U.S. National Legion?!

[Tiberius Claudius Vindex]

Onced this is rolling, I believe there is the potential to recruit hundreds of Barbarians from the ranks of the tens of thousands of fantasy LARPs, many of which will already have appropriate basic costumes, and familar with the lightweight fighting weapons of their hobby. The SCA is also a potential recruiting ground. Understand tht a typical Barbarian can equip himself for under fifty dollars. This is why LARP is so popular to begin with.

I'm not so sure about the LARPers. I'm kind of embarresed to admit it that I went to one once, anyway what I saw there would not leave me encouraged. They have almost no real period costume, most of them just wore work boots and sweat pants. They also don't strike me as the type that would really care much for authenticity. They're much better suited to the SCA. Add to that the fact the ones I met were frankly far wierder that most reenactors and would likely drive away the good, dedicated reenactors and it sets itself up for failure.

If you want to get recruits, go to other period events and set up a table and dress in period costume. Bring pictures along to show what we do and explain to them that it doesn't cost as much as people think (this belief dettered me for many years from doing Roman.)

Younger reenactors would be a good pool to recruit Barbarians, since the cost is low and is a good way to get them into the hobby. You could even go to do demonstrations at high schools and colleges to get recruits for this ( I just got 3 recruits today for my WWII outfit from a 1 man event at a local highschool). And frankly I'd much rather have a history buff highschool sophmore than a LARPer who just wants to hit people with a sword as my opponent.

One last thing to add, in my experiance bigger is not always better where reenacting is concerned. My favorite peroid is WWI, and at a typical Great War Association event there are not much over 100 reenactors on the field, yet they come from all over the country to do it, some even come from overseas.