C&C

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

You may be an elitist git, but I think you are correct. Ratioonal soldiers would simply go home. Once you are on the eve of battle, no defeat invasion could be worse than what's waiting for you tomorrow. Hence coercion, liquor and a bit of ra ra.

Exactly my point - anyone who desired that kind of "excitement" would have already joined up and joined in. You might get the occasional retired legionary who had become a reluctant farmer due to age/infirmity, but who regained the "oomph" when he got his armour out of the wardrobe and put it back on (ok, maybe more than occasional in frontier areas which was why they were given land there in the first place - see also ex-Highlanders in North America, post-F&IW), but the more typical dirt molester would be nothing like as keen.

[Peeler]

Is part of it that the veteran would decide quicker & act more decisively on his decision? If he's going to attack, he'd do it quicker & more actively. If he's going to run away/retire, he'd decide to do that before getting in harms way & before being routed. The newcomer might vacillate for longer before having a decision forced upon him. Maybe.