I think it's hilarious that people would think that just because you're a 'clubman' or 'spear infantry' grunt that you should have crap for morale and run at the sight of the glinting armor of the enemy. Really? Are you serious? Those grunts and lower level units drove Rome to its knees in 390BC, slaughtered three Legions in Germanic lands, and I could go on and on. The elite units are and were a rarity in Barbarian cultures because only the very rich could afford the expensive armor and weapons.....so they have a lot of medium\lower level units. Should they just be a pushover, then? Run at the sight of your glorious Roman Legions?
Nah. The Romans won with their brains, not their 'morale advantage' over their enemies. People need to 'man up' and fight the real Barbarians, not the cupcakes in Vanilla.
nearly every time the barbarians won they either:
A) Had a civilised opponent at a disadvantage
-this could be either in an ambush
-unfavourable terrain for the civilised fighting style (romans were severely disadvantaged in forests, greek on rough terrain, parthians on hills etc)
B) Massively outnumbered them
-Examples would be the Britons fighting the romans (which the romans eventually won with 5000 legionaires against 200,000 barbarians (the romans slaughtered them due to lack of morale and the superior roman arms, armour and training)
I cant think of a single open battle where barbarians managed to beat a civilised opponent, and i'm not just talking about romans vs whoever, i'm talking about any civilised faction, ever.
and by them i mean the Hitties, Egypt, Parthia, Greece, Macedon, Persia, Assyria and much, much more.
" not their 'morale advantage' over their enemie" this is a very silly statement. The romans had two things going to them:
1) Extreme morale (great staying power/shock resistance)
2) Fantastic armour (high defense)
these two things lead to many roman victories alone, not taking into account good generals and tactics, however both could be applied to any civilised troop of decent quality.
which reminds me, but, as the Legionaires are heavy shock troops (in Wargaming rules they are classed as skilled sword/heavy shock troops), their charge bonus is quite low compared to non-shock troops, although that might be due to me being a wargamer and having a higher, unbalenced (game-wise) view of the charge bonus they should get.