Gaesatae way too overpowered

[Dayve]

I have to agree with the original poster.

The other day, one of my forts in the mountain passes in northern Italy was captured by the Aediu, and i sent a full legion of Polybian troops to retake it... 4 Velites, 4 hastati, 4 principes, 4 triarii, 2 cavalry and a general... Not a good general, he had no command stars, but he also had no traits that would make him a bad general and a +1 morale retinue, armourer.

Anyway, i took two rams... I battered down the gate and the wall next to it and send two units of hastati into each... There were 6 units of gaesatae behind the walls and some lugoae... The gaesatae engaged and the hastati were routing no less than 30 seconds later. I sent in the principes in the same way, 2 into the gate and two into the broken down wall, and had my velites pound the gaesatae with all of their javelins from behind, which caused very few casualties amongst them. 10 minutes later, the principes routed and i sent back in the reformed hastati, who lasted longer this time due to the gaesatae being exhausted.

I rallied the principes and sent them in with the hastati, and sent in my triarii, all 4 units, through the side wall... They managed to break 1 unit of gaesatae and i attacked the unit of gaesatae at the gate from behind with some triarii while i used others to block the passage to the gate by lining them up on defensive mode... Even though surrounded and fighting my elite troops the gaesatae were taking casualties of a rate of like a or 2 per minute and it was taking way too long, so i sent my general and two cavalry in to attack them from behind in the hopes of breaking them, but then my triarii holding the passes to the gate were routed and more gaesatae came through to attack my horsies... The equittes routed very quickly and left the field... I couldn't pull my general away otherwise my other units would get massacred like the rest, and eventually he died in battle and my army routed.

At the end i sent a apy to see what damage i had done, and was amazed to see that they still had 4 full units of gaesatae, 1 just under half strength and one just over half strength...

An entire legion and a dead general for 1 unit of gaesatae behind a wall.

If they aren't overpowered, then Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman.

[mAIOR]

Wich dificulty are you playing?? also, sending four units of weak hastati against 6 of Gaesatae is suicide. and with such defenses, anything short of 3 Battering Rams is not enough.
Regarding drugs, I bet those voluntaries were not given extasy or LSD or even cocain with gunpowder in it (energetic pain inhibiter drugs). And I talked in another thread of a fungus in Cereals wich caused alucinations and beastly behavior closelly conected to werewolves and vampires. I trully believe the drug they used would be similar probably fungus related because of the effects (if you read reports on "werewolves" you'll see people shot them and they still kept going with wounds that could kill a normal men. howver, if you don't feel pain and your adrenaline is rushing, your body wont go to shock so you'll have more staying power). Take also the Zulu war. There are British reports of Zulus fighting with arms crushed by bullets like they were normal.
If you want to really test the effect of drugs, don't go for the numbing ones.

Cheers...

[Birka Viking]

Gaesatae are fine as they are...They are good but not too good...Cheers

[Danest]

They're really only a problem when they're defending a gate and the AI has decided to spam them. It doesn't help if they have max experience and a 10 star general behind them either. But most of all, I think people need to play on medium battle difficulty. I find it strange how many people claim that it's hard to beat certain units on, well, hard battle difficulty.

[mucky305]

My mother had a friend that was a cop in Glendale, Ca who related the following story. He was involved with pursuing a suspect who had killed his mother by setting her on fire. They cornered the man in an abandoned building and several of the officers pursued inside the building. The man was armed with a shotgun and shot one of the officers. While he had some of the officers pinned, some others circled around and came up behind him. As he turned with shotgun in hand, the officers fired 9 times into his body, seeing the man wasn't falling, one of the officers shot the man in the head with a 9mm Beretta. Assuming the guy was done for, the officer held fire. The man dropped the gun, rubbed his nose, put his hand to the back of his head, probably feeling that his brain was hanging out of it, looked at his bloody hand and looked at the officers. At that point, he stated, "guess you got me with that one" and fell to the ground dead. PCP was found in his system. Now, this guy was a skinny drug addict, so I can only imagine what a 6'2" 225 llbs p.o'ed Celt that has trained his whole life for war could do on a chemical cocktail. *shiver*

[SaFe]

Now, this guy was a skinny drug addict, so I can only imagine what a 6'2" 225 llbs p.o'ed Celt that has trained his whole life for war could do on a chemical cocktail. *shiver*

I will not say anything about the stats, i think they are slightly overpowered, but the team had enough discussion about stats even during the time i was a member, so i think they decided it right.
BUT we should stop thinking that Celts were on average this height, even the good trained and probably well fed warrior elite of the celts.

Swamp and mooor corpses in today's Germany and Denmark tell us a other story about the size of celts, germanics and romans.

It is often noted, that germanics were taller than celts and those were taller than romans.
If the average germanic men reached 175cm - 178 cm (archaelogical findings) and the average roman soldier (not citizen, even here we talk about roman soldiers in the pre-imperial time era, before the most roman units were made of mercenaries from foreign lands) reached ca. 160cm - 165cm, we can guess how tall a typical male celt had grown.
Something between the two numbers i guess.
But 6'2 is definately a super-size man and not the average.
Sure exceptions existed, like for example Teutobod, War-chieftain of the Teutones and numerous others, but we should still stick to the average height of warriors during this time.

Note:
I once had dicussion with Alin and other team members about different height-sizes of units.
Has this feature been dropped?

[NeoSpartan]

....

Note:
I once had dicussion with Alin and other team members about different height-sizes of units.
Has this feature been dropped?

Now that would be SWEET!!!

I guess you can kind of make a size difference if you put a Gaesatae next to a Hestatii....or may be that my eyes fool me.

Ok back to the ORIGINAL topic. The Gaesatae are NOT overpower. I am playing VH/M in my Aedui campian and honestly I deal with the Rebel Gaesatae with EASE. As a matter of fact I had a hard time believing they didn't kill more of my men (regular Gallic units, non-elites).

If you play smart they shouldn't be a problem, even in VH.

[CrownOfSwords]

Yeah the thing about units wearing no armor is.... they go down preeeeeeeeeeettty easily to missile fire, every time i see one of those Gaesatae buggers just get your legionaires to throw their pilum at um really devastates them. I think its the morale they have that makes that unit so tough they wont break no matter what even when surrounded by an entire army.

[Moros]

Note:
I once had dicussion with Alin and other team members about different height-sizes of units.
Has this feature been dropped?

Certain units are bigger than others. The gaesatae for example are a tiny bit bigger than the romans. Also I noticed that the casse two handed swordsmen were a little bigger than their fellow countrymen as well. (This however is an old model and is going to be replaced in a future build)

[Fondor_Yards]

I have to agree with the original poster.

The other day, one of my forts in the mountain passes in northern Italy was captured by the Aediu, and i sent a full legion of Polybian troops to retake it... 4 Velites, 4 hastati, 4 principes, 4 triarii, 2 cavalry and a general... Not a good general, he had no command stars, but he also had no traits that would make him a bad general and a +1 morale retinue, armourer.

Anyway, i took two rams... I battered down the gate and the wall next to it and send two units of hastati into each... There were 6 units of gaesatae behind the walls and some lugoae... The gaesatae engaged and the hastati were routing no less than 30 seconds later. I sent in the principes in the same way, 2 into the gate and two into the broken down wall, and had my velites pound the gaesatae with all of their javelins from behind, which caused very few casualties amongst them. 10 minutes later, the principes routed and i sent back in the reformed hastati, who lasted longer this time due to the gaesatae being exhausted.

I rallied the principes and sent them in with the hastati, and sent in my triarii, all 4 units, through the side wall... They managed to break 1 unit of gaesatae and i attacked the unit of gaesatae at the gate from behind with some triarii while i used others to block the passage to the gate by lining them up on defensive mode... Even though surrounded and fighting my elite troops the gaesatae were taking casualties of a rate of like a or 2 per minute and it was taking way too long, so i sent my general and two cavalry in to attack them from behind in the hopes of breaking them, but then my triarii holding the passes to the gate were routed and more gaesatae came through to attack my horsies... The equittes routed very quickly and left the field... I couldn't pull my general away otherwise my other units would get massacred like the rest, and eventually he died in battle and my army routed.

At the end i sent a apy to see what damage i had done, and was amazed to see that they still had 4 full units of gaesatae, 1 just under half strength and one just over half strength...

An entire legion and a dead general for 1 unit of gaesatae behind a wall.

If they aren't overpowered, then Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman.

And thats why you don't send 4 lone hastati to fight 6 units of Gaesatae, they won't stand a chance. Then sending 4 principes in after seeing all their friends sent fleeing to kill the same men, still outnumbered, into a defended breach is suicide as well. What you should have done is made more breechs, more then they could defend, and simply swarm in from all angles.

[Watchman]

Not to mention that such "breach assault" situations are where tough elite infantry like Gaesatae really shine. Outflanking next to impossible and numbers mainly good as "attrition absorbers" (and irrelevant once the unit breaks), of course they will cheerfully eat up normal troops, burp rudely and ask for more. And their "frighten_foot" attribute only makes the hapless enemy infantry break that much sooner, as if the stark disparity in attack, defence and lethality factors wasn't enough.

I really would hesitate to call them beserkers in the traditional sense.

Good job missing the point, which was not the specific nature and operating principle of the "fanatic" shock infantry in question but rather the general principle and phenomenom.

The beserker-gang in history was typically a teutonic thing(with some exceptions). From what I have read the Gaesatae didnt behave like beserkers at all. The beserker works himself into a frenzy(biting shield,howling etc.) then charges into combat. The Gaesatae are very well ordered and disciplined, the beserkers are neither of those. Also the Gaesatae fought with big numbers, historically you rarely find that many beserkers, let alone fighting together.

"Make the sacrifice" shock troops haven't been an all that unusual thing in history, actually. Although the exact techniques used rather varied. Anyway, the Gaesatae work by a combination of applied chemistry and sheer bad attitude, whereas if I've understood correctly the Viking bärsärkagång was at least partially a neurological issue. In any case I've read the Vikings at least typically formed their various crazed warriors into small shock units which were employed as "forlorn hopes" to lead assaults and take down enemy leaders.

As far as the projectile situation, as you said its a dumb object. The missile may not have fear but the thrower might even though he may be further away.

Such crazed loons are way less intimidating from a distance, especially to a skirmisher who knows he won't have to tackle them mano y mano and can most likely just outrun them if need be anyway. The Roman velites seem to have had no particular problems turning the Gaesatae at Telamon into pincushions anyway.

In hand to hand combat you have humans feinting and other tactics, not just a dumb object falling out of the sky.The human in melee combat has more opportunities to inflict damage and death.

I take it you're not very familiar with the basic principles involved ? Having a psychological edge over your opponent, particularly through fear, is a major advantage in hand-to-hand combat. Moreover there is, as it was taught to me, the fact that generally you can parry about three successive blows, tops; after that you'll either need to break contact or launch an effective attack of your own, forcing the other guy onto the defensive, because else your chances of being able to keep up with the other guy's successive attacks will start falling fast.

Now, it's a given fanatical maniacs on combat drugs like the Gaesatae aren't going to be particularly intimidated by about anything (short of an elephant anyway), but they're going to be damn scary to face especially for troops who already have some issues with the ferocious and intimidating Celtic way of doing battle. And being skilled swordsmen unconcerned with pain, fear and fatigue they're going to be real whirlwinds on the attack, and the Celtic longsword was doubtless a most unpleasant device to be at the receiving end of at the best of times. Good luck trying to get them to even pay much attention at your feeble attempts at landing in a blow (especially given their large Celtic infantry shields) - they'll probably quite happily take a down the road lethal wound in exchange of slicing your head off anyway, and not even notice it...

I still state that if the individual that was drugged would be worse off in combat due to his numbed state.
"A UK television programme in 2004 tested the possible use of fly agaric and alcohol by training a healthy volunteer in the use of Viking weapons, then evaluating his performance under the influence of fly agaric or alcohol compared to no influence. It was shown that use of fly agaric or alcohol severely reduced his fighting ability, and the tentative conclusion drawn was that berserk state was achieved psychologically; otherwise, berserkers would have been too easy to kill. Of course, this does not take into account the mindset that the berserker likely would have attempted to place himself in." -wikipedia. Granted this is most likely not the stuff the Gaesatae used, but other studies have been done with similar results(on reflexes and etc.)

Alcohol is, whatwasitnow, a depressant. While it was actually fairly often used to relieve fear, officially or not, its effects on the nervous system are notoriously debilating.

It's not like there was any shortage of toxic substances available from Momma Nature anyway. Fungi and many plants produce one kind or another, as do many reptiles (although most forms of snake venom are so distinctly hotile in their qualities they can be safely counted out), and a lot of fairly venomous chemicals tend to result from all kinds of human activity and industry. The Celts may have simply stumbled upon a combination which had the desired pain-inhibiting and psychoactive effects (and given the warrior culture's psychological conditioning for warfare, I doubt if all that much chemical assistance was required to produce the sort of excessive bravery of the Gaesatae...) that may well have had some quite nasty side effects down the road and whose recipe was later lost. It's not like we knew what exactly "Greek fire" was made of either, and that was used by numerous high cultures that actually bothered writing such stuff down.

And given the Will Die For Glory basic attitude of these guys, I sincerely doubt if they were very concerned with any long-term side effects. The buggers probably planned to "live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse" from the start anyway, judging by what I've gathered of the Celtic concept of afterlife and the mindset of some of their other elite warrior groups.

And I talked in another thread of a fungus in Cereals wich caused alucinations and beastly behavior closelly conected to werewolves and vampires.

I rather doubt if it was that pesky one. By what I know of it the hallucinogenic states it brought tended to be rather disabling, and people busy scampering around on all fours, drooling a lot and with most of their higher brain functions turned off don't really sound like prime shock trooper material. Didn't keep those afflicted from thinking they had committed all kinds of horrible deeds in their delirium of course, and it looked pretty darn disturbing, and given how these stories tended to grow in telling...

[mAIOR]

I rather doubt if it was that pesky one. By what I know of it the hallucinogenic states it brought tended to be rather disabling, and people busy scampering around on all fours, drooling a lot and with most of their higher brain functions turned off don't really sound like prime shock trooper material. Didn't keep those afflicted from thinking they had committed all kinds of horrible deeds in their delirium of course, and it looked pretty darn disturbing, and given how these stories tended to grow in telling...

Actually, that fungi also caused bestial behavior and imagine if they found a way to make it only cause bestial behavior and remove the allucinations and inability to move. If you read the suposed encounters with "werewolves" they talk about them fighting with wounds that would kill a normal men... it's like you said, mother nature has a miriad of ways to make us feel invulnerable. They only needed one. I talked about that particular fungi as an example and, cause more "recent" reports add up to it.

Cheers...

[Frostwulf]

Watchman I shouldnt have lumped your quote in with Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla, he did say there were beserkers.

"Make the sacrifice" shock troops haven't been an all that unusual thing in history, actually.

I was talking about true beserkers being rare, not "Make the sacrifice" shock troops.

Anyway, the Gaesatae work by a combination of applied chemistry and sheer bad attitude, whereas if I've understood correctly the Viking bärsärkagång was at least partially a neurological issue. In any case I've read the Vikings at least typically formed their various crazed warriors into small shock units which were employed as "forlorn hopes" to lead assaults and take down enemy leaders.

I would agree with what your saying, except I cant find any historical documents on the Gaesatae and I havent seen anyone but me put any historical reference to them. The Viking part I agree with from what I read, the only thing I would add is that they were infrequently used as royal bodyguards(king Harald Fairhair).

I take it you're not very familiar with the basic principles involved ? Having a psychological edge over your opponent, particularly through fear, is a major advantage in hand-to-hand combat.

Im familiar with it, it does happen in sports as well such as MMA, Boxing and other Martial sports. In some of these sports, especially if you face someone like Bob Sapp, you can see fear in their eyes. But regardless the person may start of with a disadvantage due to fear but the training takes over and they can overcome which has happened many times. From my understanding soldiers who are well trained can over come this because "their training takes over" -Andy McNab SAS.

Now, it's a given fanatical maniacs on combat drugs like the Gaesatae aren't going to be particularly intimidated by about anything (short of an elephant anyway), but they're going to be damn scary to face especially for troops who already have some issues with the ferocious and intimidating Celtic way of doing battle. And being skilled swordsmen unconcerned with pain, fear and fatigue they're going to be real whirlwinds on the attack, and the Celtic longsword was doubtless a most unpleasant device to be at the receiving end of at the best of times. Good luck trying to get them to even pay much attention at your feeble attempts at landing in a blow (especially given their large Celtic infantry shields) - they'll probably quite happily take a down the road lethal wound in exchange of slicing your head off anyway, and not even notice it...

The Gaesatae may be good on the attack but they didnt even do to well against javelins. If they cant defend against javelins how do you expect them to avoid constant thrusting and slashing from swords or spears? Not all the soldiers are going to be paralyzed with fear, they will fight back. Depending on the soldiers these attempts are hardly feeble, a thrust to the heart a cut off head and other places are for the most part an instant kill. The Gaesatae were dieing to javelins! They were not just waltzing through them. Again if these things falling from the sky were killing them, then competent soldiers would have a better chance of killing them. As far as fear is concerned, the Gaesatae did break when they were pushed back.
Now for the drugs. Most drugs now are much stronger now because of the technology we have, everything now is enhanced. The drugs the Gaesatae were raw and primitive, therefore most likely not nearly as effective as has been claimed on these forums. Yes they could help over come fear, but they most likely will not make you immune from pain. If it did think of novacane and trying to talk with that in your mouth! If you want to say adrenaline that I can understand up to a point.

if you don't feel pain and your adrenaline is rushing, your body wont go to shock so you'll have more staying power). Take also the Zulu war. There are British reports of Zulus fighting with arms crushed by bullets like they were normal.
If you want to really test the effect of drugs, don't go for the numbing ones

mAIOR I agree with what your saying, though I never heard that about the Zulus doing that. Im not disagreeing with you, I just never heard that before.

AGAIN Ill ask. Where are you guys getting the information on the drugs they take? What battles did they participate in and who wrote about it? I already heard enough about peoples thoughts, now how about the facts to back this up.

[zonks32]

The word "Gaesatae" is Celtic for "Spearmen". This implies that the Geasatae warbands could have fought either in a phalanx or that the spear was their primary weapon instead of the sword.

The Gaesatae Order was most likely founded in the 4th Century BC in Gaul. The Gaesatae offered their services to other Celtic tribes or anyone who needed men to fight. The Gaesatae are most renowned for their service for the Celts in the Po Valley, such as the Boii and Insubre tribes. They provided around 15,000 men at the Battle of Telamon and fought alongside the Insubres at the Battle of Clastidium. After the Gallic War of 225 BC to 223 BC, the Gaesatae fade away into history. They most likely had warbands in Gaul during the Gallic War of 225 BC to 223 BC, and took part in local tribal wars until the military order died out in the mid 2nd Century BC.

[Watchman]

I would agree with what your saying, except I cant find any historical documents on the Gaesatae and I havent seen anyone but me put any historical reference to them.

It might be more productive to ask the EB guys about that.

Im familiar with it, it does happen in sports as well such as MMA, Boxing and other Martial sports. In some of these sports, especially if you face someone like Bob Sapp, you can see fear in their eyes. But regardless the person may start of with a disadvantage due to fear but the training takes over and they can overcome which has happened many times. From my understanding soldiers who are well trained can over come this because "their training takes over" -Andy McNab SAS.

To a degree, yes. But I would rather imagine few people had much opportunity to train for the kind of psychological offensive the sorts of Geasatae put out, coupled with the detail most of the Mediterranean cultures at least found the nudity alone jarring. The Celts and other "barbarians" themselves may have had less issues with the actual nakedness, but on the other hand would have been much more familiar with its symbolic and magical aspects amounting to more or less the same end result.

Plus of course the nekkid nutjobs themselves can be counted to not be particularly overawed by anything, so even if they're not necessarily able to thoroughly intimidate particularly crack troops at the very least that'll just be even then.

The Gaesatae may be good on the attack but they didnt even do to well against javelins. If they cant defend against javelins how do you expect them to avoid constant thrusting and slashing from swords or spears?

Basic difference: javelins are not that easy to parry with your sword or similar, and reasonably close-order infantry will have to rely on shields and armour to stop such projectiles as they won't have much room to dodge. Anything that get through or around those, hurts you.

In hand-to-hand combat the very fact you're also attacking puts a limit on the other guy's effective attacks - if nothing else your weapon will simply be getting in the way, and there exists the very real possibility you may literally "do unto him before he does unto you", that is, manage to land a telling enough blow while his attack is still "in process". And yes, this sort of thing can lead to "mutual slaying", as the Japanese called it.

It's the difference between being subjected to an archer's arrows, and exchanging blows with that archer up close. Surely the difference in the dynamics is blatantly obvious ?

Not all the soldiers are going to be paralyzed with fear, they will fight back. Depending on the soldiers these attempts are hardly feeble, a thrust to the heart a cut off head and other places are for the most part an instant kill. The Gaesatae were dieing to javelins! They were not just waltzing through them.

I don't think anyone claimed they were invulnerable supermen. The point is just that unlike troops in a normal state of mind they cared rather little about their injuries, and instead kept going until their whole system gave out. Unconcern with odds and casualties doesn't even require anything more than sheer bravado and lack of concern with death (something which, judging by some other elite formations like the Solduri, the Celts weren't half bad at conditioning for), rank stubbornness, and so on as perfectly possible for more normal troops.

As far as fear is concerned, the Gaesatae did break when they were pushed back.

Pretty much anyone cracks eventually. Humans are built that way, and I personally suspect the somewhat over-exuberant mindset their funny concotion and "hyping up" put them into rendered the Gaesatae somewhat more volatile in this regard than fanatical "elite guard" type units and similar groups.

Now for the drugs. Most drugs now are much stronger now because of the technology we have, everything now is enhanced. The drugs the Gaesatae were raw and primitive, therefore most likely not nearly as effective as has been claimed on these forums. Yes they could help over come fear, but they most likely will not make you immune from pain. If it did think of novacane and trying to talk with that in your mouth! If you want to say adrenaline that I can understand up to a point.

I'd actually say they'd get pretty far on just relatively mild psychoactives in any case, so long as those allowed them to put themselves in a state of mind where they believed themselves immune to such things. Autosuggestion, basically. People have literally gnawed their own arms off (or down to the bone anyway) in sufficiently deranged states of mind and only fainted of the blood loss; I wouldn't be surprised if the prime effect of the Gaesataes' war-drug was to put them in a suitably, uh, altered mental state to allow assorted personal and group psychological tricks to produce the results, with some helpful chemical side support. I understand the Celts were fairly good at applying certain kinds of intentionally produced group-hysteria effects.

[mAIOR]

AGAIN Ill ask. Where are you guys getting the information on the drugs they take? What battles did they participate in and who wrote about it? I already heard enough about peoples thoughts, now how about the facts to back this up.

Well, about the drugs, I already told that it was my opinion on what kind of drugs they took. I never read anyhting telling they took this kind of drug or that. I'm just a fan of Fungi :)
Battles I only heard about Tellamon but I'm sure EB team members will answer this (I'd also like to know more about these dudes).


Cheers...

[Orb]

The Gaesatae may be good on the attack but they didnt even do to well against javelins. If they cant defend against javelins how do you expect them to avoid constant thrusting and slashing from swords or spears? Not all the soldiers are going to be paralyzed with fear, they will fight back. Depending on the soldiers these attempts are hardly feeble, a thrust to the heart a cut off head and other places are for the most part an instant kill. The Gaesatae were dieing to javelins! They were not just waltzing through them. Again if these things falling from the sky were killing them, then competent soldiers would have a better chance of killing them. As far as fear is concerned, the Gaesatae did break when they were pushed back.
Now for the drugs. Most drugs now are much stronger now because of the technology we have, everything now is enhanced. The drugs the Gaesatae were raw and primitive, therefore most likely not nearly as effective as has been claimed on these forums. Yes they could help over come fear, but they most likely will not make you immune from pain. If it did think of novacane and trying to talk with that in your mouth! If you want to say adrenaline that I can understand up to a point.

Fighting back - not all are going to tremble in fear, but a *lot* of people would, fighting these men for the first time. The Gaesatae would also be attacking all this time, and threatening the enemy, not just leaving their guard open for enemies to stab them.

'Instant kills' - according to a friend who would know, cutting through someone's neck (especially if you can't really get at it, thanks to an enormous shield) or stabbing through the heart is very, very difficult, I doubt the majority of soldiers would have the training to do this. The Gaesatae probably have the training to put their shield in the way of direct thrusts at the heart, as well.

Men with javelins are not necessarily incompetent soldiers. Remember that the Gaesatae were not the only ones who would have to parry blows in close combat, and the average man would be more concerned with staying alive than in inflicting difficult to achieve single-hit-kill blows.

Now for the drugs. Most drugs now are much stronger now because of the technology we have, everything now is enhanced. The drugs the Gaesatae were raw and primitive, therefore most likely not nearly as effective as has been claimed on these forums. Yes they could help over come fear, but they most likely will not make you immune from pain. If it did think of novacane and trying to talk with that in your mouth! If you want to say adrenaline that I can understand up to a point.

There is, supposedly, a hypnotist who can teach patients to self-hypnotise so that they can undergo surgery with non-medical (Black&Decker drill) equipment without feeling any pain whatsoever. There are also reports from the Falklands conflict that some Argentinians through adrenaline alone managed to keep going *until* they were shot in the head, despite the fact that they should have been dead or decrepit. These are both without psychoactive drugs, with them, presumably, this could be amplified.

You'll have to badger Psycho for the sources, I'm not one of the historians.

[Ludens]

The word "Gaesatae" is Celtic for "Spearmen". This implies that the Geasatae warbands could have fought either in a phalanx or that the spear was their primary weapon instead of the sword.

Not necessarily: it may have referred to the javelin. BTW, hastati also means spearmen.

[SaFe]

Not necessarily: it may have referred to the javelin. BTW, hastati also means spearmen.

I agree, names don't mean everything.
For example the Cheruscii, the tribe of the Heruskoz translate into Sword-People. Although not every cheruscain warrior had a sword.

[zonks32]

Not necessarily: it may have referred to the javelin. BTW, hastati also means spearmen.

When the Hastati where oringinaly created their main weapon was the spear (hasta), shortsword (Gladius), oval sheild (Parma).
The oval shield was replaced with the rectangular shield (scutum), that covered the entire body. The hasta spear was replaced by two throwing javelins (pila, singular pilum) which where thrown against the enemy within range, and the short sword (gladius) which was used for thrusting in close combat.

[mucky305]

As my membership to the Oxford achaeology department has expired and since the Celts didn't really have a true written language and that the vast percentage of written accounts were made by their enemies, it's been difficult finding reliable information in books or the internet. So here it goes 1) The Chemical Cocktail - Mandrake is just one of the myriad of plants/natural substances that will render someone immune to pain. Since Celtic Druids spent lifetimes studying and worshipping nature, I don't think it a stretch to deduce that they could have been able to brew some sort of substance that would improve reaction time and protect the user from pain (aspirin is just one such substance that provides pain resistance and is naturally occuring). Modern medicines may or may not be more effective than ancient ones in all aspects. It's a tough argument to make since we really don't know what the ancients had and that people still die from things like TB and rheumatic fever.
2) The Instant Kill - In 6 years in the military, I never had the displeasure of engaging in CQC, been shot at and shot back, but never hand to hand. I have though, studied warfare for over ten years and judo/aikido for over twenty. In that time, I learned many things. The most important of these is that the instant kill is the best way to dispatch an enemy yet the most difficult to achieve (funny how that works). Even today, shock/blood loss is the combat medics worst enemy and most advances in trauma medicine have been geared toward that. Alot of the advantage of combat is related to what I like to call the OMG factor. It's the reason why green troops run and veterans stand and it also severely affects the way a soldiers will deal with a shocking situation. Picture the following: You are a Hastati in the Roman army. You've had some training and have put in time as a Velite so you have some combat exp. though you are still 'green' as the true grimness of hand to hand has not yet touched you. You're standing in line and watching a bunch of naked crazies jumping up and down on a hillock screaming bloody murder. They begin their charge (sword and shield in hand). Your skirmishers are first. They run in between your ranks, javelins in hand. You watch as your enemy is pelted by javelins. Some fall with grievous wounds (head, neck) others take javelins in legs, arms, shoulders etc. Some of these fall and just get back up, the others shrug off their wounds as if it were nothing and keep coming. In a rather brash action, one of these naked psycho's pulls a javelin out of his leg and hurls it toward you. You raise your scutum just in time to block the missile which rocks you back on your feet as it impales itself into your shield. The Velites are now falling back through your lines. The centurion orders your unit to ready pilum. At about 75 yards you throw your first. Once again, some fall, others receive bad injuries but don't seem to notice. You throw the second at 50 yards, same result. The enemy is close now and the usual stoicism of your tent mates is replaced by the muttered Roman equivalent of OMG. The centurion orders preparation to receive the charge. You ready your shield and sword and begin to have serious doubts about your ability to survive this battle unscathed. You pick out your target (who looks to be a good 6 inches taller than you) as he closes and brings his sword slashing down as you bring your shield up. The block leaves his body open and you stab him authoritatively in the gut. Instead of recoiling in pain and falling down like he's supposed to, he just looks mad and while you're doing this he's converting you from a righty into a lefty. Believe it or not, being mean and nasty in combat accounts for alot.

[GodEmperorLeto]

Gaesatae can be beaten if you pin them against a phalanx and then nail their unshielded flanks with missile fire or cavalry hits repeatedly (i.e. after hitting, pull back and reform). It tires your cav out, but if you keep it up, they break.

Anything other than phalanxes and they'll carve your boys up, but the long spears keep them out of hand-to-hand range usually.

Also, yeah, the Gaesatae are drugged up. Although they were not on it, PCP can do incredible things to a regular human being, making them almost super-human for a short time. I knew a guy who kicked a police-car door off, jumped out of the speeding vehicle, breaking his ribs and a leg, and ran five miles home still handcuffed, all on PCP.

In comparison, the Gaesatae don't seem so bad.

[Ludens]

When the Hastati where oringinaly created their main weapon was the spear (hasta), shortsword (Gladius), oval sheild (Parma).
The oval shield was replaced with the rectangular shield (scutum), that covered the entire body. The hasta spear was replaced by two throwing javelins (pila, singular pilum) which where thrown against the enemy within range, and the short sword (gladius) which was used for thrusting in close combat.

True, but what is your point?

[mAIOR]

Believe it or not, being mean and nasty in combat accounts for alot.

Well, I brawled a lot and enjoyed immensely your description :) must be your 20 years in aikido and judo that gave you the insight ;) . It's true the best way to defeat someone in hand to hand is the psychological factor.
If you manage to scare your opponent to death before you engage, he'll die of fear and you wont need to worry. Now, this is nearly impossible so if you just scare him, his moves will be uncertain, shaky (not very good in sword fighting I can assure you) and weak compared to a prepared opponent.
One simple example, to all of you who do some martial art, when you fight, if you get punched hard, the next time you fight with that guy you wont go with the same spirit (unless like me you're there to fight like a real fight every single time, be sure your opponent knows this tough :p). So, your opponent gains the Psychological advantage.


Cheers...

[Watchman]

The folks in the martial arts school my brother trains in actively try to cultivate a really intimidating "crazy stare" just to try to unnerve each other in sparring matches - and because it looks darn funny if you're not on the receiving end. No, they're not all that reverent about many things. On the more practical side that also gives them practice in dealing with such psychological attacks...

Anyway, in mass warfare intimidation had a rather important role - besides sheer vanity, that's the primary consideration behind all kinds of tall crests, highly polished and decorated armours, war cries, beating shields, and so on and so on. After all, you won battles by making the other buggers run away and then cut them down at your leisure. Particularly important in cavalry-infantry match-ups, where psychological factors make the critical difference between a charge pulling short and the footsloggers being ridden down down with near impunity.

[QwertyMIDX]

There's an even simpler element to the psychological factor than all this. Most soldiers aren't trying to kill the enemy, they're trying not to die. In the context of pre-modern warfare they will be slow to attack and spend most the battle with their shields raised (today they keep their heads down and never fire a shot). Even hardened elites are still pretty much trying to come home alive, they're more aggressively certainly, more sure of their abilities, more used to the terror of combat, and know that often the best defense is a good offense, but they will still be fairly conservative in the way they attack. A drugged up maniac who is also a hardened warrior and psychologically primed to be a killing machine on the other hand, will actively be trying to kill the enemy, not trying to avoid death. This will probably get them killed, but it will take down quite a few opponents of the way there. Tightly cohesive units even tended to emphasis this. As a hoplite or legionnaire your main job was to keep your shield up, if you stab once and a while too that's great, but the main thing was to keep your shield up.

I feel like Hollywood has confused all of us as to what melee was actually like. Most of tip the people exchanging blows were doing so at a pretty slow pace, and were way more concerned about keeping themselves defends than about attacking the other person. Not too many people were beheading enemies left and right while doing backflips and drop kicking people. If battles were fought the way hollywood likes to show, they would last about 5 minutes, and most of the people would end up dead. As we all know, they generally lasted a full day, and most of the deaths actually came in running people down after one army broke. RTW is pretty lousy at letting us demonstrate this, but its good to keep in mind.

[Zaknafien]

Not too many people were beheading enemies left and right while doing backflips and drop kicking people.

That made me laugh out loud!

[mAIOR]

Lol that's why I loved the TV show Roma and the movie [Link=Rob Roy]http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114287/[/link] wich by the way has the best sword fighting scenes in movies (more real I mean) and, if anyone sparred with swords you'll understand what I'm talking about. Your comment made me laugh as well QwertyMIDX as I recently saw a Steven Seagal movie where he throws a sword trough a window (with reliefs in wood) and chops a guy head of... the guy is nearlly 20 meters away... :D .


Cheers...

[antisocialmunky]

Steven Seagal movies need to be ritualistically burnt -_-'.

PS - He's 5 feet, 2 inches tall.

[Watchman]

I do not begrudge a man for being an itchy dwarf, err, short.

But repeated and unrepentant offenses of Starring In Monumentally Crappy Movies is another thing. "Mr. Christian, punish this man."