The Lunar Army

This page is an attempt to determine the Lunar forces in Dragon Pass. It is not official.

In estimate the number of Lunar regiments in Dragon Pass I have used two main methods:

	Working from existing Gloranthan sources - these are listed at the end of the page.
	Looking at real world examples.

Though Glorantha is an imaginary world I like to use real world examples from ancient history as well. This is useful for working out the likely size of the Lunar Army and the types of troops they may could use.

Historical Army Numbers

The ancient army which is most like the Lunar Army is probably that of the Achaemenid Persians as they too were a large multi-national empire drawing regiments fighting in their native manner from a wide variety of native populations. However the actual equipment of the Lunars more resembles that of later classical Greek armies of the C4th BC and Hellenistic Armies such as the Seleukid, Lysimachid and Ptolemaic Armies of the C3rd BC. Dara Happan units resemble some Neo-Assyrian troops of the C8th-7th BC and slightly later Neo-Babylonian Empire troops.

For the size of the Lunar Army some real world comparisons are probably useful:

	The Achaemenid Persian Army that paraded at Sardis in 480 BC (see Herodotus- Histories) may have had a theoretical strength of 360000 (6 army groups each of 50000 foot and 10000 horse) and represented most of the forces of the western empire with some contingents from the east (see Cook 1983 for a discussion of this).
	Alexander's Army at Granikos in 334 BC was 43000 foot and 5-6000 horse. This represents just the Macedonian field army and he had left substantial forces in Greece and Macedonia.
	At Ipsos in 301 BC Antigonus has 70000 foot, 10000 horse and 75 elephants facing Seleukos and Lysimachos with 64000 foot, 15000 horse, 100 scythed chariots and 400 elephants.
	At Raphia in 217 BC Ptolemy IV had 70000 foot including 56000 phalangites, 5000 horse and 73 elephants against Antiochos' Seleukids with 62000 foot including 32000 phalangites, 6000 horse and 102 elephants.
	At Cannae the Roman Republic fielded 80000 foot and 6000 horse (of which they lost 47500 foot and 2700 horse without losing the war!) against Hannibal's 40000 foot and 6000 horse.
	After the civil wars Augustus reduced the size of the Roman Army to 30 legions. With auxiliary units this probably gave the empire an establishment of at least 300000 men. In the civil wars before this there were at least 80 legions, though many would have been under strength, for perhaps as many as 600000 men.

Making Use of the Information

To use historical information for Gloranthan army sizes we need to compare the size of ancient empires with the Lunar Empire. This is a surprisingly difficult comparison to pin down - see The Size of the Empire for more details. Also see the Population of the Empire. However in conclusion the Lunar Empire is less than half the size of the Roman Empire and has a population more like that of the Ptolemaic Empire of Hellenistic times. This means that the army of Ptolemy IV at Rapha (above) is probably a good guide to the size of the Lunar Army when committed to a really major battle.

The Size and Composition of the Lunar Army in 1617

The Lunar army in 1617 is effectively a peace time force as the threats the Empire appears to face are well within it capacities. The peace time army available for use in the field makes up about 2.5% of the population of the Empire. In a long time crisis (perhaps later on in the Hero Wars) the size of the army could rise to 5-10% of the population but this would seriously damage the economy. The Empire also has available a considerably larger number of part time and militia troops of the Garrison Army who can be called up to defend their home regions but are not professional soldiers and do not receive regular pay. There also private forces called House Armies controlled by the satraps and other private units called vexilla. These militia, part-time and private forces theoretically make up about 10% of the population. The Empire can also can also call on troops provided by its Allies.

Lunar Empire	Population	Percentage of Population	Administrative Army Size	Actual Army Size
Professional Troops	7 330 000	2.5 %	183 000	137 250
Garrison, House and Vexilla	7 330 000	10 %	733 000	366 500

The administrative strengths indicate the maximum size of the army with the current organisation (i.e. without raising the number of named regiments). Regiments are theoretically around 1000 strong for foot and 500 for mounted though, apart from the units of the Imperial Bodyguard, they are actually usually at 50-80% strength though attempts may be made to increase readiness in times of war. The Garrison Army is only called up for home defence, garrison duty and internal security and can only serve for a very limited period per year. Actual sizes of regiments also varies according to the unit type and military tradition of the regiment.

The main formations of the army are described in Lunar Army Groups. The main formations are the infantry of the Heartland Corps and cavalry regiments of the Cavalry Corps but there are many others.

The main deployments of the Lunar army are presently Aggar (Aggar Slave Revolt), Dragon Pass (Southern Front- Sartar and Tarsh) and Oraya (Eastern Front- facing the Pentans). A central reserve is maintained in Silver Shadow at the command of the Emperor (the Praesental Army) – this includes the Imperial Bodyguard. Other local forces are largely sufficient to maintain security in other areas – the Carmanian Army in the west faces Charg, the Armies of Vanch, Imther and Holay are sufficient at present to meet threats from Balazar, Garsting and Tork and the Sylilan Army faces Dorastor.

Gloranthan Sources

Gloranthan sources that I have used are as follows:

	Dragon Pass by Greg Stafford and Robert Corbett- the wargame published in 1983 by Avalon Hill contains an order of battle for the Lunar Army in Dragon Pass at some point in the Hero Wars.
	Tarsh in Flames, Unspoken Word 1, published 2001, edited by Mark Galeotti and Simon Bray contains an article called 'The Army of Tarsh' by Martin Laurie which provides an order of battle for the Tarsh army in the 1610s and 1620s. (ISNN 1473-7930). I have largely used this but added a few more regiments to bring the Tarsh establishment to 30000.
	Sons of Kargzant, Unspoken Word, published in 2004, edited by Mark Galeotti, contains information on Char Un regiments.
	Discourse on the Armed Forces of Our Glorious Lunar Empire, an unpublished essay by Martin Laurie written in about 2000, contains many details about the Lunar Army.
	Masters of Luck and Death, from Issaries (ISS 1303) published 2004 contains a description of the Silver Shields regiment.
	Imperial Lunar Handbook Volume 1, The Lunar Empire, from Issaries (ISS 1302) published in 2003, by Mark Galeotti, Martin Laurie and Wesley Quadros contains an article on 'The Imperial Army' which talks about the sizes of regiments.
	Imperial Lunar Handbook 2, Under the Red Moon, from Issaries (ISS 1304) published in 2006, by Greg Stafford, Mark Galeotti, Martin Laurie, Wesley Quadros and Roderick Robertson contains an article on the Lunar Army.
	Barbarian Adventures and Orlanth is Dead, from Issaries (ISS 1401 and ISS 1402) contain some information about the Lunar Army in Sartar.
	Details of particular regiments are also found in various issues of 'Tales of the Reaching Moon'.
	At Issaries' website there is an article on the Lunar Army at http://www.glorantha.com/new/imperial_military.html.
	There was an article on the Issaries website giving regiments of the Heartland Corps but I can't find its address any more.

Real World Sources

	J. M. Cook (1983). The Persian Empire.
	D. Head (1982). Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars.
	D. Head (1992). The Achaemenid Persian Army.
	Herodotus. The Histories.
	A. Goldsworthy (2000). Roman Warfare.
	N. Stillman and N. Tallis (1984). Armies of the Ancient Near East.
	J. E. Lendon (2005). Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity.
	E. Luttwak (1976). The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.
	N. Sekunda (1992). The Persian Army 560-330 BC.
	H. Elton (1996). Frontiers of the Roman Empire.