Well, they did call the Germanic tribes barbarians but the same name stuck for the Vikings. After the conquest of the northern parts of Europe by the Romans, they would have encountered the occasional raid from the Vikings. This is due to the fact that every winter the Vikings would stay at their villages but would go out every spring and fall on raiding seasons. On these seasons they went south because they believed that the world ended if they went to the west. The Romans would have encountered the Vikings during these skirmishes and would find more of them later one when they took to 'civilizing' Britannia. Of course, this meant that the Romans fought a war against the clans of Britannia and the Vikings, who had happened to have pacts with a clan or two.

The shield wall would most likely come later on. That move was essentially created by the Spartans and adopted by the Romans because it was a great move. The turtle is also another Roman move which clarified that all shields were formed into basically a turtle. The turtle was based off of the shield wall which was purely kept between the Romans and the assimilated societies of Greece. It is unlikely that we would be capable of having knowledge of it unless we are set in the period of time after contact between Vikings and Romans. Essentially, the Vikings assimilated the shield wall after several battles with the Romans.

Thing is vikings were not ''wildlings'' that went to battle shirtless. :P They used actual tactics, picking high value targets like churches and some villages preferring to not battle anyone that might kill them (i.e armies) and I have difficulties believing that:



is derived from the Roman testudo or the Spartan/Greek phalanx. Formations like these were prevalent in most civilizations and their armies even without contact with Romans (see the Chinese/Koreans defending against the Japanese pirates using long spears). Either way, disregard this, this is just irrelevant if we cannot start the RP right?

So.. should I wait or get that OOC up? OOC might get us some extra attention.

Oh, and I think it's obvious we're playing AFTER the Roman era.

Gonna be honest, I'm not real sure what the discussion is here. I agree that it was obvious we are set in a time period long after the fall of Rome, probably something early medieval, and as for this shield wall thing... if we only have a few people, it doesn't really seem relevant where it came from or if we would have knowledge of how to do it.

I say put up the OOC whenever you feel like it.

EDIT: Also, Vikings are defined as Norse seafarers from the 8th to 11th centuries, so it seems incorrect to refer to either the Germanic tribes or the Britannic clans that Rome battled with as Vikings.

Just historical discussion, though I agree there's no real need to. I'll put up an OOC in like.. an hour or maybe two.

http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/60373/posts/ooc?page=1#post-1862187

Bump.

Bumpity, we still could use a few more people.

Bump, can use 2 more people (just about 2 people I think)

DID SOMEONE SAY VIKINGS?!