>I wasn't implying that the nomads aren't a major source for the hiring of
>the Sun Domers, just indicating that I believe there are others as well.
I
>would think the Lunars would hire the Sun County militia units on occation
>to strengthen their own forces as/if needed (why waist perfectly good
Lunar
>citizens - and by all indications the Sun County militia is the elite
>hoplite force in the world).
Hardly. There are DH units with far better training, equipment and esprit de corps than the "oasis folk with an attitude" forming the Sun County militia. Admittedly, the 800 SC templars are well-disciplined and well-equipped, but are hardly the "elite hoplite force in the world".
>Is there any reason to think that people from as far away as Sartar,
Tarsh,
>etc would not seek to employ the Sun County mercenaries?
Yes. First, there are only 800 templars - the rest are militia. Second, SC is an agricultural community and far away from Dragon Pass. The templars are under the direct control of the Sun Dome Temple - not a band of freebooters.
>As some proof, in SC (pg. 43) it states that the Sun County Templars are
the
>ones who developed the hoplite tactics, but tactics similar to these are
>now a mainstay of the Lunar army.
The boastful claims by a bunch of back-water barbarians squatting around a ruin from the First Age (who can't even remember the name of the god and have thus resorted to calling him after some vegetable spirit!) to have developed the hoplite tactic should be dismissed. Everyone knows that the hoplite tactic was developed Emperor Urvairinus the Conqueror six thousand years ago, so don't be deceived by those silly savages.
>There is also no reason to think that tactics could not be developed even
in 50 years. The Macedonian >system was developed under Alexander's father
(Phillip) in his lifetime. This system was something >fairly new to the
Greeks and very complicated - combined warfare and actually using tactics!
Umm. . . not true. The Peloponnesian War spelt the death-knell of Classical Greek hoplite warfare. Who can forget the humiliation of Spartan hoplites by Athenian peltast mercenaries at the battle of Sphacteria in 425 BC. Xenophon, Iphicrates and Chabrias all rejected the classical model of hoplite warfare - indeed, reread the Anabasis to see the Greek army use skirmishers throughout the march out of Persia. Between 404 and 359 BC there was a remarkable revolution in Greek warfare - witness, Epaminondas use cavalry to good effect (in disrupting Spartan manouevres) at the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. Indeed, many historians believe that Phillip learned the art of warfare while he was a hostage in Thebes. Phillip's great contribution to Greek warfare was not the Macedonian phalangite but his revolutionary use of Macedon's one great resource - cavalry - armed with a lance not dissimilar to that employed by the Napoleonic lancers.
Personally, I think it is time that the arrogant pretensions of those oasis people with sticks be shown for what they are - nothing more than the vain boasts of an isolated people who had to learn the name of their own god from a foreign adventurer.
Jeff
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