Having been interested for a long time in large scale battles, and RW (and Gloranthan) strategy, it is refreshing seeing a bit of that in the Digest.
Armour in the West:
I think we begin to agree there is an important fraction of Seshnelan knights using unenchanted iron armour, usually lamellar and chain. I suppose there is some forging method (Three Eye Blue, perhaps, stolen from the dwarfs) to enhance unenchanted iron to enchanted iron resistance. Peter's suggestion of St. Galvan as the Patron of Pagan supressing Armour is very interesting, although he would be followed mostly in Loskalm, where knights (Wizard-knights) use a bit more magic and they have already the Suppress Paganism spell. I agree that maximillian plate should be possible only with enchanted iron (and form/set the same), but traditional plate and chain should be possible.
Don't forget the tactical role of heavy knights. You charge the biggest enemy concentration, as fast as possible to minimize missile casualties. So you do not have much of a time to cast spells, specially sorcery. And then either you win big, you lose big, or you retreat to regroup. This is not slugfest as an infantry battle, where big melees were possible.So resistance to enemy magic is more important than offensive magics, that will usually be carried out by Long Range Militant Mages (LRMMs).
This goes well with Sandy's statement that Western armies beat theists, but are beaten usually by shamanistic armies. Iron would be no protection against a ghost. The fact that shamanist armies are either mounted nomads or infantry in rough terrain has no influence :-).
Artillery
To anyone who wants to see Roman Artillery at work, see The Siege of Jerusalem, by AH. Artillery will kill perhaps half of all jewish casualties, unless they do a successful sortie. And in my miniature wargaming days most romans bought several ballistas. At least they forced the enemy to come to you, where your superior infantry could kill them off. And that is how the y used them, to force the enemy to engage when you want to, against your good units.
In Glorantha they are even more useful, as there are things in the battlefield you can aim one of those at, and they are one of the things that can kill them (as was rightly put here).
As an aside, the Tales (no connection with the RMM) army in the Peloponesan War was known for its impiety (sacking Delphi) and using massed artillery against their enemies, with certain success. And do not forget Demetrios Poliorcetes (the besieger of cities), one of Alexander's Sucessors sucessor, who had built many ingenious devices to, well, take cities (with mixed success).
Lunar Foreign Legion
One Lunar Regiment I sent to TRMM as a possible article was exactly that, although Tarshite in character. If David has not included it in the Lunar special I could post it here. Let's only say that "you join to forget your past" has a real meaning.
Excuse all the RW ranting, but it is boring monday in the lab.
Jose Ramos
End of Glorantha Digest V4 #158
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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