They are even less homogenous that the late Romans. The regimental deities are massively varied, given the wide spread of cultures they come from.
>Then the question is, how good
>are they integrated - this was one of the biggest problems the late
>roman armies and their successors had (apart from the social problems).
The Tarnils officer corps helps out hugely in this. Even then, they have problems. However, the problems are more political or grand strategic than tactical or operational.
>In a Glorantha panel at Tentacles the question arose: Why are the Lunars
>so less successful than the Romans concerning the amount of land
>conquered? The there presented POV was, that the Lunars have their own
>trouble with the wanes. This considering unsatisfactory IMG, I thought
>until now, that the reason was their use of scimitar and thus their
>inferior strategy.
There are several reasons. Consider their history. They had the Jannisor rebellion which took ten years to put down and required powerful levies of the population, because many Imperial troops of DH origin rebelled and joined the Tripolis. After that they did begin to conquer areas, especially Saird, which was heavily opposed by the Orlanthi. They also had other wars on their lands and were generally war weary from the huge and costly Carmanian wars, which are similar to the Thirty Years war in the RW for overall effect on population.
Then we get to Sheng. Sheng basically conquered the Empire. There was very little left of it. Isolated clumps of reistance. Their army had to be rebuilt slowly and painfully and many old regiments of great tradition were destroyed. There were literally hundred of HQs to find new regimental powers and to ressurect ancient ones. Temples to old war gods were reactivated and any power that could fight Sheng was used.
Finally the nomads were driven out. However, not long after this the conquest of Oraya led to the Nights of Horror which destroyed 90% of the Imperial field army. This was virtually their entire strength. It was fortunate indeed that they had so few wars after this period because they simply had nothing for a dozen years to fight with but hastily reconditioned garrison units and a hodge podge of cadres and remnants. To clarify the size of this catastrophe, it is compared to the Dragonkill in the wane history.
After the Empire recovered from this, which took decades, they did launch successful wars of conquest. If it wasn't for the opposition of the Dragon aware Orlanthi, then it seems likely that the Empire would have controlled Maniria and DP eventually and who knows where from there.
>I understand, that the place in SGU is seriously limited, but I hope
>that not only the magic but also the armament and strategy of the troops
>are detailed enough that they make sense and the majority of facts
>(being left out due to space restrictions) can be interpolated by
>knowledge of RW trooptypes.
There will be a section on the military and there will be some detail at the tactical level, but very light I'm afraid. The majority of the focus is on the higher organisations to give players a sense of how the military functions and GMs a brief glimpse of all the fun things that can happen with the military for his players.
>IMHO it would be no error to have a short
>table with lunar trooptypes, their size, the places where they are
>deployed and their RW counterpart concerning armament and strategy.
I have a list of Imperial regiments that is constantly being worked on. Its in version 5 right now. When I'm finished it, I'll probably put it in a fan work or something else, though it will be dry.
>This information-packed table would be the thing I long for! The rest of the
>text could be player information about getting enlisted, three sample
>armies as typical trooptype-mixes, the differences to RW armies (mainly
>magic and the scimitar-thing) and all the things I haven't thought of.
>Just my wet dreams, I hope I get what I want ;-)
This is the kind of thing I'm aiming for but not in SGU.
Martin Laurie
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