Dragonnewts and Lunar army effectiveness

From: Andreas Mueller <mueller_at_faw.uni-ulm.de>
Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 17:36:32 +0200

From: HCarteau_at_aol.com
> they die. True, they lose some memories, master some personality more, and
> even advance to the next stage, but they are all IMMORTAL.
>
> How could a PC play that ? Aside from the fact that darn little is known
> about their motivations (duty to their lord, ancestors and repaying favors) ?
>

The canon is: Never let your PC play a dragonnewt. I've seen a proposal about playing dragonnewts in a fanzine. The problem was, that you had to roll your reaction and that you're learning very slowly (only after a new death). The first robs the player of the only thing he has in play: Freedom of action. The second robs the player of the second most liked thing in play: Development. This IMO makes them primarily NSC.

Gian:
> I don't think so, either. But I merely asked Martin if, in theory, his
> strong statements about Lunar Army effectiveness would consider the strength
> of the Loskalmi and Seshnegi armies. He answered: "Yes, in theory". I have
> not his faith in the Lunar Army, but it's simply my opinion and his, after
> all.

Sorry to meddle in this thread. I'm not quite sure, why the Lunar army should be superior.
They are not like the roman army at all, because of their use of scimitars. The use of scimitars would result in a less dense packed formation (otherwise one would hit his neighbour or break up the formation to have more space) and so one of the major advantages of spearformations, density, would be lost. The analogy with the seleucids is the best I know, since they also had a Khukri-like (and thus slashing) sideweapon together with pikeformations. But the seleucid army is not famous for being the best on the battlefields.
I'm ready to learn something new from the wargamers in this list, but this is my opinion until now.

Many greetings,

Andreas

---