Dwarves are stubborn, clever, and patient to a fault. Their fortress stout and resilient. Their natural talent for working stone and metal is paralleled only by grand master crafters of other peoples. They achieve this through tireless tinkering, pursuing perfection in the works of their hands. It should come as no surprise that those with the best fortresses know best how to unmake them. However, their small stature, stubbornness, and patience lead them to inflexible strategies. They are good, but not fast, and definitely not cheap soldiers.

Orcs are proud, strong, and large. Their culture developed around a severe imbalance of males to females, with only the strongest, most successful orcs gaining access to a mate. Because of their strength and size, combat was a natural course to test the menfolk against themselves. An individual orc infantry can demolish any other soldier in armed combat or athletic endeavors, but lose their edge at scale. As soldiers, they are fast and they are cheap, but they are not suited to mass formations - rather shock infantry, raiders or saboteurs.

Elves, by contrast, are proud, slim, nimble, and elegant. The average elf is little use to other elves until the age of 50, after they have master of their first speciality. Because elves have time, they seek perfection and loath failure, so will often delay until the perfect opportunity arises. Due to their longevity, producing low birthrates, and their natural agility, they prefer to avoid tactics which produce 'meat grinders' - it takes too long and costs to much to replace losses on short order, if it can be done at all before the end of the war. They find a beauty in archery, a skill which has a range of quality which is acceptable without being perfect, and make devastating foot archers. Their skill and agility allow them to reposition quickly at need, and find optimal angles to hit priority targets at extreme range. As soldiers, the are good, they can be fast, but they are by no means cheap.

At last we have humans. Humanity is madness incarnate. They are a generalist people, and can bond with a bread box. They have no formal strategy, no predictability, no preference. They pursue excellence, but for most there is a 'good enough' break point. Their comparatively short life span allows rapid recovery, and their youths develop skills faster than ice melts in summer. Above all, humans are flexible - in all things, not just tactics or weapons or strategy, but morals and size and quality.

The most outrageous tribes seen ride 'horses,' a badly deformed, dumb, panicky centaur, almost as an extension of themselves. This permits speed comparable or faster than elves, and weight beyond the orcs. The riders with bows can shoot almost as well as an elf, reposition almost as well, and can turn on a hapenny to avoid counterfire or infantry blocks. They're faster than just about any foot and last longer too. Mounted archers as soldiers are sterling, good, fast, and modestly priced.

But that is not the end of the madness. There are those humans call 'Lancers' who ride into battle atop a massive horse, all decked in armor, wielding a pointy tree branch, with a song on their lips, a smile on their face, and death in their hearts as they race headlong into an infantry formation. The morale blow alone collapses battles.

Imagine 2500 pounds of flesh and metal hurtling toward you at speed, thunder and drinking songs filling your ears as the 10 foot stake aims toward your heart. This is just one lancer. Cavalry formations are often more than one hundred riders. Nevermind the fact that companies of cavalry often send 1000 riders on contract.

Humanity is flexible. Humanity is crazy. And there's nothing to stop a dismounted archer from staving your head in with the discarded helmet of his fallen ally, getting up, going home, having a pint, and then do it all again tomorrow.