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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 216709" data-attributes="member: 1645">Chapter III -- Savaging the Swiss"How many days' rations do the men have left?""Two days' rations, Caesar.""We march for Bibracte."It's all about logistics, isn't it?  Getting your men to the fight in condition to fight.He had quickly marched the 10th Legion to Geneva, destroyed the Rhone bridge, then had his legionaries build a sixteen-foot earth wall for eighteen miles along the bank of the Rhone from Lake Geneva to the Jura Mountains.Amazing.  Anyone else getting ideas for dwarf legions?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.I still love that.Coming up the slope, with the hill above them thick with Roman legionaries and the air full of missiles, the Helvetian warriors instinctively raised their shields to protect themselves from the Roman javelins.  This they quickly discovered, wasn't as easy as just blocking them.  Forty years before, Consul Marius had introduced a revolutionary change to the design of Roman javelins; since his time, they had been manufactured with soft metal behind the point.  Once the javelin struck anything, the weight of the shaft casused it to bend like a hockey stick where shaft and head joined.  With its aerodynamic qualities destroyed, it couldn't be effectively thrown back.  And if it lodged in a shield, it became extremely difficult to remove, as the Helvetii now found.  What was worse, in their case, with their shields overlapping, javelins were going through several at a time, pinning them together.I already know all about the Roman pilum, but I still love reading about it.Finally the wagon laager was overrun by the legions.  All the Helvetian worldly goods and all the tribe's supplies were captured, along with numerous noncombatants, including the children of nobility.It's strange to think of families following armies around.Apart from six thousand fighting men who slipped away at night and were rounded up by friendly tribes and put to death...Note to self: Don't go AWOL in ancient Switzerland.Ariovistus, king of Suebi Germans, had sent Caesar a message accepting an offer of a peace conference.  But he had attached an unusual condition to the meeting -- both leaders were only to be accompanied by a bodyguard of mounted troops.  this started Caesar thinking that perhaps the German had bribed members of the Roman general's Gallic cavalry to assassinate him on the way to or at the conference.  To be on the safe side, Caesar ordered his cavalry to temporarily give up their horses, and mounted infantrymen of the 10th Legion in their place.I'm not sure I'd find that believable in a movie or novel.  Truth is stranger than fiction.  Very cool though.Then, from prisoners, Caesar learned that the Germans believed they would not win if they fought a major encounter before the new moon.That's the kind of divination I'd like to see in D&D -- not finding secret doors.Undaunted, men of the 10th brushed aside the spears and literally threw themselves on the front line of German shields.  Some wrenched shields out of the hands of their owners.  Others reached over the top of the shields and stabbed the points of their swords into German faces.First, that's a cool battle scene.  Second, from this and other snippets, it's clear that shields are very, very important -- more than a -10% to get hit, I'd think.</blockquote>

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