Erunion

Good research! So are we banking on unspeakable tragedy then? Or is there a third option?

Hrmmm.... My gut is telling me that one of two things is true. Either Nazh was born a LONG time after SSFH, or he was born a LONG time before SSFH. If after: They've tamed the forest, maybe even beaten the evil, and made the shades to be less awful! Yay! Happy ending for everyone. Ish. If before: The Forests of Hell used to be a populated continent. They would convert people to Shades using ceremony, and those shades would likely linger and talk and interact with people. Then Something Happened. By the time the Evil strikes the Homeland, all of Nazh's people have been destroyed and turned into shades, possibly for hundreds of years. So our options? A happy ending, or a horrific apocalyptic backstory. Somehow, I feel the apocalyptic backstory fits better: remember, a lot of SSFH's inspiration came from puritan colonists to North America. And what had happened to the native population? An epidemic had swept through the Americas, killing upwards of 95% of the population, leaving the colonists a post-apocalyptic, desolate continent to settle.

Thanks Knight Oblivion, and great points, especially on Gravity!

I feel you. But that's fine! I never liked linear systems anyway... And I'm doing well enough in my other courses I might actually be able to pass without writing the final... hrmm.... Resarr, your wish is granted. You are given all the volumes of White Sand. You're so excited, you turn to open them, only to find they're full of White Sand, and nothing else. The white haired, arrow faced traveler laughs and disappears before you can say anything. Your bane is that you now will feel (white) sand on your inner thighs for the rest of your life. It's not real, but it feels like it's there, and you can never get it off. I wish to be able to effectively convey emotional content and Intent through text and over the internet, so that none may be offended by reading into my writing things that are not there!

That's what I think, although I'm not sure it's a consensus yet! Great point Pathfinder! Shardblades were never meant to break shardplate! However, I do think they still have an advantage against it, even if it's only an incidental one due to innate investiture.

Disagree with you there Pathfinder. Comments are in red. EDIT: I hope I didn't offend, I get very invested in this kind of topic, but I'm not angry at all or dislike you or anything of that nature! I just like debating

Frenemies: absolutely brilliant stylistic design. Well done. Portraits: Amazing. Especially Jasnah - that's one of the best pictures of her I've seen. Probably the best - captures the 'gorgeous, but serious, scholarly and RIDICULOUSLY REGAL' vibe she has going on. But why no pupil? Arena groupies: One of the funniest/geekiest jokes I've seen. Well done. Well done indeed.

And remember, the Highprinces don't have all the blades. A a bunch of the blades would likely be held by guys like Amaram - people who are tied to one highprince for now, but could switch princedoms if they felt it would benefit them.

Well said Voidus! I think that Shardblades ARE more effective than regular weapons against plate, for specifically this reason. Every time, without fail, that a shardblade strikes shardplate with anything more than the lightest force, that plate is described as cracking, even the light strikes Adolin uses in his duel (in order to embarrass the guy) were causing cracks and leaks. It appears to take two 'normal' blows from a shardblade to shatter a piece of plate (see Szeth's fights, the duels/etc.). Remember, shardstrikes are generally slower and have less kinetic energy than typical weapon strikes, yet still shatter plate in two blows. The only time we see a one-shot kill on plate (the weapon going through an untouched section of fully charged plate, and killing the bearer rather than being repelled by plates ablative aspect) is when Szeth uses lashings with his blade to slam into the Veden shardbearer when he's assassinating the king. Every other weapon takes much more work to establish similar effects, and nothing one shot penetrates. A chasmfiend slams into Elhokar, and only really causes problems because Elhokars plate is already depleted. In order to do damage, a shardbearer wielding a hammer has to two-hand a massive blow into Adolin. The most effective non-shardblade strike we see against a shardplate is Kaladin's super kick. So, what do our three most effective anti-shardplate attacks have in common? Shardblades are chock full of investiture. Szeth's lashing attack uses a Shardblade AND a huge amount of momentum AND a huge amount of investiture. Kaladin's Shardkick uses a HUGE amount of investiture. Furthermore, we see shardplate (while still useful) becoming much less defensively effective as the suit drains of stormlight; as it loses the investiture. To summarize: Shardplate uses investiture for both mobility AND for extra strength (otherwise it would be completely unable to block a shardblade!). As its level of investiture decreases, it becomes simply a suit of heavy plate armour made of an extremely high hardness material. In order to break shardplate, you need to either overwhelm it's investiture (and innate strength) with energy, be that in the form of kinetic energy or investiture. Shardblades counteract the investiture directly, and I suspect are more effective because they have to be stopped by the plates innate investiture. They have cognitive 'momentum', if that makes any sense. HOWEVER: You want to really break shardplate? Have your Spren form you a real Shardhammer. Much more kinetic energy (plus a spikey point if you use a good warhammer design), AND the investiture bonus. TL;DR? Shardblades are better because MAGIC.

The early charge, yah? As a classic armchair general, I have a dozen idea of how I'd tactically handle Koloss, but those are all theories. I think it could be done. I think the Rosharans could do it and could figure it out. But I could be wrong!

I completely agree on the Koloss surviving by scavenging - where I disagree is that the Koloss will be LESS effective as the war goes on (if the war goes on!), as they are able to be countered, and the Rosharans would (assuming they survived long enough!) learn how.

Granted. You are done with them. It is an excellent job. You should be proud. Your bane is that the IRS will 'randomly' audit you. Every year. Without fail. And they'll make you fill out tons of extra forms. I wish to know and be able to apply everything I need to pass my Linear Systems course.... (Just pass. I don't need to do too well. No need to get greedy. My other courses will keep the GPA up... Probably.)

Mostly agreed. Go back to my first post in this thread (the massive 2000 word procrastination marathon) and you'll see I'm making the same point! The best way for the final empire to win is to rush the Rosharans with Koloss (supported by soothers/rioters/inquisitors) before the Rosharans know what's up. Convince them to engage in a massive field battle, then crush them using the Koloss. My argument was that if they weren't able to pull that off for whatever reason (wouldn't commit to a battle, underestimate the opposition and send the Koloss in unsupported/etc), the Rosharan's training/leadership/experience would allow them to quickly adapt to the situation, and they would fight a longer campaign where their superior supply lines (soulcasters), superior medicine (wisdom of the heralds), and superior strategy (Dalinar/Gavilar/years of campaigning) would pay off. Remember, armies march on their stomachs, and more wars were won by disease/infection than by decisive field engagements. (I'm assuming neither force has a genetic disadvantage to the local microbes, simply that normal infection/etc. would take it's toll). Long story short? The Scadrians have a huge short-term advantage if they can unleash all their Koloss at once with proper support. The Rosharans have a few long term advantages, and the experience/training that grants tactical flexibility, so they'll grow increasingly effective as the war progresses until they have the advantage. So Scadrial will win the war if it's short, and have the best chance to do so, but Roshar will win the war if they can make it long. At least until the Lord Ruler swings by, in which case they'd need a Heraldic hit squad to have a firestarters chance in the Forest of Hell...

Again, theoretically this sounds good, but it doesn't hold up to the text. Elend, with no Allomancy, tackles and kills a (small) Koloss using a glass dagger. Yes, Koloss are tough, tougher than humans. Stronger too. That doesn't mean they're THAT much stronger - 4 spikes does not mean 4 times as strong. It does mean 4 times as twisted. Remember, those spikes aren't just changing the Koloss's abilities, they're also changing the Koloss's behaviour and physical shape. And again Voidus, I must disagree with you. Having good training and equipment makes ALL the difference, with the right circumstances and leadership. Look at Rorkesdrift, or the battle of Thermopylae. Look at the battle of Salsu, or at Alexander the Great's conquests. Leadership, equipment, training and discipline (and luck, of course!) make a seriously incredible difference. Not to be underestimated. A well equipped, well led force with good discipline, coordination, experience and morale can CRUSH a force of much greater size, and has done so many times throughout history (the battle of Yarmouk is another great example). Of course Koloss are exceptions to many of these rules. But not completely so. And I would posit that a Greco-Macedonian phalanx would be an almost ideal counter to charging Koloss (especially if backed by good heavy archers and heavy infantry). This seems to be what Alethi tactics and equipment (pre-shattered plains, where Phalanxes are made all but useless due to the terrain) most strongly echo, with shields, longspears/shortspears in mixed formation, careful stepping, covering the person beside you with your shield and all those other things. Hrmm, actually a Spanish Tercio would likely be even better (pikes to hold them back, swords to charge in where they're weak/plug gaps, heavy arquebusier to kill the Koloss, especially the big ones who wouldn't drop to a pike in the chest). But that's beside the point. This is my main point: Koloss are incredible warriors, but are terrible soldiers. If you get the distinction: they have great personal abilities, but poor discipline and coordination. Generally, I'd back 1 warrior (like a teutonic axeman, or another such ancient champion) against 2 soldiers (like roman legionaries, or Macadonion pezhetairoi). I'd back 3 warriors against 5 soldiers and so on. However, once you got to larger battles, 200+ vs 200+, suddenly the coordination and discipline of professional soldiers starts to really make a difference, until you get to battles where 5,000 professionals will crush 20-30,000 warriors, (who are often excellent 1v1 fighters!). Koloss break some of the rules, it's true. They're bigger and stronger. They don't feel fear. But they don't have ANY armour, which makes them actually fairly easy to kill (at least the smaller ones) when compared to fighting troops with breastplates or full plate armour. And they have NO conception for tactics, discipline, or combat organization. No concept of supporting their allies, or of how to fight together with a friend to overwhelm an enemy. Yes, Koloss are terrifying, effective, and would make a vast difference. But they're not THAT effective. They're not the be-all and end-all of warfare. They have weaknesses, and can be defeated. Look at how effective the townsfolk at the start of HOA are when fighting Koloss, simply because they did something that surprised the Koloss (charging instead of cowering)! Don't overestimate Koloss, or underestimate professional soldiery!

So I recently reread Shadows for Silence after rereading Mistborn Secret History. Spoilers for both of those inside the tags.

Hrmm, I agree with you guys on principle, but disagree on scale. As Clubs points out before dying, the effectiveness of Koloss against the forces of Luthadel isn't because Koloss are great (they are terrifyingly effective, but not as good as all that), but because of how terrible Luthadel's army was. We see this also in Straff's posturing, how utterly ineffective the defenders are against his skirmish. I am confident that a force of 20,000 Alethi veterans from the shattered plains, men who'd fought Parshendi, and who are much better trained/equipped than the defenders of Luthadel, would have held the walls against 20,000 raging Koloss. Two more points - 1, I doubt Koloss, even 13 foot tall ones, would be as effective against plate as a shardblade is. Shardblades are magic, and seem to be uniquely effective against plate (consistently shattering in two blows to the same section). A storming chasmfiend isn't nearly as effective at breaking plate as a shardblade is, despite being literally the size of a large building (see when the chasmfiend knocks Elhokar aside/etc with a full on blow - his plate only cracked, it didn't shatter, and that was seen as surprising and turned out to be because his plate had been drained of stormlight). 2 - Koloss skin is clearly not nearly as effective as real armour, as is shown when Elend takes down the Koloss in the warcamp 1v1. They ARE hard to kill, but that's because of innate toughness (and redundant internal organs? At least, resistance to organ failure for sure). Let's not fall into the trap of the School of Arrorgance - overstating our positions in order to prove your point! Your points are mostly correct: Koloss are the single greatest advantage of TFE over Roshar. But they're not absolutely overpowered. Edit: The Lord Ruler, on the other hand, IS stupidly overpowered. The only way to kill him is to take him by surprise and separate his metalminds form his body, otherwise he'll just compound himself out of trouble...

Sweet! I'd best explain everything beforehand, and have them sign a release form with explicit mention of the amnesiac properties... Granted. You are killed as an infant child, when a shard-mecha goes back in time. Your bane is that some of the cognitive terror of that moment seeped over; your Earth-prime self will always react in fear and horror whenever you see any computing device, or any machine that contains one. I wish that I could draw effectively; that I would have the ability to translate the images in my head onto paper or any other such medium.

There's definitely something, and if Darkeyes eyes were ALL dark (as in, no whites), then there might be something going on there. But they're not (AFAIK). And while corrupted Investiture can be dark and smokey (like Nightblood!), dark investiture isn't necessarily corrupted! Look at Ruin's smoke - it's black, thick and smokey but is just Ruin's pure form (the gaseous version of it, anyway). Likewise, I would hesitate to say that Gavilar's sphere is filled with Corrupted Investiture. Although it is possible it's filled with Odium's investiture...

One thing on Koloss: They're not all giant 13 foot tall monsters. In fact, the really big ones appear to be the exception: most Koloss are in the 5-7 foot range (as far as I could tell when rereading Mistborn this past couple of months). The 10ft+ Koloss are fairly rare; they're generally mentioned as towering over their compatriots. Normal Koloss aren't really all that frightening to a skilled group of soldiers: they have no armour, and die just like anything else. Their reach is shorter than a spear, and they fight without coordination or support from their fellow Koloss. Even the giant Koloss are not that overpowered - again the lack of armour, shielding or support is a huge disadvantage. The Koloss are in no way a match for shardbearers 1v1 or even 10v1. The speed, power and armour of a shardbearer would easily overwhelm most smaller Koloss, or kill a large one. Yes, Koloss are better at killing shardbearers than normal infantry (their wedge-like swords, while slow, provide a lot of hitting power, and they are unable to cower, break or flee from the battlefield so they are forced to face the shardbearer where they can be effective), but not enough to magically overpower all shards. Voidus, while I agree with you that Koloss are deadly, you seem to have the idea that they're all 12 foot tall monstrosities, when it's clear in text that many, if not most, are only 5-7 feet tall (almost certaily due to the extremely high turnover of Koloss - very few survive long enough to become huge). The Koloss, as a group, have three main advantages. Firstly, they are unable to break. They can't run or flee form the battlefield. Secondly, they are difficult to kill (have a high pain tolerance, and overall a stronger body. Likely have different organs/organ positions). Thirdly, they are terrifying, especially to a force that's not used to fighting them. Yes, they CAN grow to be huge, and some of them do. Yes, they have large, club-like swords. But they lack training, discipline, skill, and are not particularly fast moving (not slow, but not lightning fast like a Pewterarm). You also underestimate the difference that skill, training and combat experience have on a battlefield - these are all crucial advantages to the Rosharans. Does that mean the Rosharans would win? No. But it means they'd be far more combat effective than you guys imply!

You are unworthy of the deliciousness for free. However, a girl scout will be sent your way. Eventually. In the meantime, you are granted access to both peanut butter and flour, so that you can make your own should you wish. I wish for an ability to make effective Hemalurgic spikes without causing any long term damage (IE: Spike someone, then heal them completely, so you get both the spike and the original user).

Thanks, and fixed!

Kvothe as a Lightweaver? Rand Al'Thor as a Windrunner? He does get pretty worked up about protecting people...

+1 for that. Maxim 37 is the best Maxim (for maximally effective mercenaries). Urithiru, obviously. Try and figure out if off-worlders can bond spren. If Urithiru is out, I'd keep my options open. My eyes are the border between light eyes and dark eyes - if they're light enough to be considered lighteyes, then I'd probably go to a Vorin kingdom. I have training in engineering, can teach unarmed combat, and geek out about military theory, so I'd probably make myself invaluable ASAP to the Kholin family... (And thus increase my chances of bonding a spren. Because seriously, Stormlight healing is the best healing.)

Thanks for the replies! I put the ones that are confirmed in Bold.

Let's make this an even playing field: the armies of Roshar and the armies of Scadrial are somehow fighting over a third world (so no highstorms, and no ash or mists). TLR sends his full armies with a few inquisitors and Mistborn. Lots of allomancers join the fray for money and power (but no Feruchemists, as they are hiding). TLR is OP, and getting lazy in his old age, so he stays home to ensure the stability of his empire and to watch the Well of Ascension. The peoples of Roshar, seeing a chance at mutual advantage, put together a vast coalition expeditionary force under Alethi leadership. However, there are no radiants yet - just proto-radiants. All the shardbearers of Roshar go. The Heralds are in hiding, and choose to remain so. No Chasmfiends, whitespines or other terrifying creatures are tamed and sent to battle. NUMBERS: Scadrial: There are around 300k Koloss during HOA, so we'll assume that that's how many they have here. There are roughly 20 inquisitors. We'll assume that they send 15, as that seems reasonable (the other 5 would be back home doing their duties) Cett and Yomen between them raised some 100,000 in one dominance. Let's assume TLR can do the same in every dominance, and so he sends 500k footsoldiers. We don't know how many Allomancers there were in TFE era. However, I'd estimate that, assuming TLR advertises an opportunity for wealth and advancement, there will be a sizeable component of Mistings, and maybe 5-15 mistborn? Total: 500k Skaa soldiers, 300k Koloss, 15 Inquistors, 10 Mistborn, and an uncertain number of Noble mistings. Roshar: We know that the Alethi had an army of 100k deployed at all times on the shattered plains. Seeing how much fighting was going on at home, how they're surrounded by hostile kingdoms, we can assume the Alethi would be able to muster at least 50k more troops for an expedition. We can assume from in text references that Jah Keved has a similar force, so another 150k. Jah Keved and Alethkar make up around a third of Roshar, but they are also the most militaristic nations by far. Thus 300k between them, and another 400k from the rest of Roshar seems reasonable. There are around 100 shardbearers on Roshar at this time as well. MILITARY INFRASTRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY: Scadrial: TLR can get skaa to do whatever he wants in terms of raw labour. The final empire has canning, extremely useful for establishing a supply line. Scadrian military technology, however, is purposefully suppressed and simplified. The Scadrians are not militaristic, nor military innovators. This is due to the intentional pacifying influence of TLR. Scadrial has a decent number of horses. Ranged: Scadrial has simple bows, and that's about it. Possible they have composite bows, but seems unlikely. Why would they? Yomen has some trebuchets, so siege weapons are known. Longbows, crossbows, and etc all seem to have been suppressed. Melee: Basics. Spears, swords, hand axes. War staffs? Scadrial just doesn't seem to like weapons. You don't hear of any pikes, halberds, longswords, maces, anything. Shields don't appear to be widely deployed (only Hazekillers and a couple of soldiers in HOA are mentioned as having them. Medical technology: Not terrible, but not great either. Sazed has historical knowledge of medicine, and likely there's some basic field surgery, but no mention is made of antiseptics, antibiotics or proper sterilization. Roshar: Soulcasters. Soulcasters. Soul flipping casters. I'm a history geek, particularly a history of war geek, and frankly, SOULCASTERS. Those things are so insanely useful it's not even funny. Roshar can fight wars almost without a supply line at all, with no risk of running out of ANYTHING. They have as much food, water, metal, leather, EVERYTHING as they need. THIS IS HUGE. HUGE. If you're not a war geek, you have no idea how much of an advantage this is. The only supply line Roshar needs is a line supplying them with fresh gemstones/stormlight. This is a far simpler supply line then anything in history ever. Running gemstones with stormlight to the front is so much easier than running a complete military train it's mind-boggling. Horses, however, are rare on Roshar, and expensive. Ranged: While the Alethi aren't huge lovers of bows, they still have lots of seemingly excellent archers (especially that one highprince...). The Parshendi have composite bows, and the Alethi appear to have good bows of some different kinds. In Dalinars flashback that Brandon posted, there's an archer using what appears to be a heavy longbow. Some Rosharan cultures have a good mix of ranged weapons. Crossbows, however, do not seem to be used at all, AFAIK. Siege weapons are likely well known, but I can't remember them being explicitly mentioned. Melee: The Rosharans LOVE melee weapons and equipment. And they're good at it. They have everything, pikes, long spears, shortspears, halberds, short swords, long swords, maces, battleaxes. You name it, they got it. Furthermore, they also have good access to armour and shields: Alethi spearmen appear to be trained to fight in a manner similar to Grecian Hoplites, as well as later era Macedonian hoplite/pike mixed formations. Medical Technology: Wisdom of the Heralds indeed! Roshar has military medical surgery that's as good as what we had in WWII, if not better. Excellent antiseptics and a good understanding of infection and prevention of infection (if not the causes of infection), excellent sterilization practices. A large number of well trained and equipped field surgeons. MILITARY THEORY, TRAINING, EXPERIENCE AND LEADERSHIP: Scadrial: Not much, frankly. Scadrial has many things, but military experience, theory, and leadership on Scadrial SUCKS. Scadrial hasn't had a proper war in a millenium, and it shows. Military leadership is ineffectual at best. Military theory even worse. The Lord Ruler has done an excellent job of preventing real warfare, and real war experience, to affect his people. The most his armies do is crush the occasional rebellion, and that's usually done by letting the Koloss rampage. Well of Ascension really shows the absolute dearth of military leadership both on the platoon level, the battalion level, and the division level. The leaders and soldiers are completely unprepared for real war. With a core of troops from the old empire, and 'experienced' officers, the defenders of Luthadel are laughably undertrained after over a full year. The best armies of the Lord Ruler simply let the Koloss do 75% of the fighting. They never had to face a superior foe, or even an evenly matched fight. Likely they'd never been in a position where it seemed likely that they'd lose. The troops, even veterans like Clubs, haven't experienced real war. Roshar: Odium reigns. Which has had an interesting side-effect, Roshar is at war with itself ALL THE TIME. Large scale, small scale, everywhere in between scale. Roshar is filled with generals, captains, squadleaders. Thousands upon thousands of experienced Officers and NCO's, hardened veterans with battle training and excellent military theory. Roshar's armies are filled to the brim with highly trained, well prepared and well led veterans. At least half, if not more of their forces are disciplined troops who can follow orders, hold their ground, and have faced terrifying odds before. People who aren't at their first rodeo. With hardened, brilliant generals like Dalinar and Gavilar, the Rosharans know how to run a real campaign. MAGIC: Scadrial: Tons of it. Scadrial would have thousands of mistings for sure. Pewterarms who can lead a charge, Coinshots and lurchers who can protect formations against arrows and set enemies off balance, rioters and soothers who can maintain the composure of their forces while weakening their enemies resolve, Tineyes who can scout and spy extremely well, and most crucially the Inquisitors/Mistborn; fighters who can dominate small battlefields on their own, especially when they have Atium (Atium would have to be used sparingly though - likely saved for when fighting Shardbearers. In an extended conflict, even the full cache, in the unlikely case TLR let it be tapped, would run out quickly; there's not a lot of Atium and it burns fast). Duralumin would be useful, but AFAIK, TLR had concealed it at this point. Kandra provide a huge advantage in information warfare: TLR would certainly infiltrate Roshars ranks. Poisoning food/water supplies wouldn't be terribly effective (because of Soulcasters), and it's unlikely that they'd be able to effectively counteract soulcasters/fabrials (they might be able to steal a few, but once they started to steal them, security would tighten up significantly). But the Rosharans would have no secrets, and could be effectively screwed with at a few key points in combat. Roshar: Shardbearers. These guys are tanks, and their invested equipment is almost certainly immune to steelpushes and ironpulls. I'm not kidding when I call them Tanks: the tactics and opportunities they allow for are very much likely armoured warfare in WWI/WWII. They can pierce through enemy lines almost unmolested, shatter a hole allowing for the regulars to exploit the breach, hold a weakened position all on their own. Their uses in combat are manifold. Fabrials: instantaneous communication across the whole campaign is a fantastic advantage: again, something that wouldn't be seen on Earth until the first and second world wars. Navani's plethora of cool tools would be very helpful, but likely not game changing. Soulcasters are just, wow. Such useful, so soulcast, much supply line, very wow. CONCLUSIONS: Roshar has an incredibly advantage in military theory, experience and infrastructure. They're tactics, strategy, everything. Infinitely superior to Scadrials, due to their overwhelming weight of experience. Their battlefield leadership, and hardened soldiers, would make them far more efficient, flexible and effective a fighting force. Their military training, formations and equipment are all far superior to those we see on Scadrial. Scadrials magic advantage is huge. Mistborn and Inquisitors can both turn the tide of a smaller conflict, and are much more useful and flexible than a shardbearer. However, this is a conflict on a truly immense scale. Absolutely immense - 25 people can only do so much before succumbing to exhaustion (a great example of the best large scale use of allomancy in combat is Elend in HOA - he could only do so much, and that was with a constant supply of Atium!). By the same token, there aren't enough Shardbearers to be everywhere. Enough to be useful, but not enough to change the course of the battle. There are, however, lots of mistings. Rioters and soothers would likely make up for a good chunk of Scadrials morale disadvantage (inexperienced soldiers, especially before modern training, are FAR less more likely to break and run than veteran soldiers. Even with veterans, most battles ended in a rout, not a slaughter. Inexperienced forces tended to get routed AND slaughtered). Coinshots and lurchers are helpful, but actually not that useful in a full-scale battle. Their offensive use of coins aren't really better than arrows or crossbow bolts. They'd certainly make a difference (especially in stopping arrows), but not that much of one. Thugs are super handy, and would definitely help shore up weak points. Koloss are interesting. They're big, no problems with infrastructure, hard to kill, and impossible to rout. They will make a significant difference. Roshar however has proper equipment, formations, tactics and leadership. Koloss function a bit like a mixture between heavy infantry and heavy cavalry - but they completely lack armour. What's the best way to stop a charge of heavy cavalry, OR of lightly armoured heavy infantry? A spearwall, or a pike wall. Roshar has both in spades: Spears and pikes would be extremely effective against Koloss, especially backed by archers who can shoot over their allies heads (as the most dangerous Koloss are tall!). Roshar's advantage in experience, training, equipment and infrastructure is HUGE. Absolutely huge. Those are the things that win real wars. However, Scadrial has a simply incredible advantage when it comes to magic (and Koloss!). What would likely happen? It would be a very, very even match. If the Scadrians were able to force major field conflicts early on, they'd likely win. A well-led rush of Koloss against troops who hadn't seen them before, backed by rioters, soothers and inquisitors, would have a good chance of breaking the Rosharan army right away. However, if Roshar was able to weather the initial conflicts against Koloss, they would likely win. Battles are won by experience, training and discipline (usually), and wars are won by infrastructure, medicine and food. Roshar has a huge advantage in those key fields. But Scadrial has Koloss. And Koloss don't follow normal rules. In the end, it would be very, very interesting. And make a ridiculously fun video game if done in the Total War series style: I can see it now! Total War: Cosmere. EDIT: Uhhh... Wow. I tend to geek out about these things. That's a long post. I'd be sorry, but it's just too interesting a topic for me! Cosmere AND military history? How can I resist! TL;DR - Roshar has a huge advantage in military training and experience. Scadrial has a huge advantage in magic. It would be a very even fight.