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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 215885" data-attributes="member: 1645">I actually enjoy the end of the first paragraph: "And if the men of this legion had to die, there was probably not a better place nor a finer day for it, on home soil, beneath a perfect blue sky."At least 2nd or even 3rd level.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I didn't realize that Roman legions were formed all at once, and that after sixteen years, Legio X was only one-third as large as when it started, but all grizzled veterans.In D&D terms, imagine a legion of 2,000 5th-level Fighters.As I said before, I want my own paludamentum!In Chapter III, Savaging the Swiss -- please indulge my skipping ahead -- we get a similar example of such distinctions: "His rank evidenced by the transverse crest of eagle feathers on his helmet, the metal greaves on his shins, and the fact that he wore his sword on his left hip rather than on the right like enlisted men."In D&D, I guess the typical distinction is plate vs. banded vs. splint vs. chain vs. scale vs. studded leather.  That's how you tell tough humanoids from cannon fodder, right?  There's obviously great opportunity for "decorating" your Orc Champions and Hobgoblin Centurions.Also, D&D encounters tend to be small enough that you don't have unarmed trumpeters, standard-bearers, etc.  Those are evocative touches though.How did feudal armies get anything done?  Granted, I'd be horrified to face 5,000 armed men, but compared to 50,000 to 80,000?  Tiny!Reading about Caesar's elite Legio X and Pompey's elite Legio I makes me want to play in a military campaign -- but we need good mass-combat rules (and/or a savvy DM) to make that work.Doesn't this read like fiction?  Wild!  I'm left asking, when does the movie come out?</blockquote>

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