Lanius's bad reputation is undeserved

First off, I love it, and I think you provided a fantastic analysis, from one Legionary to another.

However, as someone who would rather see Vulpes or Lucius in charge, I’m honor bound to argue with it.

1) In regards to Lanius’ well-spokeness, I really have no argument. What I will say is that every member of the Legion is more articulate than your average wasteland degenerate, and to have Lanius be an exception would seem... odd, considering the state of the other Legionaries. As for Ulysses, I feel that time alone in the Divide, lusting after what could have been, has warped his mind so thoroughly that his coherence was always going to be a detractor to his arguments.

2&3) You said it yourself. All Lanius has is the hammer, and while the embodiment of the Legion to an extent, Lanius isn’t what the Legion could be. Caesar very clearly wants the Legion to be a cultural as well as military powerhouse, and what you see as jealousy is perhaps rather disdain for Lanius’ straightforward, excessively violent methods. Another leader, Vulpes for example, would be able to balance the covert with the overt. There is no way Lanius could seriously make great use of the frumentarii, and in doing so the Legion would lose its eyes and ears.

While there is certainly more to Lanius than meets the eye, in the end his likely failure to make effective use of the Legion’s intelligence network would cripple it.

 

Ah, I see. Well, my mistake. In that case, my fear isn’t so much that Lanius will ruin the Legion as send it backwards and not use it to its full potential; Lanius certainly won’t destroy the Legion if appointed Caesar, but it will bring the Legion farther from Caesar’s intended purpose for it.

 

Primary strategy: waves of cannon fodder with a side of terrorism

Methods of recruitment: kidnapping children to brain wash them, the threat of torture or death for able bodied young men

Demonstration of organizational skill: ?

Caesar organized the Legion. Lanius was put in command. And the Legion does not require strategy or charisma of any kind. As far as we know he also leans on those under his command. He's most often described as a symbol and a warrior, not a leader.

So were a lot of history's worst leaders. Ulysses S. Grant comes to mind, especially given his own candor on Presidential shortcomings.

Ulysses accurately predicts how to talk Lanius down. I'd say that was insightful. So does he get anything in particular about Lanius wrong? And do other characters describe Lanius more accurately?

If we're going to dismiss what he says it should be based on the merit of what is said, not the character of who is saying it. Intelligent characters can make stupid decisions (House on so many counts). Characters that are literally demented can be insightful (No-Bark Noonan knows more about what's going on than most of the clear-headed Novac residents).

Either way, a case for Lanius should have examples. It should go over what we can actually see first-hand in game.

 

It's actually the NCR that is doing poor warfare tactics and throwing soldiers at the enemy until they win (one example being Helios One). The Legion wins with intelligent tactics and great use of their inferior equipment.

And yes, there seems to be a sense of pride to be in the Legion in many of its soldiers. Many are willing to sacrifice themselves at any moment for the Legion.

 

Lanius taking over and being a total failure always seemed weird to me. Firstly, Caesar has a super intelligent, super strategic thinker who's his right-hand man, genuinely believes in the Legion, and plays the Legion's Mojave enemies like a fiddle, but the tribal with poor strategic skills is the one who gets to inherit leadership? And secondly, Caesar talks about having other Legates and a government structure. Would he really think Lanius taking the reigns would be best when he's probably got a ton of other competent leaders out there?

 

That was certainly odd to me as well, and incentive to save Caesar from his tumor; the last thing any Legion supporter wants is for it to collapse.

But that’s what I was also saying earlier - Vulpes is likely the best choice for the Legion inheritance, and yet... Lanius. It’s a strange detail that I can’t help but feel was put in place because there’s something I’m missing, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is.

 

I honestly believe that the jabs at Lanius’ intelligence are just NCR propaganda that’s taken root. Think about it; everyone sees the Legion as barbarians, and animals, but they’re far more articulate than your average NCR trooper or wasteland profligate.

So why does everyone think they’re stupid? It’s a Hell of a propaganda war on the NCR’s side that keeps people thinking that Legionaries are dumb, or gay, or any number of things said in a derogatory fashion towards them that are accepted as “fact”.

 

Lanius is smarter than average ingame. He has 6 INT.
It's obvious that the devs thought he was a smart though cookie.

 

Lanius is short-sighted. That's the problem. But the problem also rests on Caesar, who refuses to share his dream and vision with anyone else. All his slaver army knows is that he wants this city, he's the son of Mars the War God, and that's about it. They can't rebuild Rome if they don't know what Rome is, Lanius doesn't know, and Lanius is just fixated on bashing things in front of him. It's why Caesar hired him in the first place. Thus when Caesar dies, the mythos and dream of the legion crumbles. Lanius has no legitimacy other than 'I was close to Caesar' - which itself doesn't mean much because of the Burned Man - and so the Legion is doomed to fall and break apart into a dozen or eighty odd Romanesque Tribes. Which, meh, still a net positive over what came before.

 

This isn't bad tactics - it's literally your only option in warfare when facing a bunch of entrenched nuts toting laser machine guns and Power Armor. If they didn't care about the objective then sure, they could have just shelled the hell out of it. NCR had to deal with the same ordeal during the first BoHD and the Legion's only option was to funnel through this narrow pass.

 

It's pretty much the common tactic they use at the time of New Vegas, they just throw every soldier with no semblance of strategy until they win and the Legion is taking advantage of that. And it is a pretty poor tactic because you will eventually run out of soldiers if you keep using it.

I even recall some the NCR soldiers criticizing the higher ups for using such a tactic so often.

 

WW2 Soviet Union and Korean War China must have missed the memo. Play to your strengths.

 

Sure it's working given how strained they are becoming because of the lack of soldiers (one of the reasons anyway), to the point they just recruit whatever to fill their ranks at the time of New Vegas. Specially when they are trying to hold so much territory in their goal to control the whole wasteland.

 

It’s the same tactics Grant used in the ACW that got him labeled a “butcher” by the Northern press. As much as I am loath to defend the NCR, I have to say that whenever your strength lies in superior manpower, taking advantage of this will always get you Monday Morning Quarterbacked, as it were. People love to hate on those who use human wave tactics, for valid reasons, but they also aren’t in the situation where those tactics are their only choice, as the NCR is.

 

I'm not saying it's not a valid tactic, the issue is that the NCR uses it far too much. There's a place and time for every type of valid tactic, but NCR tends to rely on one that costs them a lot of soldiers.

And i will still say that is a pretty poor tactic if you are fighting a long term war, which they are.