>Lunars don't have standards. There is an occupation force made up
>of the Cavalry Corps and a few standing Heartlander units. The
>presence of a Phalanx in Pavis must be due to Sor-eel's connections
>to nobility. Peltasts are the troops of choice for occupied hill
>barbarians. Stone Phalanxes are pretty useless for policing. They
>may be good to crush local uprisings, provided they aren't attacked
>on the march. Which appears to have happened over and over again.
I see peltasts as the most truely Lunar of all units in the army. Being both effective skirmishers and capable close order spears is unique to the Lunar way. One big problem - there aren't anything like enough of them so other less suitable units have to substitute.
>The majority of Fazzur's command (as I envision it) are medium cavalry
>similar to that of the city confederation militias of Sartar, mixed with
>exotic units not from the Heartlands but mainly its border regions. A
>major absentee in the WBRM boardgame are the Fazzurite troops, IMO - a
>special cadre of mounted hill barbarians using Lunar doctrine.
The way I see it the provincial army in WBRM are Fazzur's troops to the extent that units belong to a particular general.
>They should be prominent between 1613 and 1619 (when they accompany
>Fazzur to Heortland and then Esrolia), and then sneakingly disband
>when Tatius takes over. In my Glorantha there are thousands of
>Provincial veterans in western Tarsh waiting to return to action
>while Fazzur fumes against Tatius intrigues. They remobilize in 1625
>after Tatius gets eaten, but don't remain to fight Kallyr when Fazzur
>retreats upon hearing about the Phargantite coup against his followers.
>Next time they see action is during the conquest of Furthest, as allies
>of the Sartarites.
I don't see there being thousands of veterans disappearing from the ranks in 1619/20. Some desertion and a fair bit of not re-enlisting at the end of their seven year term between 1620-1625. The idea that Lunar units being more loyal to their leader than the Empire seems askew with the Imperial structure.
>Lunar taxmen quite likely have mercenary guards along with Lunar
>auxiliary troops. Lunar engineers doing surveys or (somewhat
>futilely) trying to keep the Sartarite roads from falling apart
>will have some protection forces that may be recognizable as
>"legionaires" - Peltasts. (BTW an entirely Greek term for light
>to medium infantery, not at all Roman. But then the original run
>of RuneQuest miniatures had Sartarite Humakti in Greek mercenary
>style armour and helmets.)
All the Sartarites had variations on Greek style armour but that was in line with the RQII pictures. The solitary Lunar was nothing like any RW soldier/warrior I've ever seen.
>Your average Lunar regular would be a Peltast, or Provinvial Militia.
>Take the bunch in Tarsh Wars, or think Heortling mercenaries pressed
>into militia service...
Well the Provincial Militia are armed similarly to Hoplites (spear and large shield) and could be mistaken for them by the ignorant which will include most Sartarites. Makes the shock of meeting a phalanx all the greater when it charges without losing formation.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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