Question about lethality on Roman units

[Watchman]

Nah. Lethality is the last value in the string (the one that all EB melee attacks have under 1). Attack delay is the one before it - kontos lances have 200, for example.

[Kugutsu]

In my translation of Polybius theres a note saying that the bendy sword bit is very similar to Plutarchs account of Camillus battle with the Gauls in 377BC, and that it may simply be an ancient version of an urban legend. Like Watchman said there may have been a few crap blades which bent, but I doubt it would be anything near most of them.
The more important factor seems to me to be that the gauls were using long slashing swords, while the romans had short stabby ones. The romans simply pressed forwards and didnt give the gauls room to swing their swords.

[pezhetairoi]

I -thought- the short stabbing swords were far more lethal than non-phalangite spears. I mean, we have stories about how the phalangitai at Kynoskephalae were dismayed when the first casualties from the skirmishes before the battle came in and they were torn apart with gaping wounds so unlike the neat and often non-lethal puncture wounds of their spears... I mean, swords do major tissue trauma.

[antisocialmunky]

Some short stabbing swords also allowed for the most pressure to be focused on a single point than even more so than spears due to the way it was thrust.

[Sarcasm]

I -thought- the short stabbing swords were far more lethal than non-phalangite spears. I mean, we have stories about how the phalangitai at Kynoskephalae were dismayed when the first casualties from the skirmishes before the battle came in and they were torn apart with gaping wounds so unlike the neat and often non-lethal puncture wounds of their spears... I mean, swords do major tissue trauma.

That story was from a cavalry skirmish I think, not of dead phalangitai. So it wouldn't be wounds from gladi but instead of longer cavalry swords.

I think.

[Kull]

I hate the idea of somehow coming up with an equation that "proves" unit "x" is better overall than unit "y". You can certainly perform some rough grouping (elites vs. normal vs. levies), but within the subset of each group, who cares? The real lethality of any unit or mix of units is dependant upon your tactical skills as a general. If your strategy amounts to lining up one group that's slightly better than another and depending upon attrition to win the day......gah!

So go ahead and add some units of theoretically lesser "value" to your armies. If you are a good general, it shouldn't matter one whit. And if you aren't a good general, then practice tactics and styles and methods until you are. THAT is what results in battles you remember and tell stories about. Pah on the slaughterfests!

[Maeran]

I thought that it was a matter of game mechanics, Kull. Rather than a judgment of the value of a type of soldier in history.


As for the bendy swords. Maybe someone had an old hand-me-down bronze sword?

How much would they get bent fighting men with iron weapons? It could even be a mid-iron age 'look how out of date they are,' laugh at the barbarians joke.

[Watchman]

Bronze would just spring back into shape wouldn't it ? Soft iron is an entirely another issue.

Methinks the Roman witnesses to the issue just found the phenomenom of low-quality specimen among the usually painfully well-made Celtic longswords peculiar enough to be worth a special mention, and the tale as usual not only grew in the telling but was also influenced by the usual Greco-Roman insistence on looking down along their noses on "barbarians". Although I've never seen a direct quote of the relevant passage of Polybius (or whoever), so I don't even know if he's implying all or most Gallic blades were cruddy in the first place...

Speaking of cavalry swords, what sort of lethality should the Roman spatha have in EB ? Wasn't it developed off Celtic longswords or something ?

[Watchman]

That story was from a cavalry skirmish I think, not of dead phalangitai. So it wouldn't be wounds from gladi but instead of longer cavalry swords.

I think.

This is AFAIK correct. And makes you wonder what the uproar was, given that one of the more popular instruments among Hellenic cavalrymen for smiting down thine neighbour was the kopis/machaira, which is pretty much designed for messily dismembering people.

As for short swords vs. spearheads, well, it wasn't that unusual for the business end of a war spear to be not much unlike a short sword stuck atop a pole... Check out the things some of the Celtic units in particular have been modelled with. And aren't some excavated sarissa tips something like well over half a meter long ?

[Sarcasm]

This is AFAIK correct. And makes you wonder what the uproar was, given that one of the more popular instruments among Hellenic cavalrymen for smiting down thine neighbour was the kopis/machaira, which is pretty much designed for messily dismembering people.

There's a theory that the Romans just kept at it when they were dead already, so they'd not be exactly shocked at the weapons effects, but rather on how the systematic Roman soldier looked at killing. As in, butcher-work.