>>95902792 (OP)I doubt it, I think it's more that feudal and conscript armies have highly variable quality where the overall average skill and discipline is lower while professional armies imply highly trained and elite (relative to feudal levies) forces that don't easily break due to morale, have efficient leaders that play by the book, and all have standardized, high quality equipment. It creates a few problems:
Professional armies are, pound for pound, far more lethal than the other rabble you might face. This is fine as a late game enemy, but since most tabletop games on average tend to end after just a few sessions, fewer groups reach the power level to take them on without severely nerfing the army.
High quality equipment used by enemies creates the problem that if the players do kill them, they can loot high quality equipment right from the get-go of a game, without some bullshit to stop it. This kills progression and when the players have access to the same gear professionals do, it makes professionals feel somewhat weaker and anything else feel like cannon fodder.
Professional armies are usually much smaller than conscript armies/levies, so each individual soldier is just that much harder to take down. To use 40k as an example, mowing down a bunch of cultists gives the idea of clear progress being made in a fight in a very granular fashion, taking on a squad of three chaos space marines and killing two doesn't give you the same rush--you just feel like you've worked so hard to kill two guys.
Besides, levies feel much more fantasy like, and most tabletop games are based at least in part on fantasy, so they're right at home.
