: What in godsname makes you think the Legion was the
: "best trained, best equipped" of the forces
: of Light? For a long while, the Legion was led by
: someone other than Alric, and everything the narrator
: says indicates it was poorly equipped and lacked
: wanted for everything.
Examples? The one that most readily springs to mind is the villagers of Crows Bridge bribing the Legion officers with bread and pigs to leave a small garrison at the village. And, frankly, that isn't so surprising. It's only been in the last century that a soldier has been able to eat nothing that isn't stamped with the quatermaster's seal of approval. For virtually all of history, military units have done their best to live off the land, and, with large amounts of the Province razed by marauding Dark forces, most medieval officers would have leapt at the villagers' offer (even if some would have just taken the bread and pigs and marched off anyway).
As for being poorly equipped and trained, judging from the style of their armour, the Legion seem to be loosely based on 11th Century Normans, which were, for the period, very well trained and equipped. Norman footsoldiers tended to have swords, (with the exception of the archers, who couldn't afford them- professional archers like the Fir'bolg were virtually unknown in any 11th Century army) unlike most Saxon Fyrdmen. Most, but ny no means all, Norman footsoldiers also wore chainmail. GURPS states that a Legionairre endures eighteen months of gruelling training before he is deemed "battle-ready", something which would have been virtually unknown outside the personal retinues of nobles (the bulk of most armies was comprised of militia for a long time after the 11th Century). During the Great War, it's unlikely that any of those fifteen year old conscripts actually got their eighteen months of training, but those of them who weren't natural fighters probably got killed off in short order, which probably comes to much the same end combat ability- training good, but gritty combat experience is better.
Another thing: have we ever seen a Legion unit retreat without orders to do so?
