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This formation, if approached head-on by tharlarion cavalry, is extremely effective. - (Mercenaries of Gor, Chapter 3, Sentence #195)

I knew him from scrolls I had studied years ago in Ko-ro-ba, and from volumes in my library in Port Kar, such as the commentaries of Minicius and the anonymous analyses of "The Diaries," sometimes attributed to the military historian, Carl Commenius, of Argentum, rumored to have once been a mercenary himself. It was Dietrich of Tarnburg who had first introduced the "harrow" to positional warfare on Gor, that formation named for the large, rakelike agricultural instrument, used for such tasks as the further leveling of ground after plowing and, sometimes, on the great farms, for the covering of seed. In this formation spikes of archers, protected by iron-shod stakes and sleen pits, project beyond the forward lines of the heavily armed warriors and their reserves. This formation, if approached head-on by tharlarion cavalry, is extremely effective. It constitutes, in effect, a set of corridors of death through which the cavalry must ride, in which it is commonly decimated before it can reach the main lines of the defenders. When the cavalry is disorganized, shattered and torn by missile fire, and turns about to retreat, the defenders, fresh and eager, initiate their own attack. He was also the initiator of the oblique advance in Gorean field warfare, whereby large numbers of men may be concentrated at crucial points while the balance of the enemy remains unengaged. - (Mercenaries of Gor)