Warder Legions

[Deathblade]

Something has been bugging me for some time. Why didn't, in times of need, like the Trolloc wars, Aes Sedai bond thousands and thousands of warders? They would all have the benefits. I would put a warder army on par with any Aiel army. I could butcher the Shadow. I mean say thirty thousand people as good as say, Tomas, would be nearly invincible. So why didn't the Aes Sedai do this? Insanity, power degradation, what?

[Word]

Think about it...If your army is comprised of only warders, t hat means they have a bond to Aes Sedai. That means that when warders die (which a lot of them will), it could very well incapacitate the Aes Sedai as well. Who knows what the effect of say..one Aes Sedai having 10 warders die successively is. The shock might even kill them.

[Guest Cadsuane]

Also, yes, warders have physical benefits from the bonding, but the bonding isn't what gives them their SKILL. Hence warder training at the WT. Just bonding a bunch of men wouldn't make them much better at fighting than they already were, you would have to have the AS bond people who were already good fighters, and even then, the point Word made still stands - warders would die, and AS would be less functional because of it.

[Guest cwestervelt]

Another point. You don't exactly want an entire army turning suicidal because an assassin got the Aes Sedai that was "controlling" them.

[Luckers]

Additionally it seems to be implied that only a certain amount of bonds can be psychologically handled by one person. Pevara speaks of this in KoD, and the mere fact that the most we've ever seen is four, and even the Greens seem to prefer 3.