>now. 2000 men is already starting to be a large army. The only people in
>history that I know have fielded armies of hundreads of thousands vere the
>warring states period Chinise (Sun Tsu's time),
Well, the typical Roman Republic army was over 10,000 men (two legions at 4,000 to 5,000 each plus support troops) and they generally had at least two of them in the field at one time.
At Cannae they had 86,000 men. Hannibal's army had started out as 59,000 humans and 37 elephants, though he lost half of them crossing the Alps.
The army that invaded Britain in AD43 was over 20,000 strong (4 legions) out of a total for the empire of perhaps 300,000. (Spot the analogy to the Lunar Empire and Dragon Pass right there...) These are all professional full-time soldiers, not militia or fyrd.
Also, don't forget Darius and Xerxes' Persian hordes - 3 million strong according to legend, perhaps 200,000 in reality. Athens sent 45,000 men on a far-flung expedition to Syracuse in the Peloponnesian war. Xenophon's mercenary band in Persia was 10,000 strong, and it formed only part of Cyrus' army. Alexander the Great had 35,000 men at the Granicus. And so on. Hundreds of thousands may be unusual, but tens of thousands were pretty common.
>and feeding huge armies
>was way easier in fertile China than it is in Dragon Pass, and the
>population intensities were quite different.
Peloria is at least as fertile as the Huang-ho valley, and has just as good river communications. Also, the Chinese didn't have the benefit of Lokarnos' magic to speed their wagons, Hyalor's magic to strengthen their pack horses, and earth magics to make a clear, smooth pathway for the supply train.
>Dragon Pass painted a quite different view of the battle. One that was
>rather hard for the Empire.
But that was after Argrath had arrived, imposing his discipline on the Heortling hordes and turning them into more of an organised army that could stand against the Lunar regiments - see the commentary in the DP rulebook.
>The Lunar advantage in a fight is their
>organization. One on one, or in a free for all melee my money goes for the
>heortlings against the empire's troops. The heortling fighter is more at
>home in a wild an erratic free-for-all, than the regimental soldier that
>is used to relying on (and supporting) his fellow soldiers.
Discipline is more than organisation - it's also morale and staying power. The Lunars know they have to keep in position and keep fighting, even if the battle seems to be going against them. (The theory being, they're more afraid of facing their Centurion - and their mates - after the battle, than the Orlanthi during it).
"An' now the hugly arrows come peckin' through the dust, an' no-one wants to face 'em, but every beggar must... - -..An' now it's bloody murder, but all the while they 'ear 'is voice, the same as barrick-drill, a-shepherdin' the rear..." - - to misquote Kipling.
Semi-organised tribal warriors like the pre-Argrath Heortlings, on the
other hand, tend to have very brittle morale - they are ferocious
fighters in the initial charge and if things are going well, but if
they don't win quickly, they'll tend to give up. (They're fighting
for individual glory, loot, and the fun of battle: if there's no
chance of that, why bother to carry on?)
>
>If the Heortlings have to face the empire in a set piece battle, then they
>better have some real coordination and planning. I think Sartar could
>fight set piece battle's with the lunars, fielding warchariots and
>companies of flying heroes, and enlisting the aid of strong allies.
Which is pretty much what Argrath introduced to them. (Incidentally, I'm not sure why you think war chariots are such an advantage - they didn't do the Celts or Persians much good. Most armies abandoned them in favour of cavalry as soon as they bred horses big enough).
>Part of the reason the Holy Lands were lost was that the Christians never
>mustered an army the size of the First Crusade forces ever again.
Stephen
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