Praetorian badges

can i get them on my older characters or can i only get them via new characters?

Primal Earth characters (in other words your "older" ones) can now travel to Praetoria and get most of the new Praetorian badges.
The only 4 badges they can't get (at least right now) are Moral High Ground, Resistance Member, Loyalist and Avid Reader.

I have to say obtaining the Laureate and Takedown Artist badges could become very challenging for lower level toons. It's sort of a different animal fighting several critters that spawn to your level, as opposed to one big GM and then on top of that having a timer. I was a bit surpised that among Minion, Lieutenant, and Boss level foes there were also Elite Bosses and in the case of the Syndicate Takedown event I took part in there were several Archvillains.

It could just be the number and rank of the spawns depend on how many players show up for the event, which would make sense. Last night I was part of teams, that including myself, had several level 50's allowing us to plow through everything. Then if you include the clock factor ticking down on you. It's a frantic race to get each task finished.

These were really fun to do. I definately want to see more stuff like this.