Make me a Roman Legionaire

[sword-dancer]

Re: Re: Also

Aahh...the myth of the powerful bow vs. the weak sling. A sling can fling a bullet farther than most bows can shoot an arrow and with greater impact. The absence of medieval level archery doesn't mean that the Romans were unfamiliar with missile weapons, nor incapable of devising solutions.

Greater Range than longbow or light crossbow?
The roman slingers, spearthrowers were skirmishers, not the rain of death of the british longbow(or if the french had used them the picards).
Or the armor piercing of the crossbow

Medieval fortifications? Ha! Ask the survivors of Masada about how Romans feel about “impenetrable” fortifications. Oh, wait. There were no survivors at Masada.

They sieged it so long till the defenders committed suicide for starvation, nothing spectacular.

The tremendous Gothic cathedrals of the later Renaissance may be impressive to look at, but when you consider that they often took over a hundred years to construct, while the Romans could place a magnificent bathhouse in about ten years. I believe the Coliseum took only about five.

Financial or ressourcial reasons, not technology

Greetings!

(5) Concrete! This wasn't rediscovered by European craftsmen until the 1800's, I think. Certainly after 1500.


Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

And the romans lost the knowledge of it, AFAIK

Hellos SHARK

Tactically: The Romans were the masters of war. They *wrote the book!* on warfare. The medievalists, well, they may have had access to some moldy book in a monastary somewhere, but most of them were entirely illiterate--even the vaunted nobility. Most of the Romans, on the other hand, were essentially literate, and the officers particularly so, and the commanders were often scholars.

Vegetius was a classic for medieval warfare.

Caesar would have annihilated the Europeans by a swift pincher attack carried out at night with concurrent deception columns to distract the main force, while ambushes were set, and the European force could be panicked in the dark and fire of an attack, and they would have been annihilated.

It may function.
Night maneuvers aren`t something the romans were reknown for.
At the roman dictator circled hannibal he tricked the legionaries by night with cows with torches on their horns.

The Romans faced Huns, Avars, Scythians, Parthians,--all who were master horsemen, and world-renowned archers. The Parthians even had heavily armoured knights. The Romans defeated them all.

The roman defeated the avars, persians and parthians?
Carrhae
Which was the name of the roman empereor a persian king used as step when he went of his horse.
It was the alliance of visigoths and romans who carried the day at the catalaunic fields.
The avars were defeated and broken by charlemagne.
The Hungars were defeated, by Heinrich I of Germany, and annihilated to never come back by his son Otto I the great and Konrad the red, with the first armoured forefathers of knights.
After they were attacked on the march by the Hungars on their back.
" and secure us of the arrows of the hungarys."

The Roman Legions also made use of integrated field artillery, which would have shredded groups of foot archers, knights, and crossbowmen alike

In which battles and campaigns did the romans made regularly use of field arillery

The Romans also had units of incredibly skilled Peltasts--well-trained guerrilla warriors skilled in swift running and deadly accurate with a satchel of javelins.
Peltast units regularly decimated enemy ranks of foot-archers--like English Longbowmen.

In which battle these troops encountered longbows or crossbows, the range advantage would be deadly an an conroi of knights would have made short work with skirmishers in loose formation.

Even then, the Romans were highly skilled at defeating two and three times their number of the enemy. Though it would be likely under such a scenario that the Romans would heavily outnumber the Europeans, so the Romans would win even faster.

Caannae
Flaminius and the trasimenic lake
the battles wit the cimbern, teutons who annihilated repeatedly roman armies, if they attacked rom instead of only looking for new areas, rome maybe had reexperienced the days of brennus.

The Europeans would thus be denied those assets, thus leaving the mounted knights. The Roman formations easily adapted to using longer polearms in such circumstances, and did so when the occasion required it. Thus, you would see the European knights being pinned by units of pikemen, then swarmed with sword-armed legionnaires, all the while being
targetted by Roman archers. Thus, the knights die.

The romans never adopted to the polearm against the heavy gothic cav, not for or even after the annihilation of adrianople
40.000 men the empereor and his chief officers died, after attacking the gothic camp and get attacked by the gothic main force.
So i don`t think its reasonable to say they would.
The short sword isn`t an effective weapon against a full armored knight especially in plate armor.

In addition, the Romans displayed far more flexible imagination in deploying their troops, using combined arms,

Crecy, agincourt. Legnano, bannockburn, the crusades, especially the first

The Europeans seemed impressive when fighting small numbers of their own kind, or when mowing down ranks of half-armed peasants.

barbarossas slesian infantry was no halfarmed peasants, elite crack infantry would i think fit better, maybe many of the so called english archers used the bill instead of the bow.
Or the swiss pikemen and most city militias would be better armored than the romans, and no roman armor stops a halberd, or so.
The organisation of the swiss was more advanced than the macedonian phalanx. They were also (with exception of the earliest time) better armored.

Organisation and Logistics.
Barbarossa sieged milano for two years.
Then the city fell.

Equipment
The medieval steel could be of higher Quality than the roman,(depending on time) so the europeans fought with MW Weapons, the romans with standard.

http://netsword.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000219.html

 

[Ace]

The example under discussion isn't a typical legionary; he's a veteran of many great battles, chosen for the rank of Centurion based on his bravery and skill.

I apologize for the error. In the case of Legion Veteran I would agree that 10th level seems about right for a semi legendary figure

 

[MaxKaladin]

Let's see:

* on the Gladius and Pilum. Both are statted out in Mongooses Quintisential Fighter.

* on Armor: I suspect the breastplate would be a good model.

* On romans vs medievals: A number of things here.

First, there are so many variables that it is possible to find circumstances where either side would win.

Second, we are forgetting something. Only part of a roman legion was legionnaires. A legion was assigned a force of foriegn auxiliaries skilled in something that the Romans weren't. I suspect the nature of their auxiliaries would have an effect on the question.

Terrain and preparation have huge amounts to do with the outcome. You can't really say any more until you establish the parameters of these two factors.

One other note: I seem to recall that most of the horse-based cultures Rome had trouble with were horse archers.

Edit: P.S. I'd put my money on the Romans under most circumstances so long as its a trained legion with a competant Legate in command. He'd probably come up with something thoroghly dishonorable and horribly effective while the medieval nobles were still bickering over who was in charge. Given any time to prepare and a decent idea what they were up against and I'd bet on Roman military engineering. My main circumstances to bet on the medievals are in a straight up fight on open ground with little or no preparation time. After all, they said a crusader charge could carry through the walls of Antioch. I can see a bunch of knights rolling over the legions, though at greater cost than they're used to. The pila would foul the charge up good, but once the knights hit the formation they'd break it through mass and Roman legionnaires were only average fighters as individuals. Their strenght was as a group. That's why battles like Teutoberger went against them. The Germans there ambushed them in heavy woods to keep them from forming up and were able to slaughter them piecemeal.

 

[Emiricol]

I see a lot of opinion, SD, but nothing that would convince me that SHARK is wrong. Eh, sorry.

edit - plus the Romans didn't lose concrete until they also lost their empire and were reduced to the land-based wealth system of the rest of Europe. Ugly, ugly system, that.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Classical vs. Medieval?

I brought up the idea of a battle between a Roman and a Medieval army because I think it is a fine way to analyze what is valuable about either force, and...

...I think that the architecture argument has been very cool as I had previously presumed that the Romans won that fight right out without considering Gothic Cathedrals, superior fortifications, Medieval mills, and ships, but...

...I cannot agree with a contest between Roman and Medieval cultures.

They're simply too closely related. In almost every way Medieval and Renaissance cultures are reponses to or adaptations of Roman culture.

For example: to argue that the Medieval land based system of economic organization was nasty compared to the Roman's currency and commodity based system is to ignore the fact that the one occured because of faults in the other. I mean peasants are bad, but slavery is worse and you still need a lot of people to work the land.

And in the technology sphere: well, much was forgotten but a great deal that was new was discovered. What are you gonna do?

I mean the fall of the Empire was basically an apocalypse. I think western Europe did very well to both thrive in the aftermath, and, so far, avoid a repeat of the phenomena.

And I'm grateful that at least one Eurasian civilization missed out on the Mongol conquest. Like I said, scary!

 

[NoOneofConsequence]

Re: Re: Re: Also

They sieged it so long till the defenders committed suicide for starvation, nothing spectacular.

Really? Your average medieval king couldn't make a siege last long enough to starve a fortress so well equipped, certainly not in the middle of a desert, where Masada is.

Secondly, the defenders were not on the brink of starvation, they were on the verge of capture because the Romans were about to break through the gate. The zealots of Masada committed suicide to avoid slavery, not starvation.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Masada. Indeed...the neatest thing about the Roman siege of Masada is the following points:

(1) Rome could have easily enclosed the fortress area, invested it, and waited for the several thousand zealots to slowly starve to death. But they didn't.

(2) From thousands of miles away, the word went forth from the Emperor--Masada must be crushed! And, after many many long months of backbreaking work, a Roman army stormed the fortress that was at the top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, to defeat several thousand isolated, insignificant guerrilla soldiers.

Rome stretched forth its hand against Masada precisely to prove a point: Rebellion to the Empire would not be tolerated, and it didn't matter where you ran, where you hid, or how mighty or how utterly insignificant the fortress you held up in was, your rebellion to Rome would be crushed. Rome would send armies after you, for years--and bring the wrath of Rome to you, no matter what.

This extraordinary achievement spoke loud and clear to the ancient world. Who could believe any kingdom would have the time, the resources, the troops, the skills, to use for such a small rebellion? Rome, of course, and only Rome. Rome made an example of Masada for the whole ancient world to take notice of, and it was an entirely brilliant achievement. It spoke in a very authoritative and final manner that there was no rebellion possible to Rome. Interestingly, Masada heralded a time of significant peace and stability in the empire in general, and in the Near East in particular.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[mmadsen]

Sure he can. Give the Spartan hoplite Monkey Grip: Longspear and you are good to go.

Except that, in order to even use an 8' spear (a D&D shortspear) in one hand, the Hoplite first needs BAB +3, Weapon Focus (Shortspear), and Str 13. Since a typical ancient/medieval militia is full of normal men armed with spear and shield, I find this a bit...quirky.

 

[sword-dancer]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Also

Really? Your average medieval king couldn't make a siege last long enough to starve a fortress so well equipped, certainly not in the middle of a desert, where Masada is.

Secondly, the defenders were not on the brink of starvation, they were on the verge of capture because the Romans were about to break through the gate. The zealots of Masada committed suicide to avoid slavery, not starvation.

It looks i had take Massada with something other.
Barbarossa sieged Milano from summer 1161 till spring, then Milano surrendered unconditionally.
Otto I get the teutonic Heerbann, the armie in 4 weeks activated in the force and at the enemy.
Fortification
Krak de Chevaliers

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Spartans

I have to agree with mmadsen that the rules for 8 foot spears are a little shifty.

Somewhere out there on a Black Company website was the suggestion that you let people take an exotic weapon proficiency for such a weapon and then let them use it with a shield and give them the option of shifting their grip so they can use it at close range for reduced damage.

This seemed like a perfect solution to me since you can do a similar thing with bastard sword, spiked chain exotic weapons already have the reach with adjacent attack qualities, and most hoplites spent so long training with their weapons that it seemed fair to assume that they would use up one of their three fighter feats with this sort of ability. Plus Hoplites would still have two feat slots left over for phalanx and run.

and there you have it, no need for Monkey grip's requirements while still simulating common spear tactics of first level warriors in a balanced manner.