Gaesatae way too overpowered

[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.