I know I started it but lets not drag this into a WW2 debate. It will make the mods happy.

I have to agree. The conflict between the Legion and the NCR has less to do with the Legion being able to go toe-to-toe with the NCR and more about certain events which has prevented the NCR from bringing down the full might of its collective military presense.

For instance, had the Divide not exploded (a completely unforseen circumstance) the NCR would have been able to reinforce their armies in the Mojave considerably. In this way, the Legion owes the Courier/Enclave something of a debt of honor for indirectly preventing them from being destroyed following the first battle of Hoover Dam.

Seriously dude what the [censored] is your issue? It's A GAME. Calm down.

You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.


I agree, the facts are all there. If the Courier died when Benny shot him the Legion would win, there is no doubt about it. They're superior to the NCR.

The NCR isn't going around in cannibalized football uniforms armed with machetes and spears like most of those idiots in the Legion. The NCR actually have guns and uniforms that actually offer protection.

There's total logic failure having someone armed with a spear going up against a person or a group who have guns.

The Legion lost the first time and by Joshua Graham's own admission, the Legion would have been soundly defeated during their first attack on the Dam. If NCR didn't lose a bunch of divisions to the Divide. Legion could have won the second battle for Hoover Dam if the Courier wasn't there, that is a possability. But the Legion are not superior to the NCR. Maybe to the NCR forces stationed in Mojave after the first battle till up to the second battle, but not to NCR as a whole.

NCR isn't even talking the conflict in the Mojave seriously. What troops they do send to the mojave take along time getting there because of what happened at the Divide and the powder ganger revolt.

Also have to keep in mind game mechanics. Most of the Legion are melee people. They do make use of firearms. But in real life an army with machine guns an automatic rifles will mop the floor with people armed mostly with melee weapons. Remember in the real word getting shot once can kill you or take you out of the fight. Wereas in Fallout there is the bullet sponge affect, taking entire clips to bring a lightly armoured person down.

NCR has the advantage of standardization. Almost every soldier in the NCR army has the service rifle. Which means NCR only has to make and send one type of ammo that everyone can use. The Legion have a mix of firearms. 20 guage shotguns, cowboy repeaters and some assault rifles. This means the Legion have to worry about sending their troops with the right ammo. People armed with cowboy repeaters can't do anything with 20 guage shells.

Wow, you're so ignorant. The Legion doesn't only use spears and machetes, get that through your thick skull. They use guns too!

Easy, Josh. You're going to get some quality time from a moderator, talking like that. Keep it civil.

Its also a failure in logic that a person's ability to take more and more damage increases as he reaches the next 'level' of life. Its also a failure in logic that you have a guardian angel that mysteriously appears to shoot people. Its also a failure in logic that a courier has the ability to make people explode like a grenade from a plasma rifle. The maker's of the game decided to do a game where on top of this illogic you don't complain about, melee weapons are actually useful and a machete can kill NCR Troopers (a trick I have done several times). Also is the hunting rifle really that much worse than a service rifle? The only really challenging threat the NCR has are the Ranger Vets.

But not enough guns and a mix of guns which means a mix of ammo. They also don't make their own guns (as far as we can tell) were as NCR does make its own guns and buys them from Gun Runners and later from the Van Graffs.

The Legion aren't a professional army. They are a mob driven by fear and lust for loot and carnage. Not much else. Wereas the NCR is a professional army with modern profesional tactics, equipment and medicine.

The Legion do have advantages. Clearly they have a great ability at infeltrating and terrorist guerilla warefare tactics. NCR troops wear their uniforms and are not willing to kill civilians. Legion activily go around without their uniforms which gives them an advantage.

If NCR and the Legion met in a big open field. NCR would win hands down. That is why the Legion use their infiltration and guerilla warefare skills to offset NCR's superior militrary advantage.

Not necessarily. Legion is taught to rely on melee weapons.
If they run out of ammo for a weapon they toss it aside and continue fighting or pick up another rifle dropped by the enemy.
Instead of relying on "their" weapons they use whatevers around to their advantage.
If a legionnaire finds a cowboy repeater after killing a couple of raiders then he'll take it along with the ammo and use it until he runs out of ammo and then either turn it in to the nearest camp or just drop it on the spot and continue with a machete.

The Legion's way of thinking is that they send recruits forward with the weakest armour and only melee weapons because not only are they thought of as expendable, but if they do survive long enough then they have proved themselves capable enough to be given actual guns. This is why Legion soldiers are better trained then most NCR soldiers.

That isn't training your troops that's just making fanatical troops. It also isn't a good way to gather a large army. NCR trains their troops, in all manner of weapons and tactics. They are pretty much a modern army. Being able to stand up to a buch of crazy nut jobs to me means NCR has better troops.

People are looking at this the wrong way. The Legion can't win in a stand up fair fight with NCR. They just can't and to think other wise is completely illogical. I am not bashing the Legion. The Legion's strength is in their ability to fight dirty. To fight a guerilla style war. To use terror tactics and sabotage. Those are why the Legion are a threat.

In an open battle, NCR vs Legion. NCR would win every time. So the Legion uses it's abilities of terror and infiltration to offset NCR's military might.

I agree, in an open battle the NCR would definitely stomp the Legion and that the Legion specialty is guerilla warfare and dirty tactics which is how they took out Nipton and Searchlight. The Legion does however train a lot of their soldiers from when they're children and the ones that can't be have already survived long enough to be considered veterans, whereas the amount of training, quality of equipment and even loyalty varies widely among the NCR's soldiers.

I'm not bashing the NCR, but Hanlon did say that the Legion is the most dangerous enemy the NCR has ever faced.

I agree the Legion are a enemy worthy of respect. I agree that training someone from birth or very early age in warfare will produce a deadly warrior. But taking say 100 youths and giving them the bare minimum of war material and sending them into the guns of a well armed enemy isn't a good way to build a large army. Most if not all will be killed, in their first battle. So by the time they become advlts out of that hundred you would be lucky to get 1.

Then again the Legion can do alot of damage with fewer troops because they fight dirty. Still NCR will always have the advantage of numbers because they will have 100 adequate troops for every 1 exceptional legionary.

NCR troops fight for an idea. The Legion fights for one man.

It's not a very effective long term strategy to build up your numbers, but I think Caesar figures that if they survive long enough with just melee weapons then they are worthy of being a part of the Legion.

Eddie's strategy for beating the NCR in the Mojave is quite solid....it's the one thing I like about the Legion. The thing is though, it's only working because the devs made the NCR's Theater commander an idiot and it's political leadership short-sighted fools. In the real world, Oliver would have been canned by Kimball long ago and replaced by either Hsu (my choice as he's more balanced in his abilities) or Moore (she'd get results but create at least one new problem for every one she solved) to turn around a badly deteriorating situation before it cost him his Presidency. Why is this? Because if the NCR war effort was being led by a competent officer, they wouldn't need the Courier.

I feel that, I liked Caesar only because he and his planners were so [censored] brilliant in all of this. In truth the only flaw I see with the Legion strategy is that it's dependent on the Veteran Rangers giving up. I still just can't see the Legion taking Camp Golf without the Veteran Rangers giving up or running out of ammo. I can picture the hoards of Legion troops wasted crossing the Colorado attacking Forlorn. Then the dead Centurions from the Dam wouldn't help matters at all. I'm pretty sure Bitter Springs would be easily killed off, but that one Ranger Station near Camp Guardian probably wouldn't go out easily with all that ammo. In summary how the hell would the Legion take back that Camp without Hanlon just giving up?

Not arguing in favor of the Legion, in any way, but if the Legion were to breach the Hoover Dam defenses and roll into the territories west of the Colorado in full force, they would easily be able to cut off all supply routes between California and New Vegas. Then you just surround the isolated 'tough nut' NCR guardstations and besiege them until they starve out or die of thirst, if you don't want to use up waves of legionaries to try to rush them. The NCR camps fall would be inevitable, regardless of whether Hanlon wanted to give up or not. Hardened, well defended fortifications only succeed when there is a means of resupplying and reinforcing the forces holding them, long term.

Not nearly enough guns. The NCR has the advantage of standardized weaponry and a every NCR soldier is armed with a gun, with various troopers specializing in different weaponry. The Legion has far too many machete wielders and spear throwers (not to mention football pad armor) for me to take them seriously as a realistic fighting force (one that could fight it out with the NCR anyway). Without certain events which ended up in the Legion's favor, they would have been crushed long ago.

The NCR has trouble taking out Powder Gangers, Great Kahns, and Raiders, all of which have armor that is worse than the legion (Powder THE WORST armor might I add). While using a machete as a forward thrust with rifles in back seems like a bad idea once a melee weapon is up close and can attack they can really screw a guy up (especially if he's reloading or isn't even ready yet), with the machete in front it distracts the soldiers from the distant enemy with a rifle. The Machete is also strong enough to cut up the average NCR solider. Oh and if we are going to complain about football armor let's complain about the over exposed raider armor while we're at it.

The Powder Gangers, Kahns, and Raiders probably account for at least a part of Caesar's success to as the NCR has to tackle a large number of problems at the same time. They should actually be sending bread baskets daily to Black Mountain and Jacobs Town every day they don't attack.

As For Oliver getting fired in the real world I wouldn't be so sure, I'm not saying it wouldn't happen I'm just saying Hitler sounds like a really cliché story that would never happen. In other words the real world has just as many plot holes as a video game...or is this the real world O.O DUN DUN DUN!

Edit: actually I think this video ends the discussion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6EmbTBl9dQ

What material is the NCtRooper armor of?
It has a plate on the chest and leather shoulder pads.
Legion has leather armor that covers their entire stomach, football gear (which I'm uncertain of what material it actually is made off) on the briasts and leather shoulder pads.
Legion's armor covers more than NCR's does from what I see. :/

Im not entirely sure, but it reminds me quite a bit of some WWI infantry armors. The plate in the middle is apparently metal.

NCR armor: http://www.falloutwiki.com/images/f/fd/FNV_Trooper_Outfits_NCR.png

WWI armor: https://www.whiteensignmodels.com/uploads/site/products/p_olazh/img_EM3501.jpg


http://wapedia.mobi/thumb/25d7510/en/fixed/470/352/French_cuirass_of_WWI.jpg

http://www.lonesentry.com/unithistory/23rd-infantry/pics/world-war-i-q5.jpg

Albeit the NCR have smaller curiasses.

In any case, the legion armor seems to be primary composed of 1950s football padding.

http://www.falloutwiki.com/File:Nv-legion-armor.png


Neither armor is going to offer anywhere near bulletproof protection, but the NCR armor is certainly going to be better overall.

Furthermore, the Legion cannot have standardized armor. Not if they get their armor from scavenging. Whereas the NCR seems to be able to produce their own quite well and can more than likely keep in more or less consistent throughout.

But remeber what that NCR soldier said at the 188?
"Most new kids don't even get issued body armor!"

What's this crap about "standardized" X ?
Every single legionaire has the same base armor.
Where did you get the idea that they cannot produce armors? They clearly can, otherwise there would be a lot more makeshift armors.
Only ones with that is Centurions which decorate their armor with pieces of fallen enemies' armors, but those armors are even more protected and made makeshift out of free will.

Fine if Legion has no "standardized firearms" like troopers have with service rifles.
But going after the armors is very anti-Legion bias Andronicus.
Cause both NCR and Legion are very much capable of producing armors for their soldiers in large quantities.
Just cause Legion's armor is part football gear doesn't mean they haven't learned how to replicate that gear.
Nowhere has it been said that Legion only scavenges their armor and that they do not produce it on their own.
And if they did only scavenge it the parts would run out at some point or they'd be forced to use new variants and more makeshift armors, which they do not.

Again, you wanna go after weapons with the whole "standardized" thing? Fine.
But for crying out loud leave the armors out of it, both can produce "standardized armors".