Hmm, not sure about that - it posits a highly effective internal bureacracy. I'd be inclined to expect that any/all untis undergo rotation and that inevitably a significant number of raw troops would be present on the frontier, if for no other reason than to give them the experience to make them into veterans. Hot border duty is GOOD for keeping up a high level of preparedness (unless your borders are too long). I would expect that most/all of the units stationed in the pass would be bulk veterans, but I'd also suspect they contain a cohort or two new to the pass and the army.
> Also, what use is it to have inept villains? What hero will boast
Cannon fodder.
> Underprepared, young raiders? They won't grow into prepared, older
> raiders.... Most raids are led by experienced warriors, who leave
> the "underprepared, young" ones holding horses, watching the
> backtrail, etc. As
Again, not sure about that. Many herding cultures like really tough adulthood tests like killing lions singlehanded etc; I don't think they're very squeamish about getting their youth killed. If adulthood begins young, like between 14 and 16, and life expectancy is between 30 and say 50, probably the bulk of combat troops are going to be young adults; they may well be experienced, however, because of their early start on raiding activities. I think its highly plausible that the bulk of actual raiding is carried out by what are basically teenagers - after all, nobody much comments on the youth of Romeo, Thibault and Mercutio in the play, its pretty much taken as read that teenagers with swords killing one another in the streets is tragic but normal.
I'd sort of expect a raiding band to be composed of one experienced and a couple of less-experienced, young warrirors, supported by another layer of pretty raw warriors more or less raiding as a training exercise. The three or so older men will probably have complete (social) authority over what is done, and the raw members would probably be their younger siblings, possibly children, nephews, and "hostages" from other clans/tribes. But in all this I think there is a lot of scope for imagining a band of inexperienced young striplings who have bitten off more than they can chew - it must happen with reasonable regularity, I would think.
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