Thus Spake Zarataylor/FirstAgeWarfare
In general, First Age units could probably be divided up into two or three basic types - Garrison forces, Rapid Response units, and Fast Attack units. This is a general idea of their makeup, not specific unit types or designations - although some First Age armies might have used those designations.
In almost all cases, large scale units would be headed up by Celestial Exalted - there would likely have been some very old Dragon-Blooded generals, but not many, I'd guess. Dragon-blooded were soldiers - but they were mostly small-unit commanders (up to maybe Wing or Dragon size - possibly Legion commanders in larger armies), specialist forces, combat engineers, Special Operations, etc. - they weren't grunts.
Garrison units were the "hold existing territory" units - they were mostly there to carry the flag, suppress riots and civil disturbances, form command structure for the militias (in those places that had them) when they were called up, and provide general duty forces. They weren't intended for offensive operations - they're defensive troops. Most of them would have been wearing some kind of Ashigaru* style armor, and equipped with a mix of weapons - there'd be Fire Lances and such, but also riot control gear and other less-than-lethal weapons as well.
Rapid Response are the guys you holler for when you have a problem - the equivalent of the US Marine Corps. They're offensive/response units - mobile (likely skyship deployed, if not based), heavily armed and armored, and intended mostly for short-medium term missions - they aren't good at holding ground, but they're great at taking it. The mortals would be highly trained (and indoctrinated), equipped with Gunzosha armor, heavy weapons, and were likely mostly mortal sorcerers of some acclaim. Dragon-Blooded would be wearing Dragon Armor or Warstriders, and there would be plenty of support automatons, field artillery of various sorts, flight-capable units, etc. Probably a lack of what we think of as "heavy armor" beyond stuff like Warstriders - I think the Legions of the Solar Deliberative pretty much skipped a lot of ground-pounding history, and went straight from
- It’s twenty-five marches to Narbo,
- It’s forty-five more up the Rhone,
- And the end may be death in the heather
- Or life on an Emperor’s throne.**
to loving the smell of napalm in the morning, because it smells like victory - i.e. from a primarily foot-based deployment pattern, to a primarily airmobile deployment schema. When you can build a vehicle that flies like an Apache, shoots like an M1a1, and carries troops like a Hind, why bother with something that doesn't fly? (Exception - nautical craft. A ship that loses its propulsion for some reason can raise sail. A skyship that does becomes just as much a hurtling brick as a modern jet or helo does. Over land, the skyship can probably soft-land, using some sort of built-in artifact to provide a soft crash. Over water – well, some float, some don’t…).
When not needed, I'd imagine these guys are spread out among the various garrison postings, deployed to minimize response times to various spots of Creation - there might be some on some kind of wandering patrol, but a lot of them would just be stationed where the Deliberative figured they would have the best reaction time for local problems.
Last, there are the fast attack units - there's a lot of overlap with rapid response units here, and it could be hard to tell the difference - a really large fast attack force acts like an overpowered rapid response unit, and a small RR unit acts like a less-capable fast attack. These are your basic ninja badasses in powered armor or warstriders with energy cannons and beam sabers, and would be heavy on the Exalted. You send in fast attack forces when you are dealing with something that's just going to ignore the best efforts of ordinary mortal troops - no matter how good - or that you have to do with a specific level of force calibration. You can send in a unit of Terrestrials, automatons, and Celestials to fuck up every left-handed redhead in Juche, if you need to - and you could even do it without fucking up everyone else, as long as nobody limit breaks.
What mortals were in these units would be *really* good at their job - still not up to the level of experienced Terrestrials, but with the right artifacts, training, implants, alchemical regimens and shit, they approach it. This is also where you get into the weird shit area - Thousand Forged Dragons to fuck up manse-relying foes, First Age WMDs, sentient automaton troops (as much better than Brass Legionnaires as the Brass dudes are above mortal soldiers), etc. and where you see Celestials taking more of an active battlefield role.
These guys almost always travel by skyship, or some other rapid transit, and might spend a lot of time actively deployed in other areas - a faqst attack force might be assembled out of a Perfect Circle of Solars, their Lunar mates, a Maiden of Battles Sidereal, and a fang or two of Terrestrials and automatons apiece, with support troops and such bringing the total up to a Talon sized unit or so - and that Talon would be able to tear a couple of Legions apart. There were probably always a handful of units kept on full-time alert in really fast transports of some kind - one per cardinal direction, and a couple on the Blessed Island, or something, and they were probably pretty busy - I'd imagine that duty shifted from Circle to Circle during the Deliberative.
As for the warfare style itself, ikselam's right - it bears a lot of relationship to modern maneuver warfare. Dispersed structure, lots of use of artifact "energy weapons", artillery (mostly direct fire) support, and air support. A lot of reliance on stealth to get in the first punch, at least. A pretty low tooth-to-tail ratio - sorcery and enchanted gear lets you dispense with a lot of the support infrastructure, and Bureaucracy Charms let you get a lot of paperwork done accurately and quickly. They probably had a lot of weird blind spots, however, as a result of being sorta handed a chunk of their technological infrastructure and warfare style in one piece, instead of developing it iteratively over generations (like the lack of armored cavalry).
*Lotsa references to Outcaste stuff here, folks :-)
** Rudyard Kipling, Rimini
Scott Taylor
