something elephants fear: war pigs. In various historical Roman texts (Lucretius, Pliny the Elder, Polyaenus – see the wiki article here), its reported that a pig’s squeal is terrifying to elephants, and doubly-so when the war pig is set on fire and running towards you.

I prefer my bacon ethically-sourced, not set on fire and driven into a mob, so here is my version of a snugly-armoured war pig. Check out the layers used in constructing this piece: base colours, shading and lineart, and shading and base colours only.

War pig with base colours onlyWar pig with line art and shading onlyWar pig with shading and base colours only