Lunar Army discussions

[Jeff Richard]

This thread is for discussing the draft Lunar Army list up on the website http://www.glorantha.com/?p=3501

[Nick Brooke]

Field School of Magic: typo in the Magic Factor box: “4 Medium (Minor Class units)/ 4 High (Major Class units).” The text and DP battalia have two High (Major Class) units.

[Nick Brooke]

Is the old assumption that an infantry regiment has c.1,000 troops still valid?

[Jeff Richard]

Quote:

Quote from Nick Brooke on September 8, 2013, 07:37
Field School of Magic: typo in the Magic Factor box: “4 Medium (Minor Class units)/ 4 High (Major Class units).” The text and DP battalia have two High (Major Class) units.

That’s because the “4” is actually supposed to be the Moon Rune. I need to figure out how to use our Glorantha Rune fonts.

[Jeff Richard]

Quote:

Quote from Nick Brooke on September 8, 2013, 07:57
Is the old assumption that an infantry regiment has c.1,000 troops still valid?

As a general rule, infantry “regiments” have somewhere around 1,000 troops. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Cavalry “regiments” have somewhere around 500 troops.

[Jeff Richard]

Notes on Terminology

Type:
Heavy Infantry is typically armored with bronze or leather armor and armed with spear and sword. Heavy Infantry most typically fights in a phalanx or shield wall. Heavy Infantry is defensively superior to equally trained Heavy Cavalry. A regiment of Heavy Infantry is typically around 1,000 soldiers.
Light Infantry is common to every society, even the most primitive. In many societies, light infantry is used as a skirmishing screen ahead of the main body of infantry. Light Infantry is offensively superior to equally trained Heavy Infantry and defensively superior to equally trained Light Cavalry. A regiment of Light Infantry is typically around 1,000 soldiers.
Light Cavalry is armed with missile weapons, typically bows or throwing javelins. They skirmish with the foe, withdrawing from any offensive only to turn around and counterattack once the offensive is spent. Light Cavalry is offensively superior to equally trained Heavy Infantry and Heavy Cavalry. A regiment of Light Cavalry is typically around 500 soldiers.
Heavy Cavalry engages in direct contact with the foe, usually with lances (spears), sometimes with swords, maces, or axes. Heavy Cavalry is offensively superior to equally trained Light Infantry. A regiment of Heavy Cavalry is typically around 500 soldiers.
Flier units have no Earthly equivalent. These units are capable of aerial combat and attacking ground units with missiles, spears and swords; some attack magically such as with lightning and thunder. Some flier mounts are capable of attack themselves.
Magical units have no Earthly equivalent. These units tend to be very small; a few priests, shamans, or wizards who typically provide offensive and/or defensive support for their regiment. A magical unit is typically between 50 and 200 magicians.

Armor:
Leather is most commonly the linothorax or a leather lamellar cuirass. It typically includes a conical or open bronze helmet.
Bronze is most commonly a scale or chain hauberk or a bronze breastplate. It typically includes an open or full bronze helmet and greaves.

[Jeff Richard]

A few of our design goals:

The army list should track what was originally presented in Dragon Pass/WBRM (with some modifications and changes of course).
The Lunar army is not the Roman army. It evolved completely differently – and the Lunar army of the Seventh Wane is not the Lunar army of the Second Wane. Some of the history of the Lunar Empire should be evident with its military.
The Lunar army relies on its Magical Corps for its military superiority, not its conventional infantry and cavalry.

[Keith Nellist]

Do you plan to give a military history of the Lunar Army, in parallel with the Wane histories commenting on where regiments served, where they were created, etc? Some sort of timeline.

I’m thinking a “Lunar Army regiment” questionaire could be developed along the same lines as a Heortling Clan questionaire.

[Jeff Richard]

Eventually! But first things first, I want to let people have a canonical, if incomplete (and that’s important – I don’t plan to complete the list so there is room for “your regiment” ) list of Lunar army units during the Hero Wars period.

I also will be doing the same with the Sartar Magical Union and Sartar Free Army. I, at least, find this stuff very helpful to keep in mind as we put material together.

[Daniel McLaughlin]

I don’t know if it is any use to you but I put a lot of information on the Lunar Army from various sources at http://www.halberdgames.com/Lunar%20Army.htm several years ago. It has a list of sources, size of the army and lots of regiment names and unit types.

[Barry Blatt]

Something along the lines of ‘Deeds of the Ever Glorious’ that MAR Barker did for Tekumel would be nice.

Some questions – it’s pretty obvious why Tarsh has had to raise such a large army, but would Holay, Vanch, Imther and Aggar really have such comparatively small forces? Do they have more troops that are not considered part of the Lunar Provincial Army? And are there any Sartar/Far Point regiments? Wouldn’t Harvar send a regiment of his troops to support the Provincial army if it looked like Sartar was resurgent? Tribes that had more of a stake in Lunarism who might send men?

[Peter Metcalfe]

My main complaint is that Minor Class and Major Class are rather boring techical sounding names for regiments. I would have preferred Full Half School, Empty Half School, Crescent Come School etc. Sartar Rising mentioned the Nathic School which also fits but is a tad opaque for my liking.

[Jeff Richard]

They are the Minor Class and Major Class. That’s been there name since the time of WBRM. Moreover, they are NOT organized by phase of the moon. Instead, Minor Class units are divided into squads whose members collectively master the seven phases. Major class units are composed of Illuminated magicians, each trained to master at least six of the seven phases.

[Jeff Richard]

Quote:

Quote from Barry Blatt on September 8, 2013, 10:43
Some questions – it’s pretty obvious why Tarsh has had to raise such a large army, but would Holay, Vanch, Imther and Aggar really have such comparatively small forces? Do they have more troops that are not considered part of the Lunar Provincial Army? And are there any Sartar/Far Point regiments? Wouldn’t Harvar send a regiment of his troops to support the Provincial army if it looked like Sartar was resurgent? Tribes that had more of a stake in Lunarism who might send men?

Aggar, Holay, Vanch, and Imther all have soldiers that are not part of the Provincial Army (although at seven regiments, Holay is committing a pretty substantial amount of its forces to the Provincial Army in Dragon Pass, rather than dealing with Balazarings, local rebellions, etc). As an aside, keep in mind that Aggar is in the midst of a civil war and the other Provincial rulers prefer to give money rather than soldiers to the wars in Dragon Pass. After the Dragonkill, it is likely far less than this – I doubt Aggar (whose ruler is going to be hard pressed to even remain in Eneal) and Vanch send anything to the Provincial Army, and Holay likely sends the bare minimum.

Harvar can’t afford to send any of his Yelmalio cultists to support the Provincial Army – he needs them to keep himself in power. And after 1627, Harvar is gone.

[Jeff Richard]

Daniel – interesting estimates. However, Greg and I worked from a very different set of assumptions.

First, somewhat less than 1% of the population is formed into the standing army. That gets us about 65,000 soldiers from the Heartlands and Western Reaches, and about 14,000 soldiers in the Provincial Army at any time.

Second, each satrap/king maintains a private army that on average comes out to less than half a percent of the local population.

Total number of units for the Seventh Wane Lunar Army are approximately as follows:
38 regiments of infantry or about 36,500 infantry (some units are undersized, particularly from the Imperial Bodyguard).
28 regiments of cavalry or about 18,000 cavalry (some regiments are double sized, like the Char-un)
42 magical units or about 5,750 magicians

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